"Ohm, it's a maze!"
Games have to be programmed for all kinds of systems. One soundcard is very different from the other. Sometimes you start a game and it just doesn't work properly. Luckily I never had that problem with the 7th guest, but unfortunately other people had. Here is a little Tech Support by yours truly:
Q: I have a dos-version of the seventh guest, can I run this in Windows 95/98/00?
A: Yes you can, I was able to play these games in the dos-prompt and in the dos-environment (click start, click
end windows button, choose restart in dos). But I got a lot of emails from people who tried this and the game still
didn't work. There is a solution. There are patches on this site in the
Kitchen. This patch upgrades your dos-version to the windows version. The fact that the game now runs under windows solves a lot of problems with soundcards and memory-issues. But it also adds new problems. With the new version, the movies sometimes flicker in strange colors, the timing of the animations do not match the music, the old save games don't work, sometimes background music disappears and the game sometimes crashes. So, use the patch as a last resort. Getting the game to work in dos is still the best end way to experience the game.
The way to get rid of the strange flickering is to make the window smaller. During gameplay, push 'alt' and 'enter' at the same time. The window is now about 1/3 of the screen, it may not be nice to see windows while playing, but at least is solves the color problem.
Below is a mini-tutorial on how to use thise patch.
The use of this patch is luckily very easy. You click on the file called t7gwin.zip. You then use winzip (a program that can be downloaded free of charge from the internet). If you have that program it wil automatically open the zip file. A zip file is a compressed file that contains a couple of files. What you do once you open this is simple. Click the extract button, winzip will ask where you want to put the extracted files. Direct it to the directory where the seventh guest is installed. (the default directory is c:\id\t7g). Then close winzip and go to that directory. You will find the file 'v32tng.exe', click on this and it will do the rest, it will make a file that has a windows icon. If you want to play the game under windows, click that file.
The file you must click to run t7g under windows is called v32.tng and has a drama mask as it's icon.
Q: Where can I buy the seventh guest and the 11th hour online?
A: On Amazon they sell the 7th guest and it's sequel. Also you can look
for the game in their auction.Cd Access sells the sequel, the 11th hour.
Q: I get an error about something called groovie.ini, it says it can't find something.
A: Groovie.ini is a file which tells the game what hardware to use and where that hardware can be found on your computer. You give that info when you install the game. When he gives an error it's probably because you have given it the wrong info about your soundcard. For instance a wrong dma or irq setting. Do you know your irq-setting? You can check this out in windows. Open configurationscreen->system. One of the tabs contains a list of all your hardware. In that list you will find info about your soundcard. Click on that item in the list. This will open a new window. This has three tabs about that soundcard. The last one will tell what irq your soundcard has. Remember that there are two parts of your card. One for speech (audio) and one for midi. Keep these two parts seperated so that you don't mix them up in the installation.