Some funny or "funny" experience I had with them recently.
I have all the games apart 5 (due to drm), on discs.
I tried installing the first one, I couldn't on my Vista 64 main PC, I tried it on my XP32 netbook and it installed fine, but whenever I tried to run the game I would get a blue screen of death.
I gave up on it.
I couldn't find SH2 disc so I bought the GOG version. I installed it on my netbook, ran fine. It's quite the experience playing a sub sim at night with no lights, while in bed on a netbook. :)
Yesterday I decided to install SH3 and 4 on my main PC. I got them when they were released, but never got to play them! (weird reason too, I am a Silent Service guy so I see SH as an "enemy" lol)
I couldn't make SH3 run at all. It would come up with a OS is not one of those required error. I tried all the usual tricks, but nothing. It was just one of the games that wouldn't run under Vista 64 (very very few). Or at least that's what I thought at first. I searched and searched and found some solutions. Downloading newer version of Starforce drivers (I k now I know), and fiddling with cfg files etc. I wasn't in a good mood so I decided to download a no CD crack. Guess what, it fraking worked. Game runs fine. It was the DRM causing the issue.
Second time this happens to me, previous one was with a Codemasters' title.
SH4 installed just fine.
I played 2 single player missions on SH3 and 4. Very similar experience. SH4 feels a bit more updated in terms of GUI, like a newer version or something :p
Still, the 3D graphics are very similar IMO, apart from the 3D characters in the sub, in SH3 they look bad.
Not sure if this thread had any point. I guess I just wish I had a new Silent Service.

SH3 is one of my very favourite games and I was really looking forward to 5 but then there was this ubisoft crap...
I'm pretty sure I solved my SH3 problem the same way, by running the noDVD but then I do that to all of my games so I can't be certain if that was the solution.

DRM bad, Silent Hunter good?

I too am now back in SIlent Hunter after the release of SH5. I didn't get SH5 due to the drm and reports of a broken game, but reading about it quickly lead me to the many SH3 mods that are out.
Long story short I downloaded the Grey Wolves 3 (Gold) supermod, SH3 Commander (tracks your career and make it realistic), and the UI mod OLC Gold Mk2 with a bunch of smaller mods. Been running like this over the weekend learning how to manual target with the OLC mod and manual track on the nav map. Gonna be a while before I feel I'm good, but it will be fun.
I even got one of my friends to buy and ship me SH4+ expansion (he got it for $6 new... can't beat that) so I can look forward to that some time next week.
If your running any of the Silent Hunters I suggest going to [url]www.subsim[/url].com and looking at the mods. Soooo many mods out for the series, and even SH5 has quite a few already.
On a side note I may get SH5 at some point, but I would need to see a fair bit of dev support and a number of big good mods out. At least the good news it that SH5 seems to be much more modifiable then any of the previous SH games.

Any chance that GOG will make available Silent Hunter Conmmander's Edition? I loved this game on my pre- Windows XP system. I have not found any reliable patches to get this program to work on my current XP operating system.

Anyone here who can confirm that GOG's Silent Hunter II can run on Windows 7 64?