I run windows 7 64 bits and I'm one of the people affected by the explorer.exe won't stay close bug so I have to manually close it. I'm trying to follow the tutorial but the music is too loud and I have trouble hearing the voice.

I found the menu and one of the entry has a musical note next to it so I tried lowering the music there but it does not work. Changing the scrolling speed did work.

My sound card is Realtek HD built in the motherboard.

Thank you. As luck would have it the music does consist of ogg files. I didn't even think of lowering the volume at the music files themselve. Now that you brought it up I'm sure I'll find an appropriate tool. I've got Slackware Linux in a virtual machine, so if I can't find a Window tool then I'll find a Linux tool.

I think Foobar2000 has built in tools for changing the volume on all supported audio formats (mp3, ogg, flac etc.), both using replaygain tags or by re-rendering the files with boosted or lowered volume.

To switch off the music you will have to edit the file "TACTICS.CFG" located in the game folder.

Change the line "EnableCDAudio=1" to "EnableCDAudio=0"

Thanks ggzx12. That worked. When I try to save a game, the game crashes. This is a separate issue but since you worked wonders with the sound, can you solve the save game crash issue?

Did you return the "music" folder to its original state? (fresh install in case of)

The game is now reinstalled to D:\Games\Dark Reign.

And,...? Do you have the same issue? It seems you were able to save before you renamed your "music" folder.
So, a reinstallation should have fixed this issue.

Did you keep your saved games?
If so, I'am affraid they got corrupted due to crashs.

After reinstall, same issue even if I deleted what was in the save game folder. I have reinstalled many times, and once save did work when I installed to C instead of D. but then I renamed my music folder just to test if it was the drive or the renaming that caused the problem, and bingo problem showed up again. But now, even if I reinstall, I cant save. I no longer rename the music folder but instead use your method to stop the music. So something is corrupted somewhere that reinstall does not correct. Are saved games outside of the game folder somewhere?

After uninstalling the game (and saved games), two things remain in place :

- The empty game folder, due to "explorer.exe" being killed (colors conflict) and new "explorer.exe" being launched after the game quit;

- Some Activision's registry keys "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Activision" or "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Activision" for 32bit OS.

Saved games seems to be stored only within the "save" folder of the game.

I've tried this game with XP and Seven. No crash with "Save/Load" actions after renaming "music" folder to "musicoff".
What is your operating system?

I am running windows 10.

Did you try to deactivate the user account control system?
Did you try to exclude the game from the data execution prevention?
Did you try to run the game as administrator?


Modern OS' behavior is usually disturbing for old games.

Anyway, if it does not work, at least, you can reinstall the game in a different place (as the problem is specific to the actual path of the game).

Bingo, I ran the game as administrator and save now works. Amazing. You resolved my music issue and my save game issue. Thank you very much.