Rainbow Colors Solution: Running Diablo 1 on Windows XP (or newer?)

sNeaksieGarrett on 13/1/2010 at 16:06

DISCLAIMER: You do this at your own risk, so don't blame me if it doesn't work, or screws up the computer.

I found this executable called Process.exe which allows you to kill a program from command line. Well, you put this into a batch file, and kill explorer.exe for diablo 1 to work properly. I know, it's a pretty crazy fix, but it works for me. I was looking up diablo and found a facepunch thread where someone suggested that it was explorer.exe in windows xp that was causing the problem (something to do with how windows looks?) and a solution. Solution was to create a batch file that kills explorer (temporarily) while playing diablo. Doing so fixes the color problems!

Oh, the reason I'm using process.exe instead of windows' tskill command (win xp home) or taskkill (win xp pro) is because A. I use win xp home, and B. tskill doesn't work right.
Code:

ECHO OFF
process -k explorer.exe
"C:\Games\Diablo\diablo.exe"
pause
START C:\Windows\explorer.exe

Copy and paste the above into a notepad file and save it as diablo.bat (Save as type should be set to All Files) Then, whenever you want to play diablo, just use this file. You will need to press spacebar on the little window after quitting diablo. Make sure you put the correct paths for diablo.exe and explorer.exe (Note: I tried doing it without the PAUSE command and explorer was restarted right as diablo was starting, and therefore the fix does not work.)

Note: This might also work for other games that have this problem.

zombe on 14/1/2010 at 18:01

Has anyone got Diablo Hellfire working on Windows XP 64bit?

Diablo: instantly fucks up windows and freezes itself - needing a hard restart. But not particularly interested in Diablo alone anyway.

Hellfire: intro works, but access violation exception follows instantly after it. Could not find anything about it. Compatibility settings do not seem to help.

Any experience / suggestions?

sNeaksieGarrett on 15/1/2010 at 17:36

I couldn't tell you because I don't have a 64-bit OS, but have you tried running the game with one CPU?

zombe on 15/1/2010 at 18:01

Tried. Did not help :(

Brian The Dog on 19/1/2010 at 23:00

I tried playing Diablo with a friend online at the weekend, and it worked fine on my XPx64 SP2 PC, but his Windows 7 x64 had exactly the same problem you did. It might be a graphics driver issue or something like that. It should be fine in XP x64 though, I'm running DirectX 9 with drivers 191.07x64.

As a curious aside, Diablo 2 worked fine for me as well, but I had to force the rendering to be non-DirectX in the Video Options config before playing the game :confused:

zombe on 20/1/2010 at 12:53

I'm most certainly sure it is some obscure directx related problem. Tried some driver updates also (currently using the latest 09/11/20), but no luck.

Diablo2 on the other hand works and has always worked without any problems (at least i do not remember ever having trouble getting it to work). Have played/modded/hacked the shit out of it already.

Would like to play Diablo once more - i kind of like the simplicity. Diablo2 kind of fucked up that (Titan quest managed to fuck it up even more. Wondering what Diablo3 does).

Gave up for now.

edit: hm, actually - i play diablo2 as windowed. Maybe diablo1 does not like my monitor setup either (wide-dual)? Some way to force it windowed?

edit2: Dual monitor setup seems to be the cause of crash for both diablo1 and diablo2. Unfortunately, the only fix for diablo1 i have found so far involves virtualization software for which i do not have the hdd space atm. Any "cheaper" solutions?

sNeaksieGarrett on 21/1/2010 at 04:01

Well I don't know what to tell you guys, but the fix I mentioned worked for me. I know it doesn't make any sense, but I'm telling you it worked. Seeing as how XP x64 worked for Brian, I'm really clueless. I thought it was XP's fault, because after having shut down explorer.exe the game didn't have the problem, as I said. :confused:

zombe on 21/1/2010 at 15:41

Do you have dual-monitor setup?

Color problems do not surface as the thing crashes long before that - indicating a probably different cause (I also tried what you did just in case anyway and it made no difference).

sNeaksieGarrett on 21/1/2010 at 23:51

MidnightCoder on 13/4/2010 at 06:46

In preparation for the eventual release of Diablo III, I dug out my old Diablo I disc and started playing it earlier this month. I can report success with Diablo I v1.07 running fine on WinXP SP3 32bit on a dual-core Xeon. It will usually crash with dual screens configured, but it runs with single screen. No sparklies and full sound. v1.09 works too.

After a lot of effort, I also have it running normally on Windows 7 64bit. :D At first the graphics were sparkly and it had only music but no other sounds. I got it working with the latest Nvidia drivers v197. The default Microsoft video drivers did not provide correct colors. My system has the standard DirectX version for Win7.

What I did was right click diablo.exe and select Properties, then select the Compatibility tab. Check "Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows XP (Service Pack 2)". Then under settings choose "Run in 256 colors" and "Run in 640x480". When the game starts both my displays switch to 640x480. Colors are correct with no sparklies and all sounds work. I haven't tested with Vista but it might work using this same technique.

I hope this tip helps someone. I just finished killing Diablo tonight and am happy to be able to play Diablo I again.