I just downloaded and installed this game, and everything works as it should. I wanted to install the children patch as I'm aware this is version 1.2, which contains no children.

I downloaded the patch, and the readme says to "Just unzip the F1ChildPatch.zip into your Fallout folder (example C:\InterPlay\Fallout\) and let it overwrite some files. After that, just launch the game."

My fallout folder is C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG.com\Fallout

I go to unzip the patch and it says access is denied for the .exe and "the system cannot specify the path" for the data\art\critters files. If I unzip the patch to desktop and try to drag the .exe manually to overwrite, it says "Could not find the master datafile. Please make sure the FALLOUT CD is in the drive and that you are running FALLOUT from the directory you installed it to"

Any idea what's going on? It's not that I'd be to bummed to play the game without it, but I am new to GOG games and would like to learn how to patch them, since I just bought like 6-7 games after discovering the service. I want to make sure I didn't do something weird that prohibits me from patching future games, since I have never had a problem patching games that were either purchased via hard copy or (shh) pirated.

There's others here who could help you much more than I could no doubt but I can offer this, if you're having access trouble with the .exe file, have you tried running it as an administrator?

I would recommend installing Fallout out of C:\Program Files. Try installing to C:\GOG.com\Fallout.

Yes, installing outside of Program Files would probably help.

Also, you shouldn't use the children patch anymore. It has been made obsolete by other patches. I recommend that you use the semi-official patch by TeamX instead, which restores children to the game and fixes some other things, too.

I wrote a post describing various patches and mods for Fallout 1: http://www.gog.com/en/forum/fallout_series/fallout_mods/post129

Thank you, the fix indeed was simply to not install in program files.

And as far as patches go, I did install the more comprehensive patches after reading the sticky. Thanks for the heads up. Though I don't think the NPC one (equip armor, be able to tell dogmeat to wait) worked, unless i'm just unsure how to do those things in game. No matter though, I don't mind the lack of certain fallout 2 features. Fallout 1 is just fine as is.