Windows 8 problem - Not launching games

Smad

I have a shiny new HP laptop that came with Windows 8 64-bit OS installed. Previously, I have been able to play all the Telltale Games on my old Windows 7 (64-bit) computer. A odd number of the games now throw me this message when I try to launch them:

"[gamename here].exe has stopped working." etc.

Here is a list of the games that currently not working:

*Sam and Max Seasons 1 2 and 3
*Monkey Island
*Back To The Future
*Strong Bad
*Puzzle Agent 1

And a list of the games that are working for me:

*The Walking Dead (which is odd, because while scouring the forums for answers, a lot more people seem to be having issues with this game then any other)
*Hector: Badge of Carnage
*Puzzle Agent 2
*Law and Order
*Jurassic Park

The list of non-functional games is almost as long of the list of functional ones. And I really don't like that the ones that aren't working are my 4 most favourite of the lot.

Does anyone have advice on what to do to get these games to work on Windows 8 64-bit?

DjNDB

I did some tests in my Windows 8 64-Bit VMware VM. I tested the first Episode of each game/season.

Sam and Max 301
Monkey Island 101
Back To The Future 101
Puzzle Agent 1

worked right away, so i couldn't see what could be wrong.

Strong Bad 101 crashed two times, and worked afterwards. I am not sure what happened there and wasn't able to reproduce the crashes.

Sam and Max 101 & Sam and Max 201 crashed with a d3d8.dll error. I found a workaround by deleting the prefs.prop that's created during installation from each episodes folder. It crashes each time when it switches to full screen, and deleting the prefs.prop makes it started in windowed mode. I haven't found a way to make it work in full screen yet.
It's also important to always run S&M S1 und S2 as administrator! They store the savegames in the install folder, and you won't be able to save successfully otherwise.


Have you tried to run the games in various compatibility modes?

If that doesn't work, please take a look into the "application" part of windows "event viewer" after trying to start each crashing game. Set a filter for "application errors" there to make it easier to find earlier attempts.
If you find anything related to the game, please right click the entries, select "copy the details as text", and paste them in a new reply.

Your dxdiag info can also be helpful.

dxdiag
Windows XP: Go to your start menu and click on run. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter
Windows Vista / 7: Press the windows key on your keyboard or click on the start menu. Type in "dxdiag" and hit enter.
Windows 8: At the start screen, type in "dxdiag" and hit enter

Now click on the button that says "save all information".
It will prompt you to save a file. Save it where you can find it.

Open the file and press Ctrl+A followed by Ctrl+C to copy the contents, and paste them in a reply by pressing CTRL-V.
Sometimes the Forums spam filter catches long posts like this. Don't worry, we can still see them and make them visible.

Smad

Ah I fixed it, by right-clicking on the .exe and "Run with graphics processor". Apparently those games were trying to auto-run with my integrated graphics instead of the Nvidia card. Weird. Thanks for the compatibility tip though, thanks!