HELP!: RA2 & YR won't launch on Windows 10, fix?

[d4mp_punk]

I recently shelled out for the C&C Ultimate Edition as I wanted to play RA2 & YR (as well as all the other awesome titles included). Having installed the game onto my laptop, I'm having difficulty actually launching the thing: I go to launch the game from the desktop shortcut and a popup appears showing RA2 & YR, I click on RA2/YR to launch the game and nothing happens, the popup disappears and I'm left wondering if I've actually clicked anything at all. I have tried launching from the file destination, reparing the game through origin, running in compatibility mode (from Win 98 all the way through Vista), changing the game configuration (as many different options I could find in the forums forums), restarting my computer, reinstalling RA2 & YR, reinstalling Origin. No success! Is there something I'm missing?

I've downloaded other titles from the C&C UE and had no issues launching those.

I'm using a Dell XPS 13 9350; Win 10 Home, Intel i7 (Skylake), Iris 540. (If this info helps?)

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@d4mp_punk

Huh. So it just doesn't seem to respond at all, then? Very peculiar.

There's an alternative to the official launchers, created by Bibber. Maybe those will help?

For the rest... 

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun have all been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems. For Red Alert 2 there's a more general patch that solves a lot of its graphics problems. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Nyerguds' C&C95 v1.06c revision 3 patch (which also adds bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)

Red Alert 1:

• Funkyfr3sh's automatic Red Alert 1 patcher/installer
• Nyerguds' main.mix cleanup for TFD/TUC (Not really needed, but cleans up about a gigabyte of unnecessary files in the RA1 folder. Unpack in the game folder, run "patch_main.bat", let it finish, and then delete the files you extracted.)

Tiberian Sun:

• Funkyfr3sh's Tiberian Sun patch

Red Alert 2:

• The graphics system patch DDWrapper is known to solve several graphics issues in the game. You could try if it helps you out.
  Download the zip file and extract "ddraw.dll" and "aqrit.cfg" into your game folder. Then, open the configuration file "aqrit.cfg" in Notepad, change the "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" option to 1, save the file, and try again

[Nyerguds · Accepted solution]

@d4mp_punk

Huh. So it just doesn't seem to respond at all, then? Very peculiar.

There's an alternative to the official launchers, created by Bibber. Maybe those will help?

For the rest... 

Command & Conquer 1, Red Alert 1 and Tiberian Sun have all been upgraded with community-created unofficial patches that fix a lot of their bugs and compatibility problems. For Red Alert 2 there's a more general patch that solves a lot of its graphics problems. You can find them here:

Command & Conquer 1:

• Nyerguds' C&C95 v1.06c revision 3 patch (which also adds bonus missions originally exclusive to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 versions of the game)

Red Alert 1:

• Funkyfr3sh's automatic Red Alert 1 patcher/installer
• Nyerguds' main.mix cleanup for TFD/TUC (Not really needed, but cleans up about a gigabyte of unnecessary files in the RA1 folder. Unpack in the game folder, run "patch_main.bat", let it finish, and then delete the files you extracted.)

Tiberian Sun:

• Funkyfr3sh's Tiberian Sun patch

Red Alert 2:

• The graphics system patch DDWrapper is known to solve several graphics issues in the game. You could try if it helps you out.
  Download the zip file and extract "ddraw.dll" and "aqrit.cfg" into your game folder. Then, open the configuration file "aqrit.cfg" in Notepad, change the "ForceDirectDrawEmulation" option to 1, save the file, and try again

[d4mp_punk]

@Nyerguds

The launchers by Bibber seem to have solved the issue, thank you! I have tested both RA2 and YR and they are running perfectly. The games are running windowed, so now to figure out how to launch them in fullscreen...

[darthhexidttv]

Thank you so much, ive been trying to get my ra2/yr to run for months now and ran by your fix, all i had to do was download the ddwrapper and it works without any issues

[vici099]

When I launch the game in Origin, it just shows the green bar going up and then nothing happens after it finishes. I changed the compatibility to Win xp (Sp3) everywhere (followed a youtube tutorial). I did everyhting I could but still my game doesen't launch. The blibber thing that the person in the comments gave didn't work, probably bcs its from 2017..... Please help man

[mrtnptrs]

@vici099There is a known bug with some computer configurations being unable to run the Ultimate Collection games. There is a workaround available till EA fixes the underlying issue: https://answers.ea.com/t5/C-C-The-Ultimate-Collection/Can-t-launch-C-amp-C-The-Ultimate-Collection-g... But what do you mean with "green bar going up"? What green bar are you talking about?

Btw, Bibbers launchers are indeed old and the original author seemingly left the CNC-community and doesn't update his launchers anymore. This makes it likely that these "fixed" launchers won't work with a further Origin-update.

[vici099]

@mrtnptrs the "green bad" is the cloud save bar htta comes up when you click play on an origin game from the library.

[vici099]

@vici099 *that*

[mrtnptrs]

@vici099 Did the workaround I provided work for you?

[KirovCZ]

I have a problem with it, what wasn't seen anywhere else, atleast I didn't see it discused anywhere;
So, I start the game, Windows asks me if I want to allow it to make changes on my computer,  I press yes and it sets my desktop resolution to 800x600 for like 2 seconds then it returns to normal and the game doesn't start, and I'm really desperate since RA2 and Generals were the reason why I bought the pack (this bug appears with RA2, Generals and also Tiberium Wars). Please help.