On October 26th 2012 Microsoft releases their latest operating system - Windows 8. Unlike the change from Vista to Windows 7 there are some really big changes to the Windows interface. This brief article covers the changes with respect to installing and playing Excalibur games on Windows 8.

First a brief introduction to the new Windows 8 interface. First thing experienced Windows users will notice - the Start button's missing from the desktop! Actually it's not missing but been given its own screen rather than a pop-up panel.

So with Windows 8 you get the Desktop and the Start Screen...

The Start Screen is much more powerful than the old Start button. To move from the Start Screen to the Desktop just click on the Desktop icon. To get to the Start Screen from the Desktop move the mouse to the bottom left of the Desktop and a mini Start Screen will appear. Left click on that to get to the Start Screen.

As usual insert the disc in the drive and after a while this appears in the top right of the screen...

Select the box and you'll be asked what you want to do with the disc.

Select Run setup.exe and the screen switches to the Desktop and the standard install will appear. Note; we are using Circus World as an example.

Just follow the on screen instructions to complete the install.

You can either click on the icon on the desktop (if the install generates desktop icons - most do)

Or click on the icon on the Start Screen

If you can't see the icon on the Windows Start Screen move your mouse to the top right of the screen, the Windows Charms bar will appear (a rectangle containing various icons or charms - including one which leads to the Windows Shut down button by the way!). Select Search - the magnifying glass - and you'll likely see the program listed.

 

On the Start Screen move your mouse to the top right of the screen, the Windows Charms bar will appear. Select Search and you'll likely see the manual listed next to the game itself.

.Net

Microsoft help developers by providing lots of code they can use. One library of code is called .Net. Windows 8 comes with the latest version - however some titles might need an older version for example 3.5. Windows 8 knows about this and so after installing a title you might see a message from Microsoft just follow the on-screen instructions to add in the missing code.

Compatibility

The good news that in our testing with the preview version of Windows 8 our titles just seem to work. We haven't finished testing them all yet but if we find any issues we will cover them on the relevant webpage for the product.

The bad news. We sadly do not support Windows RT. This is because it uses ARM processors and we can only support AMD and Intel. We apologies for any inconvience this may cause.

Titles currently not supported

We regret to inform you that some of our older titles do not work with the current version of Windows 8. These titles include - Pacific Storm: Allies, Pro-fishing, Space Rangers, Strategic command and You are empty.

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