Railroad Tycoon 2 on Windows 7

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Railroad Tycoon 2 has a few known issues with running on Windows 7 especially 64bit. The most common problem with running Railroad Tycoon 2 on Windows 7 is a compatibility error when trying to run the setup from disk. It may look something like this:

"The program or feature ...\setup.exe cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of Windows"

If you happen encounter this error the only known solution is pretty low tech and tedious:

  1. Install the game on another computer with a 32bit operating system. This can be anything from Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows ME etc. The setup.exe is not compatible with 64 bit operating systems and must be run on a 32bit or lower operating system.
  2. Copy installed files to your Windows 7 64bit machine.
  3. Set your game executable to run in Windows XP compatibility. In your newly copied installation directory right click on your RT2_PLAT.EXE or RT2_TSC.EXE file (depending on which on you have) and select properties. Select the compatibility tab and run the program under Windows XP compatibility.
  4. Insert the CD and start the game via the RT2_PLAT.EXE or RT2_TSC.EXE file. One of these two files should be available in the installation directory you copied over. It is important you use this exe and not one on the CD as that will fail.

If you don’t have a second computer running a 32bit version of Windows or don’t want to bother with these steps buy the steam version of the game! It’s dirt cheap (~$5) and will work out of the box on 64bit machines. See the store page for more info.

If you’ve followed the above steps and are still having issues running Railroad Tycoon 2 on Windows 7, please post in the comments below. To increase your chances of a solution being found include as much detail as possible (which version of the game you’re running, what operating system you have, what video card you have and steps to reproduce the issue). Screenshots are also very useful!

If you’re looking for additional maps to play check out the RRT2Maps repo. You can find a full description on how to install these maps in the Railroad Tycoon 2 Maps post.

Sources: link 1, link 2

    Hi there, I have recently bought RRT2 from Steam for a bargain price of £3 however it does not work at all. I began with the problem where every time I clicked on it it would either say “Direct Draw Error (long number)” or “Can’t find steam” so I decided to contact 2K for help. They said I should try changing the compatibility settings which haven’t worked, I have disabled background applications and changed other troubleshoot problems such as resolution and colours but to no avail. I then contacted steam where I deleted all my files (except games and client) then reinstalled them all to create a fresh version of steam but still the game never opens and comes up with the same messages. At this point I’m like “what the heck should I do now” so I have shared my problem here in the hope that somebody can help me

    My computers specs are as follows:
    -64Bit Windows 7 Home Premium
    -Nvidia GTX 660 with the GeForce 337.88 driver
    -AMD FX 6300 3.5 GHz

    The game is from Steam so I’m assuming it has the latest update

    This is the same message I keep getting: http://puu.sh/9Chk7/0b863acf9b.jpg

    I hope somebody can help me

    Kind regards

    -Dan

      Hi Dan,

      Thanks adding so many details in your question! I have some questions for you:

      • Do any other games work with your current steam install, or is it just RRT2 that is giving you trouble?
      • Where did you install steam? E.g. my steam path is C:\games\steam
      • Have you looked through some common causes of the "Failed to find steam" error? I found this post which suggests to copy the file “steam.dll” from the steam folder to the games folder located under "steam\steamapps\common\Railroad Tycoon 2 Platinum". Try that and see if it helps.

    Hello again, I have no trouble loading any of my other games and I have tried putting my Steam files on my other hard drive but that didn’t work and I have tried adding the “steam.dll” file to where you said and that hasn’t worked either :/

    This is actually crazy :P

    Thanks again for the reply

    -Dan

      Hi Dan,
      I have a few more suggestions:

      • Try starting the game directly from the exe rather than through the steam library. The game exe can be found at "steam\steamapps\common\Railroad Tycoon 2 Platinum\RT2_PLAT.EXE" You can also try applying various compat options to the exe to see if any of them work (run as admin/win xp compat/disable desktop composition etc.)
      • Run steam itself as administrator –> locate the steam.exe or shortcut to it, go to properties -> compatibility options and check “Run as administrator”
      • Verify the integrity of the game cache. To do this right click on your RRT2 steam library entry > properties > local > verify integrity of game cache.
      • If you haven’t yet had a look at some of these related posts, check them out: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2081652 http://steamcommunity.com/app/7620/discussions/0/864945309934935023/

      Hope one of those works for you!

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