Hi everyone,

First, I want to compliment this site. I've just stumbled upon this site via google and it's one of the best I've seen in regards to Star Wars. I have the Tie Fighter Collector's CD-Rom that I purchased a long time ago and tried to install it on my Windows XP service pack 2 machine. Whenever I inserted the CD, I got a black screen which would force me to reboot my system since I could not swich back to Windows. I tried not letting the CD auto-load and executing the program from the CD drive file but, I get the same "black screen of death" and had to reboot. I've searched and searched the net on how to get my Tie Fighter Collector's CD-Rom to run on Windows XP. Thus far, I have tried the Program Compatability Wizard (start=>help and support) and have tried selecting various settings such as running under 95/98/ME but to no avail. I've also tried right-clicking on the icons in the CD drive file and tried the compatability tab but, that does not work either. I tried to download the patch from lucasfiles but they don't have it anymore. I found links to a Program Compatability file for download on Microsoft's website but, they don't have it for download (as of today). I've seen other fixes with Program Compatability that work after the game is installed but, I can't get the install to work at all. All I get is the black screen of death. The game worked well on my Windows 98 machine but, I gave that away to some needy folks. If it matters, XP came pre-loaded on my HP computer, so I don't have any discs for it. Any help is greatly appreciated :)

I believe you're trying to run a DOS game on an operating system that does not natively support DOS programs. There are DOS emulators out there, such as DOSBox (http://sourceforge.net/projects/dosbox) and VDMSound (http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound), but the experience most people have with emulators is that the game runs too slowly to be playable. Thus, I think you're better off looking for a copy of the Windows version of TIE Fighter. If you do a search on Ebay or Amazon.com for either the "X-Wing Collector Series" or the "X-Wing Trilogy", you should be able to find copies for sale. You'll also get the Windows version of X-Wing and either X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Flight School (in the case of the "X-Wing Collector Series") or X-Wing Alliance (in the case of the "X-Wing Trilogy").

Thanks for your rapid response Wildstar. I did not know there was a Windows version to Tie Fighter. Do you know if X-Wing Collector Series runs fine on a Windows XP machine? I most likely will skip the emulation and purchase a copy of X-Wing Collector Series. Thanks for your help!

I was stymied by the black screen as well. I discovered that problem was the screen resolution. The lowest resolution listed on my computer's display properties was 800x600. I discovered that if you press F8 while booting you enter the Windows Advanced Options menu. Choose the option "Enable VGA Mode". This should allow you to install the software and run the game.
I also used instructions I found elsewhere for VDMSound.

Pass on what you have learned.

Hey I am having this same problem. I dont really want to mess with the system BIOS (its not my PC). Is there another way ?