My Win 7 computer (updated/augmented as far as possible) plays EAW well, with a "Nod" to MarkEAW's help. Still, the old Win 7 computer has its' many limitations and isn't getting any younger. Some critical parts like cooling fans and even switches are becoming increasingly hard to find for older computers.

I wanted to continue to play EAW--and other, older games-- on my vastly better Win 10 computer. I also did not want to be forced to "recover" all the old games on the Win 7 drive and re-configure them for Win 10 playability. Doing so might be an impossibly difficult project.

As an experiment, I cloned the Win 7 SSD in its' entirety. The SSD contains EAW as well as many other, old, games. I installed the Win 7 SSD into my Win 10 computer, leaving the Win 10 drive as "Boot Drive". Once the computer has booted and stabilized, I select Win 7 drive, and lo and behold, all the games on the Win 7 drive play just like they did on the original Win 7 computer.

Note that both Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro computers have identical file systems and so forth. No encryption used.

I was kinda surprised it worked, but not knowing any better, just "accepted" it as "normal". My "Computer Guy " who is a professional with his own small shop and no shortage of customers, said I was crazy until I demonstrated it to him. I reckon he's still trying to figure out how this works. So am I.

TLDR: Try cloning your Win 7 (or other MS Op-Sys) drive and wiring it up on your more advanced Win 10 computer and using the older drive as an optional (non-boot) drive. Mine worked, maybe yours will work also. I have zero idea if this will work with Win 11.

Maybe, just maybe the eventual death of our "vintage" computers might not prevent our continuing to enjoy EAW and other games on more modern computers, with all their enhanced features.

I have a PC with a slot for the HDD with the operating system on it. I can use either a Win7 or a Win10 disk. The EAW files are on the internal drive.
Win10 has a slower frame rate, and EAW works better with Glide.

I believe that wiring/cabling all the drives directly to the Mother Board (IOW internally) as opposed to using external devices using much slower interfaces yields best performance. In so-saying, I was thinking of "tower" computers, and not laptops. Unsure how your computer is "connected" to your drive(s). Perhaps you can expand on this. Your "slot" may or may not provide optimal performance, compared to direct connection of the drive to the Mother Board. IDK.

My G/F has an elderly Dell laptop with provision for a "caddy" which allows cold "swap-out" of hard-drives which are directly connected to the MoBo. Interesting concept. Unfortunately limited by both I5 CPU (upgradeable to an I7 CPU), and by "mundane" non-replaceable Dell graphics card. Even so, the dedicated GFX card ought to be significantly better than the GFX cards for which EAW was originally intended. Her comp was upgraded to 16GB RAM. From what I understand her model of Dell Laptop is a "Business" model, which I'm told are built a lot more robustly than "Personal" laptops, but which do not seem to offer the option of "upgraded" GFX cards.

Even modern "Business" laptops which offer non-replaceable GFX cards, mid-range CPUs, and "decent" RAM are all far in excess of that which EAW and other "Vintage" games require. Such "Business" laptops obviously have their limitations, compared to all-out "Gaming" laptops which can cost up to $3K. Not at all necessary to pay anything like that price for a good EAW experience. YMMV.

I'm looking into replacing 15 year-old Dell N5050 laptop --which has been upgraded as far as possible with I7 CPU, 1Tb SSD, and 16 Mb RAM. Some mechanical features are becoming troublesome, specifically On/Off switch and the keyboard. I can repair these things, but comp is not compatible with Win 11, and will no longer be "supported" after 2025.

Anyways, thanks for responding Mr. Jelly, and all the very Best!

The terminals of the HDD plug into a slot on the container which is connected to a one of the HDD input terminals on the motherboard. Hence, the HDD is effectively connected to the motherboard.

Suggest that the configuration of your particular computer, with swappable drives, may be unavailable to most users. My previous posts were intended to help most other folks who did not have your innate "swappable" drives. Kinda like oranges and apples at this point. With all due respect, suggest trying my alternatives. Little to lose, and much to gain.