Knights and Merchants.net Forum

Hi there,

I've been trying to install Knights And Merchants (TSK) on my 64 bit computer. However, it seems that I cannot install it on this machine. I've searched for a long time, tried different versions but none of them seem to work. My search brought me here on this website, I've read through it and I found this:
"There's no direct solution for this problem. Your best bet would be to install Knights and Merchants on an older computer and then copy over the installed files to your new one. The setup doesn't write any important registry entries or install any system files, so it works."
But when I do this, it gives an error saying I have to insert the CD. So this doesn't work! I have tried installing patches and adding the DLL file, but they didn't work either.

So, is there anyone who can help me out? I do read about people who got it working on 64 bit machines, but how?

Thanks in advance

Just insert the CD
Only the installer doesn't work on 64 bit Windows, the game itself and its CD checking routine doesn't depend on the installer.

Thank you for your reply. The only problem is I did insert the CD (tried it again just now). When I click the application I can hear the CD spinning, but it still gives an error message saying that I have to insert the CD. Everyone says that "the game itself and its CD checking routine doesn't depend on the installer", but yet mine does? I used the original disc, could it be that the installer 'forgot' to copy some files? (There are some scratches on the CD.) Or maybe there is a problem because I'm using an external DVD drive, connected via USB? Both these reasons don't make any sense but I don't know what else it could be..

I have tried to convert my CD to an iso file and mount it with Daemon tools, but still no succes. :/

Try installing the 1.32 patch, that improves the way it scans for the CD and I think it fixed this for me.

Tried the patch, and still doesn't work. Maybe because I have a Dutch version of the game, and the patch is English? I can't find a Dutch patch anywhere though.

The game usually crashes after applying both 1.32 and ddraw.dll patches.

Maybe patch for other language version would work? Just make a copy of setup.lib and text.lib before, and replace them later. The texts in game may get completely messed up though (due to changed strings order in the files mentioned above).

If that all fails, there are always another ways, such as virtual machine.

The problem is not that my game crashes, my game won't start at all!
I now have the Peasants Rebellion, and I installed it on my 64 bit machine.. And it all works fine! Too bad I can't play from my own CD, and TPR lacks the original music. But it's better than nothing.

Thanks for the help everyone, I'll be playing Knights and Merchants.

The crash happens right after the start, so you won't see the menu anyway (no problem with recognising CD for me, though).

As for TPR, try SR3, you may like it, as it has all the original songs + many fixes.

TSK also requires the game CD to be in your primary CD drive (the one with the lowest letter) IIRC so if you have multiple drives and used some drive that wasn't your primary drive, you might want to try using your primary drive.

TSK is a 16 bit program. So I think it just won't run on a 64 bit operating system. It only works on 32 (or 16) bit systems. It should still be possible to run it in a virtual machine, but not on your standard windows7.

TSK itself is not 16 bit, just the installer.

But how to run the game if you can't even run the installer?

Hey I don't know if it's important for you right now, because it's 2013 already, but I found a way to run this game on win 7. All you need is to install Virtual PC , it can be downloaded from the official Microsof site, its size is 30 mb only : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... px?id=4580
I'm not special at software and don't get much in all this, but I think there are more recent versions of this program, which can also be found on Microsoft site. I myself installed the one you see above. If you are ready to do it just let me know , because you need an alredy made version of Windows 98 emulation which is about to be added on Virtual PC. there's nothing complex at all. Virtual pc allows you to run an original version of either windows , even 95 or millenium without any problems. Certainly they are not "original" they are like virtual ones, but everething works as if it is real Win 98. You can find it on the net, but lest you tire yourself with searches I can send it to you via email. My email is ldpcru@gmail.com
pLEASE don't think I'm a swindler, I just wanted to play the game and faced the same obstacle .
I hope it will help you.
bYe.

That's kind of a big workaround. We have a Windows 7 fix in the download section.

Yeah but it doesn't apply here. The problem being that the installer doesn't run on x64 systems.
Another more difficult workaround but one that doesn't involve toying around with another computer or Virtual PC is to use Universal Extractor or WinPack to unpack the files of _SETUP.1 manually. Sadly it doesn't extract the directory structure properly so you'll have to manually place the files into their correct directories which can be quite the hassle (especially the speech files).