Can only play Diablo 1 by running the 1.09 patch?

[Derf321]

Hey all!
I've been going crazy trying to set up Diablo 1 on my Windows 8.1 (x64) PC. I tried all compatibility settings, the explorer.exe-killing batch file, various directdraw patches, updating, and everything under the sun, but it still crashes right after I run diablo.exe. (and yes, the CD is in)

BUT, for whatever reason, if I run the 1.09 patch, it installs, and then at the end automatically boots Diablo 1 and it works completely fine! This is the strangest thing I've seen in a while, any ideas? I followed everything under the compatibility sticky on this forum (which was very helpful, thank you OP!)

Help!

[Belix]

Sorry, I didn't see this message until just now. Did you ever find a solution to this? If not, I'll leave a reply just in case you check back.

The only two explanations I can think of is that you're either running the patch in a different directory, which is bypassing a security restriction placed on the Diablo folder itself (e.g. if it is installed in Program Files) and treating the patch's directory as its working directory, or the patch is being run with elevated permissions (as an administrator), which would launch the game with the same permissions, which it normally doesn't have if you didn't tell it to run that way.

Try forcing the game to run as an administrator, or reinstalling Diablo in a different directory.

I can think of nothing about the patch program that should be doing anything special. As far as I know it simply sends a request to run Diablo.exe, just like what happens when you try to start the game yourself. So the two possibilities I described above are quirks about how Windows functions and could explain why the game only works when the patch asks it to start.

Good luck!