January 2016
Hi all,
I recently bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets for my PC. When I've gone through the installation process, a pop-up comes up saying that I can play the games through a shortcut on my desktop. When I click this shortcut for the Philosopher's Stone, the mouse looks like it's doing something, and then nothing happens. For the Chamber of Secrets, I click on it, and a pop up comes up saying 'Please log in with administrator privileges and try again'. I'm the only account on this computer, and therefore the administrator. I'm running on Windows 7, and I know these games run on Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP, so I go to the control panel where it says I can run them on one of these programs. I try that, and again nothing happens. Can anyone help because I really loved these games when I was younger and I'd be gutted if I don't get to play them again?
January 2016
@xBarbastellex Hi there,
Even if you only have one account on your computer, it must still be individually set up to have the administrator rights. Please follow the advice here: http://help.ea.com/en/article/how-do-i-run-a-program-or-a-game-as-an-administrator/
Let me know how you get on afterwards.
Thank you,
Nils
January 2016
Hi,
Thanks for replying - I've done that, and the pop up about the administrator thing no longer comes up. I've tried setting the Windows format in Compatibility to each of the formats that the games can run on, but still neither of them are working :/
January 2016 - last edited January 2016
@xBarbastellex Hi again,
Outside of the compatibility mode, there are a few more things you can try: http://help.ea.com/en/article/getting-ea-classics-up-and-running-on-your-modern-os/
Next, make sure that no third party software interferes, the best way to do so is by running a Clean Boot: https://help.ea.com/en/article/how-to-clean-boot-your-pc/
Additionally you should also check that your antivirus and any other security software isn't interfering: https://help.ea.com/en/article/how-can-my-anti-virus-software-interfere-with-a-game-installation/
Note that while the article is aimed at the installation, it still also applies for actually running the game.
Last but not least, we can try to look at your reliability monitor following the steps below in order to see whether the application crashes at start up:
1. Press Win+R to open the run box
2. Type perfmon /rel to open the reliability monitor.
This opens a window where you can click on the error's visually shown (white X in red circle) to find the latest one related to your games. Click show details and then paste the info that is listed in there in here.
Cheers,
Nils
March 2016
I am able to start the installation process on my Windows 7 PC but as soon as it gets to 50% (when it tries to download the character models), the installation stops working. Please help!
May 2016
I have the unfortunate problem of the game refusing to launch. I've also found out the "secdrv.sys" security-authentication file is no longer supported on Windows 10 which has essentially borked thousands of games released before 2009. I have a legitimate retail copy of the game I (my parents) bought back in 2001. Anyone know a fix or a work-around for this issue? I want to play the game again, but the lack of secdrv.sys support is really messing with me and I don't know what to do about it. I don't want to download a cracked version of the game (because that's illegal and unsafe for the computer}, and I don't want to download a shady VirtualMachine program from some random source. Chamber of Secrets has this same issue too.
July 2016
I can perfectly play the game on my pc with windows 10, but there is no background music playing. Sound effects and conversations work just fine, but no background music. Any way I can fix this?
January 2017
I've got the same problem. I'd bought "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" from a charity shop and when I'd got home I found out that there was no booklet which meant I do not have the serial code for the game. Has anyone got any suggestions as to how I could obtain the code so I can run it. Also I'd would like the Legal suggestions please.
March 2018
Harry potter and the philosopher's stone lost code
March 2018
@sonasmuladach Did you lose your code for the game?