So..I've tried almost everything to get The Bard's Tale 2005 running. I am running it under Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64. My specs :

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 3.00GHz
RAM: 4GB
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 @ 2GB

I've tried almost every solution suggested: trying every compatibility mode, updating controllers and codecs, running as an administrator, uninstalling and reinstalling, change settings with the setup utility, installing DirectX 2010.... I don't know what else to do.

Whe I double click on the desktop icon the screen just flashes (sometimes in black, sometimes in white, depending on the options of the compatibility mode) and that's it. I have to bring up the task manager and close the process (which appears in the process tab, but not in the applications tab, oddly).

I don't know if anybody else had this problem or similar in this system. I'd appreciate any help.

Thanks in advance

Do you have Nvidia GeForce Experience installed? If so, try deactivating or better uninstalling it. Maybe it's causing trouble.

I've tried disabling it with no success. I'll try uninstalling tomorrow.

I found that the opening WMV's would cause the game to not work/start.
MY initial playing issue:

All WMV video files would play on my 32 bit media player outside of the game.

I found the game would get through the setup; would start the logo videos, but the TSlogo.wmv never would run. The book and initial player settings would work only if I renamed the tslogo.WMV video to something else so the game didn't find it and would not try to play it.

When I would start a new game, initially it would go to a blank screen and stay that way. If i renamed the intro_ge.WMV video to just intro.WMV (english version) then the intro played and i could play the game.

The German movie would play and be in German, but the subtitles would be in English. This happened on the INTRO.wmv and the Finnoach.wmv at the end.

my system is win7 64 bit.

Hi Grizlyone

Your solution worked for me - I only changed the Intro.wmv as you suggested and the problem was resolved -
I guess the English track was encoded wrongly and does not work with 64Bit Windows 7.

thanks

Before having 64bit it would not even install for me. I used IORBIT uninstaller and took it off. After talking to someone about it later who said reinstall again, it worked! Yet is says 64x will not work with it? Don't ask me, no clue. But the first BT is running way to fast.....

Still trying to make it work. Listed solutions haven't worked. :/

Damn! I got it working! I read on another forum that unplugging the controllers will do the trick, so I tried that. And it worked!! Can't believe it! Woohoooo!