The games has 2 critical bugs. The first is that the keyboard is completely unresponsive. The second is that the game will constantly take screenshots without being prompted, leading to hundreds of images in the GOG folder.

What is the fix for this?

The first is not a bug: the game is mouse only. The only instance where it takes keyboard input is for naming your save files.

As for the second, I don't think it is a bug of the game either, it sounds like you have some trouble with your Prnt Scr key and/or your screenshot software.

Edit: For real bugs, most can be fixed with one of the patches or mods made by the community. You can find them in the stickies on this forum. Fixt is probably the best patch for Fallout 1.

The keyboard doesn't even work when naming saves/builds/dialogue.
It may be a result of the screenshot bug. My physical keyboard is fine. The F12 key (screenshot in Fallout 1) works fine on my desktop and in programs. But the game take photos without provocation.

The very first thing to do when you get spurious keyboard behaviour like this, is to rule out driver issues by rebooting your computer, which you should always do regularly anyway.

To add to the description of the problem, the endless screenshots appear to be triggered by any sort of keyboard input. As long as I refrain from pressing any keys, the game functions are normal. However, I would still like the full functionality of the game.

I will check on the drivers and see if that does anything.

Can you give more information of your machine and operating system?
The game is so old that the keyboard has its own interruptions (That is only relevant if you use a keyboard in any other language than english from U.S.)

I'm using an Alienware M14x laptop.
Windows 7 64-Bit Home Premium (Service Pack 1)

And all the drivers are to update ,and after restart the game is still with that behavior?
Do you has tried to redownload the installer and making a fresh installation? (Just by light chance that something went wrong the first time).

And running the game with compatibility to Windows 9x or Windows XP (the first is better) ?
And probably, due the game has its own sets of interruptions, is a good idea to install in another folder than program files (Due the users permissions that were inexistent in Windows 9x and XP)

Edit:
Your problem is very strange, is the first time I read it in those forums, could be something very dark in your machine, if after all theses step s is still present the best will be contact Gog support.

Nevermind. Not DOSBox. Don't know what I was thinking.

My machine is fine. Did a total virus scan, reinstalled keyboard drivers, did a Windows Update...
Redownloaded the GOG installer (same bug applies to Fallout 2 as well), installed it to the Desktop, tried the suggested patches, ran it in 95/98/XP compatibility mode, renamed ddraw.dll...

It has nothing to do with the computer. I remember playing this from a physical disk on my parents' computer years ago, and it was buggy back then. The game was just poorly optimized from the start, and getting it to work has only gotten harder with each successive OS generation. GOG discontinued support since they no longer sell it.

Do not take personally when I say could be something "dark in your PC". The PC and laptops are a wide world, and there can be different behavior from different hardware with the software and O.S.. Maybe, something is wrong with the updated driver for your keyboard that Alienware don't care, maybe they don't care to fix it because the problem appears with apps from 20 years ago or older, or there are not reports to them.

By example, my same laptop with Linux Mint, Windows 8 and Win 8.1 had different behavior with Firefox 34-36, with Win8 Firefox just unresponsive and become unable to be killed. This was with the same hardware and software but different S.O. and drivers (as the drivers are made for the S.O. to know how to operate the hardware there are big difference between Linux - Windows drivers , and sometimes from version to version such as Win8 - Win8.1.

As result, some times the bugs one got from apps become very unique as are not related how the app/game operates internally but how the communication with the hardware is handled. With Fallout is more tricky, because truly they overwrite all the interruptions calls related to the keyboard (and maybe with other hardware).

As I said before, your problem is not a well-known bug for this game, do not means you are lying or you are the culprit by having that specific model or something like that, only that is going to be hard that the community can helps you more than the previous suggestions. Maybe with a Virtual machine or in another device you can play the game. Or maybe using the community patches could give the solution.

I only can say that I played without problem Fallout 1 and 2 with Win 7 and Win 8, using 64 bits processors with little of the community mods (just the fixer and wide-screen mode).

Though is very bad that gog truly don't give technical support for those games anymore.

They claim otherwise. The normal support link for removed games is broken. Use the Other Questions Issues one instead.

I am experiencing this exact issue (including the endless screenshots), also running an Alienware laptop (m17x).
I can add a couple points here that hopefully can help point to a solution.

Firstly, Fallout ran without ANY issues on my computer at first. This issue only came up after several hours of gameplay.

Secondly, I have installed Fallout 1 and 2 on my computer, both of them suffer this exact problem.

Thirdly, I have experienced this issue before with other programs, most notably when using DOSbox. At some point, it simply stopped accepting keyboard inputs, where before it had done so without issue. This leads me to believe that the problem lies somewhere in the laptop's keyboard settings being suddenly altered, but I haven't found any way to find out specifics in this regard.


I have tried all of the suggested solutions, rebooted, reinstalled the games, reinstalled keyboard drivers, I am running FIXT, etc.

Does anyone actually have an answer to the problem?