Windows Vista Run MS Pinball in Vista Home Premium

I'm trying to get MS Pinball, copied from my Win XP desktop where it works just fine, installed onto my new Vista laptop. Following advice from several web sites I have copied the Pinball folder from C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Pinball to the same path on the Vista laptop. Also copied the Pinball folder to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games per advice from another site. Some people claim using either copy destination in Vista, Pinball works just find for them when they click on Pinball.exe in either the \...\Windows NT or \...\Microsoft Games folder.

When I click on Pinball.exe in either folder on my laptop all I get is the error note: "\...\Pinball.exe is not a valid Win32 application. "

I have gone to Properties | Compatibility tab, checked run as Windows XP (SP2) and run as Administrator (I am the sole user on my laptop and so should always be logged in as Administrator, even though Vista doesn't always seem to recognize this fact). Also tried checking Run in 256 colors and 640x480 resolution "” ALL to no avail!

Anybody got any suggestions as to what I've missed in trying to get this favorite game of mine to work in Vista? As lots of other folks apparently get it running on their Vista machines with a simple copy/paste of the Pinball folder, I can't figure what's different about my effort.

While I have to admit there are some (not many) features of Vista I was starting to like, with this Pinball glitch, plus several other favorite "” and for me, essential apps— not running right, I'm beginning to think that instead of naming this the Vista OS, Micro$oft shoulda called it Missed'ta OS.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated, thanks

TV Johns

 

Suggest you conpare file sizes snd attributes of both .exe and .dll files on both computers to be sure everything got coppied properly. Also check for an .ini file and check its contents if there is one.

 

Forget about it

To anyone reading my post...problem solved. Took me a while to remember how I usually wind up solving software glitches on my computers: Ignore online tips and advice (not referring to Windows BBS now) and hack around till the thing straightens itself out, usually from stumbling upon the solution by accident.

In this case, I scrapped the online advice of copying the Pinball folder into Vista's ...\Program Files\Windows NT or ...\Microsoft Games, which didn't work on my Vista-U-Missta laptop. Rather, I yielded to the impulse of first just copying the Pinball folder onto the Desktop, opening it, and, without doing another thing, clicking on Pinball.exe. Voilá, Pinball game loads! OK, if it works there how 'bout copying the entire folder into Vista default folder C:...\username\Saved Games. Again, Voilá, Pinball loads and plays just as well as in good ole WinXP and Win98 (so in ...\Saved Games it stays).

Win98...Lordy, Lordy, how I miss my Win98! DOS were the days. Whatever possessed me to go the kewl upgrade route like other Micro$oft-headed lemmings I'll never know. Big Brother Bill asks "Where do ya wanna go today?" How 'bout BACK TO THE FUTURE! says I.