How To Install and Play Red Alert 1 On Windows 7 64-bit
Revisions:
7-11-11: Initial release.
Did you know that if you try to install Red Alert 1 on your Windows 7 64bit machine, you get this error:
Even if you attempt to do compatibility mode with Windows 95, you get the same error on a Windows 7 64-bit machine.
Does this mean that you can never ever play this game on modern machines? Well guess what, now you can! All you need to do is go to http://www.dosbox.com and download the latest version of Dosbox. From there, you can use this program to emulate older games in a dos environment and play it on modern machines.
See the video tutorial below to see how its done.
Posted on July 11, 2011, in News and tagged 64-bit, dosbox, Red Alert, Windows. Bookmark the permalink. 54 Comments.
Hey I followed your instructions and the game has installed but now it can’t see the disc in my drive. It keeps saying ‘Please insert a Red Alert CD into the CD-ROM drive’. I’ve configured the drives as they should be. My CD-ROM is drive D and I mounted as K and my hard drive is drive C mounted as J. Originally I came up with one WESTWOOD dir after installation and it kept saying illegal command when I typed it in so I moved all the files from the WESTWOOD folder straight into the ‘oldgames’ folder I created. Now I get in but it won’t recognise the CD. Am I doing something wrong?
Something is really screwed up. Please install the game from the mounted drive. Then run the ra.exe from within dosbox.
have one for installing counterstrike and aftermath?
No, but the concept is still the same.
Guys – I tried to do as per your video instructions and doesn’t work. so to be more specific I am not really familiar with all these commands – Would you please help me set this up within my laptop’s terms? I just have C drive and D drive (cdrom) and I actually have the original CDs of the game but it wont let me install it as I have the 64 bit version (on windows 7) and not 32 version.
really looking for a reply on this -thanks a lot!
It’s just like in the video, but replace my cd rom drive letter with yours is all.
Hey! – thanks for that, I was able to mount the cd rom, the westwood dir is installed but after that tells me to standby…and I waited for 20 mins and nothing happened…am I by any chance doing something wrong here?
Did you do the whole sound card thing?
Yep – done that and worked fine – but the part where you wait to for the game to start..and be able to play never started…after the sound check and after the westwood dir it just said ..please standby…
Run dosbox in admin mode?
i ran dosbox as admin and got stuck at please standby … again.
Guys, you need to see the follow up red alert 1 video I redid at youtube channel gamedexterity.
Same problem for me, I’m stuck at “Please Standby”. I could however exit the installation and start the RA editor(albeit with some graphical issues). I tried running Dosbox as admin but that didn’t help. Any ideas?
Use the portable game edition then: http://gamedexterity.wikispaces.com/Versatile%27s+Portable+Games
when I tried it came as:
win SETUP.EXE
Illegal command: win.
HELP
Not good. Go to gamedexterity.wikispaces.com, go to the game section, and download portable red alert 1.
It works just fine, but how do i start the game again?
Hi, i have followed your instructions, but when i´m typ setup, somethings gets wrong and i get a messege that “unable to load setup.mix file from cdrom disc.
press eny key after u have inseted the cdrom disc ore esc to exit.
How do i take care of this problen?
Do you have corrupt disc? Try again.
dude every time i try to do the backslash in the dosBOX prgram, it just jumpes down a line and i cant come back to what i was trying to write. so everytime i try writting: mount d i:\ it just jumes down a line….
omg:( help?
USA keyboard? If not, turn to the USA keyboard setting in control panels and try again.
ty.
redalert1.com
Play for free online or alone.
I play on Windows 7
hi, thanks for uploading this guide. i’m shit with computers but managed to follow your vid and complete installation. i got to the point where it says ‘press any key’, when i do it loads a black screen with centered white text saying; ‘please standby’, then nothing happens. any ideas? thanks in advance.
Run it as admin?
running doshbox wont relove the standby problem … :S
lol at the mistakes xD… running dosbox as admin wont resolve the problem, tried everything.
I have a real copy of red alert on disc. Try installing from disc and see what happens then.
i dont have disc, i downloaded the file from internet, if im trying to install it from there i get the error… or if i understood something wrong then plz explain, would really like to play the game
Using dosbox, you should be able to install it fine. Run everything as admin.
I have installed the game but when I run the RA file it tells me to insert the red alert CD but I have it in the CD drive. Can you help me please
You need to use dosbox. Did you see the dosbox video yet?
yeah I am running the RA file from dosbox but it still tells me to enter the CD even though it is in the CD drive
See other comment from riedmatten.
I have done what reidmatten has done but now I get an error message on dosbox saying error – insufficient disk space to run Red Alert
Red Alert requires 8,388,608 bytes of disk space. Please read the Red Alert manual for more information.
This is too odd. Did you make a oldgames folder on the C drive? Then you install red alert to that.
yes I did
Problem is I am unable to reproduce this issue. Do you care about single player, or you just want multiplayer?
I have got it working now
thanks anyway
How about you tell the rest of us what you did to make it work?
After you have installed the game, how do you play it again?????
i mean, after you have installed, played and closed the game, how do you start it up again without having to re-install?
Navigate to your red alert directory and run ra.exe I think.
Then I get a weird error message
Oh I got it.
To start the game up again, typ in the same as with the setup:
mount d d:\ -t cdrom
mount c c:\(file where RA is installed)
but then type in:
C:
WESTWOOD\REDALERT\RA
now you can resume the game where you left it, saved games etc.
Yes, or you can make a .bat file or use d-fend reloaded to make life a little bit easier.
Awsome! Thanks alot!
Well now my hair looks like einstein but still no luck to mount correctly the directories.
In my case i have hdd C and D ( in drive D i have created a file named: games)
also have dvd rw drive E and using daemon program i have 2 virtual drives F and H with cd 1 and 2 of ra1 respectively
I typed mount I E:\ -t cdrom and mount C D:\games. so far so good.
Now , in your video you type d and u press dir in order to find the setup.exe file.
I must press f: but it says that i must mount it first ,sooo i type F E:\ -t cdrom and then it says :failure, drive letters of multiple cd-rom drive have to be continuous.
What must i do ? thank you in advance
You messed up with your type:
Mount C D:\games
Mount I F:\ -t cdrom
cd I
Dir
setup.exe
I made your Virtual CD drive F the new drive as letter I.
Please note I made a follow up video for RA1, see it here:
I got all the way to time 3:32 in the tutorial, but whenever I say where to install the program it says, “INVALID DRIVE LETTER. PLEASE SELECT ANOTHER DRIVE.” What should I do?
Thanks
Nevermind completely, just figured it out.
I got the same error message “INVALID DRIVE LETTER. PLEASE SELECT ANOTHER DRIVE.” how did you fix that? it wont install on the drive i created or the actual C drive
Guys, why are you NOT watching this video below???