Hi RichG, no problem with dropping you a nod towards Combat-Helo. I've pretty much known of that sim right back to its first development in the early 2000s. It just never took off, pardon the pun, until a couple of years ago when the project was revived.

See my Combat-Helo 'tribute' site, which recreates the official website of the time to do with the earliest versions. Plus there are some exclusive screenshots and stuff there, that weren't on the original site. Note that the screenshots in no way represent the graphical quality of the new version of the sim, but give you a good idea of how far it came before it was scrapped and, since revived, how far it has come!

http://digitality.comyr.com/flyboy/chelo/

Thanks for the appreciation!

Regards, Flyboy

I've tried many advices and fixes to run LB2 on newer OS's, but nothing worked for me.

Finally, I managed to run it without any problems on virtual PC, using Oracle VirtualBox:
https://www.virtualbox.org/

It took me about 2 hours to set up VB (Win98 install, drivers, etc) and almost no time to install and run LB2.

Be sure to read all tutorials in full, they explain everything you need to set up VPC running Win98:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewforum.php?f=2&sid=89dbe000e7921c3fe43317b6fd5bc795

AV8R joystick is working OK, will try few more if time permits.

Hi BabaLooey, I tried running LB2 on WinXP in VirtualBox but could only get it to run in a window, in Software mode. Do you know a way to force VBox to run in fullscreen at 640x480 native resolution? Or did you somehow get LB2 to work with a glide wrapper in VBox and could force fullscreen that way?

Not sure about which window you are talking about, so to be on a safe side...

My monitor runs at 1280x1024.
I set up Win98 inside VBox to run at 1024x768, and VBox is windowed on my desktop.

When I run LB2, it switches to 640x480, and consequently, VBox window gets smaller. Therefore, I get a small window on my real desktop.

Almost the same thing happens when I switch VBox to "full screen". Only diff is that it fills the surrounding area of my (real) 1280x1024 with black border. Win98 @1024x768 and LB2 @640x480 are still at their resolutions and sizes, not over my real full screen.

When I choose "scale mode" I can resize the VBox window and maximaze it over my full (real) 1280x1024. However, then I get huge stuttering.
EDIT: This mode also crashes my VPC frequently when trying to switch back to another mode.


To sum up:
Not the best solution, but good enough. And very interesting for those that like to experiment with VPC.
But, in my opinion, the best solution - if you cannot run it on your OS - is to get another PC. Any old box. You can find those very cheaply, even in trash, or maybe you already have one.

Yeah, you have the same problem that I did - running in Software mode at 640x480 - you get a small 640x480 window (compared to my 1366x768 desktop res) with a black border. Like you said, not exactly ideal! I wish that when you make the guest OS fullscreen in VBox, that it scaled all games up to fullscreen that are run in the guest OS too.

Well, I tried all of advices on your website (btw, MANY THANKS for keeping it up and running!), but this one is the only that works on any and all of my PC's. And, it is kinda fun to play around with VPC.
On top of all, one can export such VPC and then install it on another PC without much problems. On second PC, all you need to do is to:
- install VB
- install VB extensions
- configure network card
- import VPC image

But, it is annoying to stare into this small window. Especially cos I plan to run it on another PC with even larger LCD. This one that I've installed at is for testing purposes, with 19" CRT, and is only a temp setup.
I was not able either to set up or acquire other VPC solution. Yet.

About the only other solutions that could work over full monitor are dual boot, and another (physical) PC. But, I hesitate to install dual boot on my main PC, and despite having another real PC, I cannot find a room for it.

I'm glad you found my site useful! Or not! But anyhow...

Thanks for contributing here, I have done the same sort of tests as yourself but as there wasn't any real positive outcome, I never bothered documenting it even for personal reference - never mind putting the info on my site.

What exactly were the problem(s) you encountered on your other PCs? I still might be able to help.

After my latest crash I never had time to re-install LB2 on Win7(32). Now that I have a little time, I tried it and it worked fine. Everything needed is in Flyboy's outstanding site.

Here is what I did:

1 - Manually created the installation folder (i.e. d:\games\flightsims\longbow2\)
2 - excluded the folder from the anti-virus program
3 - installed LB2 (using expert installation)
4 - installed "LB2-WinVista-7-Fix.exe Thanks to Flyboy!
5 - Installed Application Compatibility Tool kit with Phoenix "LB2_Crash_GUI_Sound_fix"
6 - Installed dgVoodoo included in Phoenix "LB2_Crash_GUI_Sound_fix" (set resolution to 1660x900)

Played a couple of missions and everything is fine. Even the previous anoying lines in the cockpit are gone!!! The only problem so far is the "edges" in the terrain looking too "jagged" (the terrain texture looks great, is just the edges). I will try to lower the resolution on dgVoodoo and see if that helps.

Edit:

Changed the Hi, Med and Lo "inis" settings to 1024x768 and edges look a lot better! The Cockpit lines returned but no big deal...

The Punisher - The fact that you could install LB2 means that you didn't need my LB2 Windows Vista/7 Fix package AT ALL! That 'patch' is just for those who cannot even install the game, and from the 200+Mb download you did to grab that, you only gained a few small fixes that I integrated, that you could have easily applied manually (such as the patch, DDU and CA.INI fix).

I thought we established a long time ago that altering the screen resolutions in those INI files made NO difference. You absolutely sure that you don't have the same jagged edges as before? Through much testing, I never saw any remarkable differences - and the ones I did think I saw, I believe were only placebo effects.

Hi Flyboy:

I just installed the Windows 7 Fix to be on the safe side (plus had all the patches in one single install). As far as the INI files, is been a while and I can't remember the details but I knew it wasn't so "jagged" so I started looking at all my saved files and found something about this settings and believe it or not, I might be crazy but it fixed the problem...