Okay!

Two years ago, I got your QFG collection, games 1-5. I loved the series, every last one!

And then I decided to do a challenge with it. Starting from a new file, I would journalize my Fighter/eventual Paladin's journey through all five games, taking place chronologically throughout the entire year. Things went fine...

...Until QFG5.

Now. Let me explain this to you. I have done one other file for QFG5, a Wizard in 2013. And I had almost no problems with it, save sometimes the game would crash at a random map encounter when the music sting happened. Somehow I fixed that and I don't recall how.

Got that? No problems with that file.

I recently (a couple months ago) came back from a vacation, taking my laptop with me and playing the game every night because I wanted to. Before I left and on my trip, the game worked perfectly.

But, as soon as I tried to boot it up when I was home... I couldn't get it to start!

Hopefully you'll be able to see the video of that. But in case you cannot, the title screen is shown briefly, only a fraction of a second, then it goes back to the desktop with the .exe in the task bar and won't do anything when I click on it except show me a black screen for a second before it goes back to Desktop again.

I have tried several things to help possibly remedy this.

- Restarting my computer. It SOMETIMES works then, but certainly not today!

- Playing in Compatibility Mode. Combined with Run as Administrator, it again, SOMETIMES works but not today.

- Running as Administrator. See above. Separately doesn't work.

- Turning off my Trend Micro Security.. Did nothing.

- Reinstalling in a new folder. I've done this THREE times! Clearly, it only SOMETIMES works!

Some have suggested getting a 486 computer. I can't afford that, nor am I going to get an entirely new system JUST for one game. System Restore won't do, since mine doesn't go back that far as I came back in December and I'm too afraid to fiddle at all with this computer as I'm afraid I'll mess everything and possibly lose everything I've worked for.

My computer is an Alienware M14X laptop. I've had it for 3 years now and it's been a nice little computer. System type is 64-bit operating system, processor is Intel (R) Core (TM) i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00 GHs, RAM is 8.00 GB, OS is 419 GB free of 675 GB, and the place where I normally store my games is Program Files (x86), save for your games which is it's own folder. NVIDIA card thingy.

I have not installed anything new on this computer lately, aside from a couple new Steam games and various mods for Skyrim.

All in all, I REALLY want to figure out what's going on and how to fix it. Preferably today! I'm on a deadline here!

Were you receiving updates (to Windows, to drivers, to AV, etc) while on vacation? If not then an update to one or more of those since you returned is the most likely culprit.

My first instinct would be to check whether the video drivers were updated and if this resulted in any settings/profile changes. Ideally, everything should be default/application-controlled; driver-forced settings tend to mess with games and older games especially. You could also try rolling the drivers back to an earlier version that worked.

Alternatively, what other hardware might be different between now and then? Even something seemingly innocuous like a gaming mouse, joystick, or game controller can cause compatibility problems when plugged in, so if you're using anything different at home, try changing back to what you had while on vacation.

I found this post too.

"Run the graphic mode setup program (from the folder in the start menu) and change the graphic mode from "Surface" to other options like Overlay. Hopefully one of those might fix it."

What and where is the "graphic setup mode" thing they're talking about?

This is a DOSBox option, but QfG5 isn't a DOSBox game, so that part doesn't apply to it.

drat. Thought we had something here.

Have you tried sending in a support ticket?

Yes, try sending a message to the GOG support team first. They may already have a solution to your problem.