American McGee's Alice - Can it work on Windows 8.1

[MyFayValentine]

Hello! I have the original American McGee's Alice and would like to play on my PC (Acer - Windows 8.1). I downloaded the game at the "typical" setting, but whenever I clicked on the icon for the game it would not open. I tried troubleshooting the game, which gave me the option of trying to open the game with different O.S. settings (Vista, XP, Windows 7, etc.) but it still did not work. Please help. Is there another item I need to download to get this working?

Thanks,

Lili

[Markkaye41]

So I bought American McGee's Alice. The Sold Out Version from Amazon. Installed it no problems, however I cannot get it to start. There are no error messages, not lock up, it just doesn't do anything. I have tried all the different compatibility modes. I have tried running it as Administrator still nothing. I have tried running it from the .exe file and the short cut the installation created. I have tried creating a short cut and running from that. Still nothing.

Just to confirm I have window 7 64

This is The first game not Alice returns

And if i have done it right there should be a picture showing the box.

[rangies3]

I am running a Dell laptop with Windows 10 (recent upgrade from 8).  I have tried compatibility mode, running from the disk, running from an install, etc.  The only windows that open when I click on any files on the disk or from the install are the help windows.  The game itself does not launch at all.  The shortcut on my desktop says that the file is missing.  I would have thought that perhaps running from the disk would help, but no.

I ordered my copy off ebay, and it isn't the "sold out" (yellow) case.  Mine has no front cover to the jewel case, but has two discs.  It does have the registration number on the back, and I did register the game.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[ZOM585]

I am also having this issue... and as no one's said anything about it before November of this year (2015), it seems to be a recent issue.  There's something fishy going on... but I don't understand why they would implement some kind of break for this game as there's no way to buy it anymore except for used.

All I know is my game installed, but when I click on the executable (under any compatibility mode), a loading spinner pops up and then nothing happens.  I would really like to play this game, and if the CD doesn't work, nothing will...

[ZOM585]

I believe I've found the problem: This article talks about types of copy protection that support was removed for in a recent security update for Windows 7 and up.

American McGee's Alice is protected with SafeDisc copy protection (you can verify this using this link) - therefore it won't work natively with Windows PCs that have the latest security updates.  The solution is actually incredibly simple though!

Open a command prompt as an administrator:

Windows button -> cmd.exe -> right-click -> Run as administrator

Run this command (with the exact spaces) to reenable the driver's service:

sc config secdrv start= demand

You should get a [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS message.  Then run this command to start the service:

sc start secdrv

Then open the game and it should work!!!  To be "safe," you can stop the service by restarting your computer or using the command:

sc stop secdrv

Happy gaming!

[BiPolarRose]

What if after i get the [SC] ChangeServiceConfig SUCCESS message I do the next part and it says 'This driver has been blocked from loading' ?

[wolfshield2]

All you have to do is have American Mcgee's Alice installed onto a second hard drive. Then make  Alice Madness Returns DefaultEngine Alice1Path= your American McGee's Alice installed folder.

[FinalOutcome3323]

Could you please give a step by step on how to do this?  I'm assuming you mean move the folder "Alice1" to a different drive on the first part,  but I'm totally lost on the second part.

[AdaninLodair]

Have you figured out any fix to this?  I finally grabbed a copy of this game as I haven't played it since I was a kid.  I got it with the Alice: Madness Returns collection.  The game came back to me quickly, but expecting to beat it without dying is unlikely.  I can't save!  It says my hard drive is full which is of course not the case.

[bloodrose73]

I figured it out. I was using the remaster, but I didn't like it because of the lack of a console, so I just installed

the original American McGee's Alice with some HD texture mods.

On Windows 10, the game kept telling me that I couldn't save games because my hard drive was full (NOT TRUE). I have a 3TB HDD.

I had a hunch. Like I few older games I own, this one doesn't appear to understand these large HDDs. I guess the developers, at the time, didn't anticipate such large storage volumes (just like developers who continued to write 16-bit installers didn't anticipate 64-bit systems). I could be wrong. It could also be something else that is causing the issue (GPT partitions, somehow? It could also be a permissions issue, but taking ownership of the Alice folder didn't resolve the issue). Anyhow, I got my original 2-disc copy of the game to work as follows:

I copied the entire Alice game folder to another partition on a smaller HDD (whether it matters or not, the smaller HDD uses the old MBR partitioning scheme). Not only did the game begin to work flawlessly, but I discovered that the game does not need to be installed to run (oh -- I'm also using a fix to eliminate cd swapping... ahem, but a regular install to a different, smaller disk might work fine as well). I hope it works for you.

Also, another poster pointed out a neat trick. Messing with the Alice: Madness Returns config file (the two lines at the very end) can enable you to launch the original Alice through the Alice: Madness Returns launcher. Just change the last line to "TRUE" and then type the path to your American McGee's Alice folder in the line just above that.