One thing I've noticed about Alexander is that the preferences either don't work or don't stick between launches of the game. So when the game is launched again the user has to re-enter them. Is there a way to manually set these so that they stick between games?

The most annoying of these is the "combat animation" which the player can't select until the AI's turn is over and the player gets control. I've even tried resetting this from the registry without success. Does anyone remember if this worked in the original game?

Peering through the registry entries there is one listed for "sparse trees" but this is not listed in the game preferences menu. Is this just a GOG carryover from the other later game registry entries, or can it be made to work?

There is also a preferences registry entry listed as "Do not use"... which is in about the same place as the group move confirmation entry is for the other games. I've tried toggling it in the registry but it just resets after the game launches.

It looks like the registry settings might be reset by the GOG files, perhaps to turn off ones that would cause a crash. Anything I change for Alex resets to defaults after the game is launched and I re-examine the registry. I've not found a file location (outside of the registry) where the values are stored to try changing them.

The preferences aren't in start.bat. They aren't in Intro.exe (which is the starting video.) I know this because I edited start.bat to remove the launch of this file without any affect other than removing the video. Skipping start.bat completely and launching Alex.exe directly removes the launch command boxes, but does not change preferences behavior. Are the preferences set within the modified Alex.exe or are they buried inside another GOG file installed in the directory?