If you thought the sequel to StarCraft is exciting you might be surprised that the sequel to WarCraft can still be played on a modern operating system.
One of the problems though is that mulitplayer over local network requires IPX, a network technology that has been removed from Windows since Vista. But fear not. If you get IPXWrapper from here (alternativeĀ mirror) and drop the files in the WarCraft II program folder.
From the Read Me:
IPXwrapper is a winsock wrapper which transparently tunnels IPX packets over IPusing UDP port 54792. To use it, simply copy ipxwrapper.dll, wsock32.dll andmswsock.dll to the directory containing your legacy program.
When this step is complete you can launch WarCraft II and create a LAN game using IPX, as you normally would on a system with the IPX protocol installed. Remember to check that the firewall doesn’t block anything.
IPXWrapper also works for other games that require IPX, including C&C: Red Alert 2, Army Men RTS, Lords of Magic SE, Dark Reign, Diablo I (see detailed Diablo setup here) (List updated based on comments, thanks for any input!).
For an active WarCraft II community, take a look at War2Combat.
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Very helpful, thanks a lot!
worked great for warcraft2.
Thank you
your instructions were better than the solemn website. he only gives the instructions in the readme .txt file zipped up with the files
Brilliant stuff, thanks so much! Can finally play old games again!
Oh my gosh, I have been looking for a solution to my IPX problems since the day Vista came out, and here it is! Thank you so much for posting this, you wonderful person, you!
Worked well with Army men RTS, cool
This works for Lords of Magic SE Perfectly. Thanks so much! Small note as well this works in Windows 7 too!
Does this work for AOE2 Comquors expansion?
Uhh…!!! greate…. now i’d remmember the past jejeje thax….
Bloody brilliant, used it on a few old games i always enjoyed, dark reign being one of them
Thx, worked fine with RA2 and WC2 under Win7
Hey guys, I tried it for War2 BNE in Windows 7 and after I copy the folder to the WC2 folder in Program Files x64 and try to open IPX in the game it says “unable to locate IPX network”…any help please? I really wanna play this!!
First and foremost, thanks for this post, I bet it helped a lot of guys/girls out there to remember their magical days as children (are we not still ;p) š
Anywho, @RaZa:
You have to copy the folder contents (specifically, as stated above, mswsock.dll, wsock32.dll and ipxwrapper.dll) to the installation directory; not the directory itself, then run the game again.
PS: works under win7 x64 from the first try.
Cheers!
I’ve tried everything to get Diablo 1 working across two Windows 7 64-bit machines. This isn’t working either and it was my last resort. I’ve installed Diablo to:
C:\program files (x86)\diablo
on both machines, and dragged the 4 *.dll files from ipxwrapper 0.3.2 into the same folder (not in a subdirectory), and when I attempt to create the multiplayer game, it says:
“Unable to initialize selected connection method” sometimes.. but other times, it just kicks me back to the connection method selection screen. I’ve run ipxconfig.exe and made sure it was on the right adapter (I have 2 virtual machine adapters as well, so I disabled it from connecting with them) and it’s not working.
Can you please provide some assistance, or a screenshot of your game directory so I can see what it’s supposed to look like?
Thank you – Mark
mark at 1radpc dot com
**UPDATE**
I got it to work by going to the shortcut properties -> Compatibility -> Run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3.
Now, the people that will find this thread will more than likely have a color display issue with Diablo. They can fix the color display issue by using the task manager to kill Explorer.exe prior to launching the shortcut, then using the task manager to bring Explorer.exe back AFTER the game is CLOSED.
However, this is a hassle for most people, so I’ve included a batch file script below to solve the problem:
**NOTE** This fix applies to Diablo 1, running on Windows Vista or Windows 7:
Step 1.) Set your start menu Diablo shortcut to run in compatibility mode “Windows XP SP3″
Step 2.) Copy the below text:
=====COPY ONLY BELOW THIS LINE=====
@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\”Start Menu\Programs\Diablo\Diablo.lnk”
pause
start explorer.exe
exit
=====COPY ONLY ABOVE THIS LINE=====
Step 3.) Open Notepad
Step 4.) Paste the above selection into notepad
Step 5.) Save the file to your desktop as “Diablo.bat”, making sure to change the “File type” to “All files (*.*)” before clicking save.
Step 6.) Run the file to launch Diablo.
What this batch file does is:
– Kills explorer.exe to fix the color problem most users on Vista/7 experience
– runs diablo from the modified SHORTCUT which forces Windows XP SP3 compatibility
— forced XPSP3 compatibility enables the IPXWrapper to work in Vista/7
– When the game ends, you’re instructed to press any key to continue
— Doing so will relaunch explorer.exe, bringing back your desktop icons and taskbar
– Exits the batch file
I hope other people find this helpful, your blog started the solution for me, so I’m posting this solution here and cross linking my website to yours. Thank you again.
I have a red alert 2 problem, I am trying to run a network game with two of my computers one running X64 win 7, the other running XP Pro X64. I have followed the above installation w/the wrapper and have gotten the win7 to allow network game to be started but when I try to connect the two pc’s do not see/communicate. Please help?? This is so frustrating!! Why the hell would Microsoft put this kind of junk out? I mean keep the protocols from old systems working in the new systems!!
Thankx for the post. Its is really helpfull
Re: Joshua according to the readme file; it will not support for the real IPX.
“Software using IPXWrapper can’t communicate with software that is using the real
IPX protocol and vice-versa.”
I downloaded this, got it working no problem with Diablo 1. I am currently trying to get it working with Warcraft 2 and can’t seem to do it. I downloaded and installed warcraft 2 (v1.0 RETAIL, no expansion). Copy the .dll files for IPXwrapper to the warcraft 2 folder, and still, when I attept to open an IPX game it simply says “unable to locate IPX network” I am not sure if anyone else knows if I need to figure out how to patch it or download a certain copy or what.
Again, I got this working with Diablo, understand how to do it, but it’s simply not working the same way with warcraft 2. Any help, links, etc, would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.