First of all, as with all older games, don't install the game under the default "/Program Files (x86)/" directory, but some other place, e.g. "C:/Games/GOG.com/The Complete Ultima VII/" or something similar.

Also try to run the game as admin, ie. right click on the game shortcut and select "Run as administrator". I presume this works the same in Win8 as it does in Win7?


If the game still fails to work, to see what error it gives to you, ie. so that the game would not exit as soon as error is given, try this:

Right click on "Ultima VII - The Black Gate" or "Ultima VII - Serpent Isle" desktop icon, and select Properties.

In Target, remove the end of the command, ie.

-noconsole -c "exit"

Also, go to C:\Games\GOG.com\The Complete Ultima VII\Ultima7\ (or wherever you installed it), right click on dosboxULTIMA7.conf and select "Open with..." => Notepad. At the very end of the conf file after the ultima7.com line, comment out "exit", ie.:

# exit

Or remove that exit line altogether. Just so that DOSBox will not exit the command prompt if the game quits. Then save the conf file.

Then try to run the game again. See any error message? If the command prompt is still full screen, press Alt-Enter to get back to windowed mode, in order to see also the DOSBox console window if there are any errors there. You can exit the screens with "exit" command.

(If the game runs fine and you get to it, you can exit the game with Alt+x.)

Ps. The GOG game uses Soundblaster FM-music by default. I urge anyone to try to install and setup Munt (a Roland MT-32 emulator) and setup the game for MT-32 music, as it is so much better in this game. :) (Too bad though that in order to do that you'd have to get MT-32 or CM-32L ROM files from somewhere; I have the real CM-32L unit) I am currently trying to set up myself, I think one needs to run INSTALL.EXE in DOSBox, or edit U7.CFG directly.

EDIT: I think these are the correct settings to U7.CFG and SERPENT.CFG in order to get Roland MT-32 music (with Soundblaster Pro digitized speech):

r
220 7 1

But as said, unless you have a real Roland MT-32/CM-32L unit or have installed Munt, you will get incorrect music because then it is played through General MIDI.

The original setting in the GOG version for the Soundblaster music/effects was:

s 388
220 7 1 o

BTW, I also noticed there's small cosmetic glitch in the beginning of the game. There is a small earthquake and the whole screen is supposed to tremble, but at least for me there is just some small vibration in the lower part of the screen. Not biggie.