Because Of How The World Works...

I've had to upgrade to Windows 11... I know, I said I wouldn't. I said it was terrible... But now that I'm here, and functionally bent Windows 11 to my will and do my bidding rather than the other way around? It's... Not terrible... In fact it's kinda good... These are truly, the end of days...

THAT BEING SAID: I figured out how to get the game to run flawlessly on Windows 11!

If You Have Windows 11, Follow This One Step:

Literally the first step of this guide. I simply renamed the file as shown in that step, and it ran perfectly fine. No flaws, no errors, no crashes.

IF for whatever reason, it doesn't work for you, user "luke2u" in the comments edited their "options.xml" file with these changes:

<ShowIntro>FALSE</ShowIntro>
<AlwaysRun>TRUE</AlwaysRun>
<ShellBackgroundIndex>0</ShellBackgroundIndex>
<VideoResolution Width = "1280" Height = "1024" BitDepth = "32"/>
<UsePrimaryDisplay>TRUE</UsePrimaryDisplay>
<CompressTextures>FALSE</CompressTextures>
<ZBufferBits>24</ZBufferBits>

Opening The Options File

This won't have fancy pictures or demeaning talk as I'm actually on a bit of a time crunch at the time of writing, so I'll keep it brief and unentertaining:

In your main folder for Ghost Recon, the same one with that file you had to rename, there should be another file called "options.xml".

If you right click that file, and select "edit with notepad" or whatever "edit" option you have, you should be able to open it up, edit in the above values, and save that file. Done.

Assuming the name change alone option didn't work, this should work.

If It Still Doesn't Work

The only other things I can think of that would make it work, is if you've done the above steps, and changed the Ghost Recon executable to run in Windows XP Service Pack 2. For steps on compatibility modes, just continue reading this guide.

Bear in mind, the rest of this guide came before this addition... And it gets... Interesting.

That being said, I may release a newer guide here soon just for Windows 11 users.

Again, like to give a shoutout to luke2u for the options.xml changes, as those might not just help crashes, but also may help those with wider monitors and bigger screens.

Here is luke2u's original post:



EDIT OF EDITS 2024: Due to recent updates within the Windows Framework, this game either will not run on modern systems, or will have some... Well, issues.

The best bet I can give is run an emulator like x86Box or something other that will run a Windows XP emulation. This is a gray-zone territory, so I highly recommend you use an official copy of Windows XP, because files you pick up from anywhere can be very bad and have very bad things.

FOR LEGAL REASONS I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW TO DO THIS, NOR CAN I TELL YOU WHERE TO GET X Y OR Z

Google and Reddit exists. I will be leaving this guide up because it may still help some, but as time progresses this guide will probably just be a thing of the past. Just how the way it goes, sadly. :/

Okay. Your FIRST STEP:

Head on into your file browser... Oh I should mention. I'm on Windows 10, x64 operating system. Dunno what you're running, but this is what worked for me, so... Yeah. I don't know everything, I just know what I know.

Anyway, where was I? ... Uhhh... OH YEAH! Alright! File Browser. So you head into your file browser, and locate your game's folder. This entirely depends on if you're using an External, or Internal memory source.

For Internal Memory (Basically you installed it to your C Drive):


C://Programs(x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Ghost Recon/

For those of you who are like me with dinky little internal memory storage, and use an external, here's where you can find your folder:


(external letter here)://SteamLibrary/steamapps/common/Ghost Recon/


Got you're folder? ... I'll wait... Okay you got it now? ... You can't find it?? ... You installed it somewhere else?!? Why would you do that?? ... Well listen, if you installed it somewhere else, then you can find it somewhere else. I'm not a genius. I'm not a mind reader. Just get the folder!

Got you're folder now?? ... Good! NEXT STEP:

Inside your Ghost Recon folder there will be a file called "dbghelp.dll"

IMAGE:



Right click the file, select "Rename" and name it "dbghelp_old.dll" then hit enter.



IMAGE:

DO NOT COPY THE ORIGINAL FILE. There can only be ONE of these files in this folder.

You're done with this part of it, but that's only half the battle. Proceed to the next stage:

ALRIGHT! With THAT out of the way, now it's time to run Compatibility Mode. I'm not gonna bother tellin ya how tech changes and software does too, or how Compatibility Mode basically just emulates the old versions of WIndows so old software works properly...

Instead I'm just gonna tell you what to do. You're gonna do it. And it's gonna work.

While still in your Ghost Recon folder, find the APPLICATION FILE "Ghost Recon". There are TWO files that LOOK the same but are very, very different. One's going to be an executable (.exe) file, and the other's going to be the icon file. We want the .exe file.

IMAGE:

WITH THAT FOUND:

You're going to Right Click the file, and select Properties from the drop down menu.

ANOTHER IMAGE:

AND FINALLY!

With THAT done, you should have a menu pop up. In that menu there are several tabs, go over to the Compatibility tab.

Got that? ... Good.

In this tab there will be many options, however you only need to worry yourself with two of them. The rest can go away... Don't... Take that literally, it was more terrible and dry humor.

You're going to want to find the option that says, "Compatibility Mode".

You're going to see a checkbox that reads "Run this program in compatibility mode for:"

Check that box. The drop box below it should now be interact...A...Ble... Interactable... Iunno. Sounded smart. ANYWAY!

With that drop box menu down you're going to want to find "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" and click it.

The menu should now have the "Run this program" option checked, and "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" as the drop down box.

If it is? Good. If it isn't... GO BACK AND DO IT!

The FINAL Step:

Did you exit that menu? No? Good. Yes? WHAT ARE YOU DOIN! I didn't say to do that! Oh... You didn't... And now I'm just being a jerk... Well... Okay... I'll accept that.

ANYWAY! Final Step, For Real This Time:

Head on lower then that Compatibility Menu nonsense and find where it says, "Run this program as an administrator"

It'll be a check box, make sure that gets checked off.

Now... I've heard this step isn't needed. However when I ran the game WITHOUT this step, it'd crash when I loaded into any levels. With this option checked? No more crashing! WOOHOO!

Once that's checked, click "Apply" and you're menu should look like this:

IMAGE:

IF IT DOESN'T

Fix any mistakes to make it look like this, then hit "Apply" and finally, hit "OK"

WOOHOO! It's done!

Did you find my terrible sense of humor funny? You can keep reading past this point. If you found me horribly annoying? GREAT! I'M NOT MAD! I'M GLAD! ... You can proceed to playing the game.

Yeah. As said. It's done. You should be able to play now. Online? HO-HOOOOOOO! Buddy. We're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here. One step at a time, slugger.

Now if only I could get some help with...