No old games work after upgrading to Win 7 from Win XP: do I have to reinstall everything? [SOLVED]

[Mhaedros]

Hi everyone! I bought new parts to my gaming computer recently, but now none of my old games will launch (I had them on an external drive while updating so I wouldn't have to reinstall everything again) Now I'm wondering if I have to reinstall them anyway.

Cheers

[irishron]

To get the registry keys back, yes, reinstall.

[Mhaedros]

So I tried reinstalling Mount & Blade, but after the intro video it chrashes with the text:

Warning: Nothing will be rendered.
The reference rendering device was selected, but your computer only has a reduced-functionality reference device installed. Install the DirectX SDK to get the full reference device.

I really have no idea what's wrong here

[irishron]

Install new grahpics drivers?
Install the motherboard drivers?

[PoleCat]

In addition to what irishron has suggested also make sure you've installed the latest DirectX package as well. There should be no reason for you to need to install the DX developer toolkit in order to play games. But that's exactly what that error message is indicating.

Also make sure your .NET files are fully updated. IIRC you'll need the .NET 3.5 package and .Net 4.0 to be current - but I could be a little behind. Good luck!

[Mhaedros]

Didn't think about updating the graphicscard drivers Thanks and +rep to both of you

[MikeNice808]

Hey also right click on the short cut...go to properties I think...there is a thing called compatability...change compatablity back to XP....I just got Win8 and MTW2 wouldn't work...so I changed the compatablility to windows 2000 and it works like a charm....