I have just spent way too much of the last three days trying to install the 1701 A.D. Gold Edition (or ANNO 1701, if you prefer,) on my new Windows 8 laptop. I had similar problems installing it on 7, but all that took was a couple patches. More on that later.
The first step I took was to install it. (Duh.) After it completed, I couldn't do anything with it. So I tried running it as an administrator; in compatibility mode for XP, XP with Service Pack 2, XP SP3, Windows Vista, Vista with Service Pack 1, Vista SP 2, and Windows 7; and as administrator in compatibility mode for all listed above. Still nothing. I sent Ubisoft an inquiry, but never heard back.
After some browsing, I found Patch 1.04 on Aspyr's (the original ANNO franchise owner) website and installed it. Next start-up I received a popup about a bad driver: Error 1275. Not success, but at least its progress. I think.
I opened up the disc files to see if they held any useful information. That's when I found this:
I Googled "Tages 1701 AD" and, on the most useful site I had visited yet, learned that Tages was a copy protection program that has not worked correctly since XP. (Copy protection? Don't they trust the internet to obey copyright laws?) To get it working on 7, a driver update from the Tages website was required. I downloaded it, reinstalled the game and patch 1.04, and ran it as an administrator, just to cover all grounds.
The little loading mouse pointer appeared. It's working, I said to myself, foolishly. After a second or two, the normal pointer reappeared, and nothing else happened. I pointlessly tried running it as administrator in every service pack, with the same result each time.
Frustrated, I uninstalled 1701 and ages, opened up Amazon, and purchased ANNO 1404 (or Dawn of Discovery, if you prefer. What is it with this series and names?) Gold Edition.
While I was waiting for it to arrive, I did some last Googling. As far as I can tell, no one yet has figured out how to run 1701 on Windows 8. So, long story short, if anyone out there has any tips, I'd be happy to hear them. And if anyone wants to give it a shot, I hope this post works as a jumping off point. I am fairly certain 1.04 and the Tages update will be required no matter what.
Anyways, 1701 A.D. Awesome real-time-strategy game. Think Civilization meets Age of Empires. (Of course, if you read this far, you have probably played it.) I have wasted way too much time on it already; maybe it was time for an upgrade. I just prefer the colonial time period rather than the 1400's setting of 1404. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. That is hardly the motto of gamemakers. Theirs is, "If it ain't broke, sequels sequels sequels, $$$."
I've tried pretty much all the same things you mentioned above before coming across your blog with the same results. I'm really hoping that a fix can be found for this. I absolutely love this game!!
ReplyDeleteJust found a way to get it to run. Copying and pasting from the source.....
ReplyDeleteTrying to get Anno 1701 to run on Windows 7 took me months to find a solution online, but I got it working today. I have both Anno 1701 and The Sunken Dragon expansion on separate disks (so not the gold edition), as well as Windows 7 64bit. The main culprit that is stopping the game from working is the old Tages copy protection on the CDs which isn't compatible with Windows 7 (especially the 64 bit version). What you need to do is this...
1) Uninstall Anno 1701 completely from your computer.
2) Go to http://www.tagesprotection.com/main.htm and download and install the most recent version of Tages (the install program acts as a toggle, so if Tages is installed it will uninstall it, and if it's not installed it will install it. If it says it is installed it would be better to use the program to uninstall and then reinstall it again.
3) Install Anno 1701 by finding the setup.exe program on the CD and right clicking and selecting "run as administrator" - because you installed Tages in the last step you shouldn't receive the popup reporting "unsigned drivers" as it sees you have newer drivers installed and so doesn't use the incompatible ones from the CD.
4) Install patches 1.01, 1.02
At this point my computer was still saying "Anno 1701 has stopped working" when I tried to play it, the next step suddenly made everything playable.
5) I installed The Sunken Dragon expansion which upgraded the game to 1.04 (use the "run as adminitrator" on the setup.exe as before) . Suddenly both games now work.
Some of the above steps may not be needed depending on what version of Windows you have and what edition of Anno 1701 you have, some users have mentioned just using the latest Tages drivers worked for them with Windows 32bit, but this is what worked for me.
I hope this is of use to you as it is a great game. Good luck!
Got it working on Windows 8. I installed it from the DVD. I got a few complaints in the end of the installation of incompatible drivers. After I that I went into http://www.tagesprotection.com/main.htm and got the latest 64-bit version of the Tages drives. After that it was working fine.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the 1.04 patch was also required to make the game run fine under Windows 7 and Windows 8. Since this patch does not exist in French, I had to find a way to install the German version. The game now runs fine, still in French, with some minor glitches ("Text Added" ... instead of some commercial missions). I just bought the Sunken Dragon and will now try to install it.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Mr John Stroud for posting :) i got mine working following your instructions above.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate this Man. This worked on my new lenovo ideapad 100 with Windows 10 on it
ReplyDeleteDaniel Svanström's link worked for me. I installed 1701 original, got the complaints about unsigned drivers, installed 1701 sunken dragon which forced me to update to the 1.04 version of the original (and did it all automatically), then when I would launch either game it would tell me to put in the original disc. Followed the above link to tages, downloaded the driver, both games run fine.
ReplyDelete