Summary

After a few modifications that I found on this site about 2 years ago, I was able to get Earthsiege 2 to work under NT4.0 and it played fine. It installs and works under Windows2000 without those modifications but for some reason cannot see the joystick installed in Windows2000. I think it has something to do with a different name for the joystick .dll file in Windows2000 vs. NT/Win9x.

Doesn't work, General Protection Fault on installation

It just doesn't work and I even contacted sierra who were very serprised to hear from me and said there was no hope, so there you go!

It is possable to get Earthsiege 2 to run under Windows XP. I dont know how any non-devoper person would figure this out so dont feal bad if you dont understand it. There is a program created by Microsoft for system admins, it is called Compatibility Administrator.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=7fc46855-b8a4-46cd-a236-3159970fde94&DisplayLang=en
Once it is installed you must make a new Fix and add all of the Exe's in the ES2 folder to it. Then enable the fix "GlobalMemoryStatusLie". It will work, but for some reson it uses the CPU not the VPU to handle grapics, therfore proformce may be slow.

Thats my fix,
EJ T / Programous

With regard to EJ T's fix i found it to be only a partial fix. The program they mention does indeed help, except windows XP cant run anything as Earthsiege uses a 16 bit not 32 bit structure.

Just install EarthSiege 2 on a older System with, for example, Windows 98. Then, download the files to the newer Windows XP system. After that go to the ES2/Data directory. Open the file "drive.cfg" with Editor. Change the first sentence, that shows the CD-Rom-Drive, so that it is correct. After that go back to the ES2 directory and open the file "SIERRA.inf" with Edtior. At the bottom of the file, change the source direction, so that it is similar to the direction, in the other file. This is only necessary when the newer system has a different alphabetical CD-Rom number. This works under Windows XP, without any compatibility-setting. I hope I could help.

Runs okay but doesn't detect joysticks
It will complain about the lack of virtual memory and suggest you change settings to allow windows to manage them which is a lie as it thinks that anything over 512MB virtual memory means too little so setting the virtual memory in system/advanced/performance to 512 clears that.
But will only run in 640x480 mode and won't temporarily change display res on its own so either play in a small window or manually change it youself

I managed to get Earthsiege 2 to work fine in Windows XP, but it took some doing. I used the application comatiblity toolkit from MS, and the game worked with the windows 95 setting, but it was ridiculously slow. I really only needed three fixes - one for the joystick, one to stop the virual memory error, and one for 256 color graphics. Here's the process for how I got it to work perfectly:

1. In the compatibility Administrator, right-click on "Custom Databases" and select new.

2. right-click on the newly-created database and select "create new" and then "compatibility mode".

3. Find "EmulateJoystick" and "GlobalMemoryStatusLie", and add them (by double-clicking)

4. Enter a name for the compatibility mode (I used "ES2") and click on "OK"

5. Right-click on the database you created in step 1 and select "Create new" then "Application Fix"

6. Enter the name of the application ("Earthsiege 2") and the vendor ("Sierra")

7. Click the "browse" button next to the program file location field, and find the ES.exe file (on my system, it's at c:\sierra\es2\es.exe).

8. Click on "next", then check the "256Color" and "ES2" compatibility modes. Also, if the "Microsoft Windows 95" radio button is selected, change it to the "None" radio button.

9. Click "next", then "next" again, and then click the "auto-generate" button.

10. Finally, click on "Finish". At this point, you should name your database something (right-click and select "rename"), and then save it (save button in the toolbar).

11. Now you should be able to right-click on the database and select install. Windows will now watch for you to execute the ES.exe program and apply the fixes automatically. On my system, it performed perfectly joystick and all.

just run c&c zero hour in challenge mode, minimize to taskbar (alt+tab) and run earthsiege2 it really works, its not joke if it doesn't just exit challenge mode (not to main menu) and then run earthsiege2. It depends on something inexplicable

I found it works beautifully until the mission after the virus you put into the cybrid network to shut their hercs down when you're on the moon, where after a while in the mission, which you get to blow a lot of stuff up in, I get an error message saying something like 'draw table full' and then the game resets. I've gotten past this and finished the game by minimizing the amount of buildings I destroy... not as fun like that though...
Using XP SP2, and I haven't changed any compatibility settings yet

Thanks a lot. This description really saved my day. Now the game runs well under windows xp with a joystick activated.

quote:
I managed to get Earthsiege 2 to work fine in Windows XP, but it took some doing. I used the application comatiblity toolkit from MS, and the game worked with the windows 95 setting, but it was ridiculously slow. I really only needed three fixes - one for the joystick, one to stop the virual memory error, and one for 256 color graphics. Here's the process for how I got it to work perfectly:

1. In the compatibility Administrator, right-click on "Custom Databases" and select new.

2. right-click on the newly-created database and select "create new" and then "compatibility mode".

3. Find "EmulateJoystick" and "GlobalMemoryStatusLie", and add them (by double-clicking)

4. Enter a name for the compatibility mode (I used "ES2") and click on "OK"

5. Right-click on the database you created in step 1 and select "Create new" then "Application Fix"

6. Enter the name of the application ("Earthsiege 2") and the vendor ("Sierra")

7. Click the "browse" button next to the program file location field, and find the ES.exe file (on my system, it's at c:\sierra\es2\es.exe).

8. Click on "next", then check the "256Color" and "ES2" compatibility modes. Also, if the "Microsoft Windows 95" radio button is selected, change it to the "None" radio button.

9. Click "next", then "next" again, and then click the "auto-generate" button.

10. Finally, click on "Finish". At this point, you should name your database something (right-click and select "rename"), and then save it (save button in the toolbar).

11. Now you should be able to right-click on the database and select install. Windows will now watch for you to execute the ES.exe program and apply the fixes automatically. On my system, it performed perfectly joystick and all.

I cannot change the controls. I dont use a joystick, only a keyboard.

All that help here is useles!
JUST do this:
Rename the DDRAW.DLL ( e.g. 1_DDRAW.DLL)
Then you can run that great game on Windows XP and Vista with sound :)

Auf deutsch:
Es geht, einfach die ddraw.dll umbenennen!