HOMM3's intro cinematic cannot be skipped the first time the game is turned on. It seems that some sort of recent update to the game made this into an issue for me. Every time I turn the game on using GOG Galaxy, the game fails to remember that it's already been booted before, leading to me having to wait for the intro cinematic to finish in order to play.

Another thread suggested that editing an .ini file would solve the issue, and it did for me... sort of, because it seems that either GOG Galaxy or Windows resets that file every time I boot the PC up.

This didn't use to be the case, so I'm wondering what changed in recent months about the version of the game that GOG has available.

It's not a huge issue, it's just annoying.

What ini file did you edit? I've seen (and sometimes given) advice to edit the registry, but I've never seen an ini file referenced as a solution.

The registry solution that I have seen is to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\New World Computing\Heroes of Might and Magic® III\1.0 (if on 32-bit Windows; for 64-bit Windows, the path will be under Wow6432Node). Set First Time to 0. Set Show Intro to 0.

You may want to read similar threads for further details (which I found via searching for Wow6432Node, rather than your specific problem):
- HoMM3: Can't skip introduction. The solution in the last post is terse, but gives the exact path for 64-bit Windows users.
- HoMM3: Game loads, can't click past the animation sequence.
- How To Get Past Title Screen. This one has more detailed instructions, but the specific paths given are for Might & Magic 6, not HoMM3. Use the paths from my post or the thread above, but you can follow the principles described here.

As for your problem with it resetting each time, we would need to understand how you bypassed it once (which ini file you changed) to understand what might be reverting your change. If changing the registry as described above is not automatically reverted, then there is no need to find what was reverting your ini change.

I can confirm. I played Heroes. A few weeks passed, I launched the game - GOG Updated and wham, unskippable intro's - despite doing the registry fixes and re-installing the game from scratch.

The HD mod disables them anyway.

Downloading the HD mod fixed this issue nicely.

They might have switched places in the registry. What worked for me was editing

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\New World Computing\Heroes of Might and Magic® III\1.0\First Time

to 0.

Use F3 to find "First Time".

Thanks for this. Was driving me insane. Damn, they really buried it in there, didn't they?

Should note that for me it made me edit the binary value, so make sure you only delete the 01 and replace it with 00 or it'll be an invalid value.

Absolutely fantastic, it solved the issue! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and this solution with us, thank you!

How can anyone get tired of seeing Queen Catherine prancing about in her Royal Field Panties?