Just bought X-Wing and Tie fighter hoping to use my x55 HOTAS. No such luck, these games won't run at all. I don't even get an error message

Not sure what is going on - I'm no expert. After taking a while to figure out how to download & setup, I had to look and look for the shortcut the installer (or setup) put on my desktop. I may have even tried to setup twice, only selecting the shortcut option th second time around. Look for that shortcut. Or maybe you alreay did. I don't know your system. Also someone had to tell me for the 1998 version to use the windows joystick calibration - under control panel - devices and printers option.

Hope this helped. Good Luck.

I wish it were that easy. Unfortunately in my case I've got the games installed, they just won't run. I poked around in each installation folder to see if maybe running the specific game executables as admin or in compatibility mode might help. But nope still no dice. I am running Windows 10 though, so likely GOG hasn't even bothered testing any of these games yet with it.

Hmmm...I wonder why I can't put in an official support ticket for either of these Star Wars games?!!

I read elsewhere they weren't working for someone running WIndows 10, so you're not alone there. Both DOS and WIndows variants of both games working fantastic on 8.1 however.

That's a shame. Ah well, I guess I'll just have to write this $20 off for a year or two when GOG starts testing games with Windows 10. That or maybe I'll start tinkering with DOSBox when I've got time.

I also have this problem. I followed the DirectX instructions, but still no luck. I just uninstalled the games, and I'm going to try re-installing them now. I'll holler if I have any success.

Others are reporting this in other threads- same for me too with Windows 8. If you get the alt-tab lockout, just wait a few minutes and it'll dump you back to desktop with a message that it can't start- but at least then you can do a soft reboot from task manager.

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit and the game just opens a black screen. If alt quit out it says error game could not start.

Frosty, 2 points:

1. Windows 8 and I think Windows 7 have compatability options for programs to emulate running under previous Windows versions. I would right click on the desktop icon, and click the compatibility tab. Then click on emulate Windows 8 (which I use and for which X-Wing is doing a really good job) or Windows 7. By the way, Windows 10??? I did not even think they were anywhere near putting out Windows 9 let alone Windows 10. Anyway, no matter if it works for you.

2. I believe that i you are not happy within the first 30 days with your purchase, GOG will refund money on your purchase. Don't know the details. But check with them to see if I am right.

Good Luck

Support links:
Star Wars: X-wing
Star Wars: TIE Fighter

Yeah I've certainly tried compatibility mode settings going back to Windows 95, unfortunately it made no difference. I also tried running with and without (run as administrator).

Thanks to Gydion for direct links to create support tickets for these games. I'll put one in for each game. (Though given I'm running Windows 10 I'm sure they'll likely chalk that up to being the only reason they won't run. Clearly that's not the case though seeing as how many people with older OS's can't either)

Although the older versions of these games being offered aren't joystick friendly, maybe they will work with DOSBox. I'm going to give that a try today. For those of you that don't realize it, GOG actually gave us two versions of each game, the older version which may work with DOSBox but isn't controller friendly and a new version which apparently only works on certain PC configurations but is joystick friendly.

Edit: As suspected I just confirmed that the older versions of these games ran right away, but didn't recognize my flight stick.

lol, the old version are already using dosbox. try to fiddle around with the joystick settings in dosbox-tie.conf

Try setting Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution on the compatibility tab on the short cut, it worked for me.

I've tried this, as well as just about any other setting I can think of. I still just get a black screen on launch. I can hit esc or spacebar, and it exits out. I never see any errors.