Mass Effect installation on Windows 7 PC

[StayNoLonger]

Loaded Mass Effect on my Windows 7 PC a while ago. Seemed to install OK but started crashing in game play. Decided to un-install it and re-install it but when I try to install it now I can only get to the point where you enter the serial number. When you hit return it says installation cancelled. Does anybody have any ideas as I have a game that I have bought, want to play but can't. I have now found out that I should have installed it using a compatability mode in the first place but it will not now allow me to carry out any type of install.

[Gorath_the_Elder]

Although I cannot guess what happened in your subsequent activities, I can tell you that a perfect install still requires the patches before ever trying it in Windows7.  The game is very old now.  

[dwarvensilver]

And how do you get the updates, it is not obvious as is SHOULD BE in the origin software

[monsieurconnard]

Origin updates are (by default) automatic. (Go on Origin option, application settings, at the bottom of "General", and check if you ticked "Automatically keep origin up to date).

For games, right click on your game and click on "Check for update".

[zesban]

Another thing to try if you have Windows 7 Pro is getting XP Mode installed.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

It allows for an XP Virtual Machine to run on top of Windows 7 which may alleviate compatibility concerns for older software.

- Zesban

[Fred_vdp]

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@zesban wrote:

Another thing to try if you have Windows 7 Pro is getting XP Mode installed.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

It allows for an XP Virtual Machine to run on top of Windows 7 which may alleviate compatibility concerns for older software.

- Zesban

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XP Virtual Machine doesn't emulate the graphics card and is therefore useless for playing games.

[zesban]

fredvdp wrote:

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zesban wrote:

Another thing to try if you have Windows 7 Pro is getting XP Mode installed.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

It allows for an XP Virtual Machine to run on top of Windows 7 which may alleviate compatibility concerns for older software.

- Zesban

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XP Virtual Machine doesn't emulate the graphics card and is therefore useless for playing games.

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That's unfortunate. My only exposure to XP Mode for games is getting very old games to run, though I've not tried any 3D games. There is still the option of dual booting then.

An easier way to get a dual boot machine going can be leveraging a cool new feature in Win7 for booting to virtual disks. Windows 7 can mount any vhd (virtual hard disk) as a bootable disk and you can then boot your machine to that environment -

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/625-boot-vhd-using-windows-7-a.html

If you're brave or technically adept you can create an XP vhd and boot to that for many older games. The above tutorial will walk you through the process of mounting the image. If you need instructions for creating a vhd there is a neat little app that can just take an existing machine configuration and turn it in to a vhd from the guys at SysInternals -

http://blogs.technet.com/b/seanearp/archive/2009/10/08/p2v-baby.aspx

So you can create the vhd from any system you have XP installed on already. You can even use a system that you already have your games installed on.

Now a disclaimer, this isn't a magic bullet. You'll want to exercise some patience with booting in to XP from a vhd, and if you're up to the task a classic dual boot by managing your own disks, boot manager, and OS installs may well be more stable. But this may work for you and be *much* faster. Your mileage may vary.

The nice thing is you can actually get to Win7, WinXP, and Win8 on a single machine this way pretty easily, though you'll be using quite a bit of disk space. And if you're not comfortable following the tutorial and using the tools linked you can always ask a techie friend to help you out. Or you may try looking for another solution.

But hopefully this helps!

- Zesban