# Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventure"



## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventure"*

Hi Guys,

I'm trying to install the Windows PC game "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventure". It was a special edition of "Where in the U.S.A. is Carmen Sandiego?" released in 1998 by Broderbund as part of the Broderbund/The Learning Company Carmen Sandiego series.

I have had the game work before on my Win7 laptop system, but now I am unable to get the game to install at all. There are two versions of the game on the CD - a 16-bit and a 32-bit version; I am trying to install using the 32-bit version. However, the two relevant setup files: SETUP.EXE and SETUP32/IS_SETUP.EXE give the same error message:

_"The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you’re running. Check your computer’s system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program and then contact the software publisher."_

Even more strangely, each time I try to run the Broderbund "AUTORUN.EXE" installer, I click "Install" and nothing happens...

I've tried unzipping the game's entire files & subfolders to my HDD and I still get the same problem. 

Can anyone here help?


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hey there .o/

Looks like even the 32 bit installer calls a 16 bit program at some point, hence why you run into an error.
Unless there is an updated installer somewhere (there are some for Sierra games at the Sierra Help Pages, so perhaps with a bit of luck you can find one for this game somewhere too), then your best bet is probably to install it in a virtual machine running a 32 bit OS, for example using the Windows XP mode ( Install and use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 )


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*



Lachdanan said:


> Hey there .o/
> 
> Looks like even the 32 bit installer calls a 16 bit program at some point, hence why you run into an error.
> Unless there is an updated installer somewhere (there are some for Sierra games at the Sierra Help Pages, so perhaps with a bit of luck you can find one for this game somewhere too), then your best bet is probably to install it in a virtual machine running a 32 bit OS, for example using the Windows XP mode ( Install and use Windows XP Mode in Windows 7 )


Thanks for the reply!

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but the game isn't installed using DOS; it's a Windows PC game which uses InstallShield.


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hi Guys,

I've found this workaround:

ReactOS Website • View topic - Installing 32-bit programs with 16-bit setup launcher stubs

and I've overwritten the IS_SETUP.EXE file in SETUP32/ folder allowing the game to install. However, because the replacement IS3Engine @ reactOS only works with a program's files extracted to the HDD, I'm in a bit of a catch 22. When I go to run the installed game; I get an error saying that the game requires the original CD to be inserted into the C:/ drive, which is where the game installs to...


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Good find. Well then perhaps you can burn that folder to a CD, or better yet, make an ISO out of it and mount it on a virtual drive (so you don't waste a CD in case it doesn't work) ?


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hi again!

Well I tried to mount the image to an ISO, however, I run into another problem. The game requires a temporary folder called "_ISTMP0.DIR" to either be expanded on the disk or in the local Temp folder within Windows? When I install the program with all files ripped to the HDD on C, this allows the program to be installed, but causes another error message saying that the physical disk needs to be mounted in C Drive. I've tried to have a look inside regedit to see if there is a way of changing this value to a virtual disk used by DAEMN Tools, but without any luck. If it's permissible here, can I upload the game's .iso?


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hello there ^^

It's been a while :]

Well if you can't find anything related to the game using regedit, it must be somewhere in a config file, perhaps a .ini or .cfg (or even .dat), probably within the game's folder, or perhaps even under c:\windows as it was pretty common practice back then.


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Here is the entire contents of CSAMTK32.cfg (after the game is installed directly via the HDD - everything is on C drive):


[REGISTER]
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SOFTWARE\Brøderbund_Software\Carmen_Amtrak_Adventure\1.0=$INSTALLTODIR$

[general]
installername=setup16
wavedevice=0
mididevice=0
fontinstall=0
successcomment=
chaincommand=
wing=1

[quicktime]
qtwrequired=1
qtwversion=2.1.0
qtwcmdline=$INSTALLFROMDIR$\QTWSETUP\QTINSTAL.EXE
qtwsourcedir=
qtwsuccomm=The QuickTime installer will be run, since the application will by playing QuickTime movies.

[directories]
sourcedir=
MediaBuildDir=
targetdir=
InstallFromDir=C:\Users\Robert\Downloads\Carmen Sandiego\CarmenAmtrakUSA
InstallToDir=C:\Program Files\Carmen Sandiego Amtrak Train Adventure
InstallFromRoot=C:\Users\Robert\Downloads\Carmen Sandiego\CarmenAmtrakUSA

[proggroup]
groupname=Broderbund Software
pgicount=1

[pgi1]
pgicaption=Carmen Sandiego The Great Amtrak Train Adventure
pgicmd=$INSTALLTODIR$\CSAMTK32.EXE

[C:\]

[build]
sourcedir=

[install]
InstallFromDir=C:\Users\Robert\Downloads\Carmen Sandiego\CarmenAmtrakUSA\
InstallToDir=C:\Program Files\Carmen Sandiego Amtrak Train Adventure\
InstallFromDrive=C
InstallToDrive=C
InstallFromRoot=C:\Users\Robert\Downloads\Carmen Sandiego\CarmenAmtrakUSA\


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hi again, sorry for the late reply, I kind of forgot to check my e-mail for a while ^^'

Hmm so did you try changing the value of "InstallFromDrive" to point to your virtual drive (and perhaps also InstallFromDir and InstallFromRoot just so it's consistent) ?


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*



Lachdanan said:


> Hi again, sorry for the late reply, I kind of forgot to check my e-mail for a while ^^'
> 
> Hmm so did you try changing the value of "InstallFromDrive" to point to your virtual drive (and perhaps also InstallFromDir and InstallFromRoot just so it's consistent) ?


Hey there! Thanks for getting back to this thread. Yes I managed to install the game and edit the .cfg file successfully to direct it to the virtual drive and the game works! Now I have just one problem with the visuals in-game. The game runs both on 256 and millions of colours, but either setting has particular problems.

Comparing with this video (this YT user was nice enough to upload the original game for me!  ):






And this is the game's intro video:





In 256 colours: The intro video only plays sound. The Chief's and the database videos play with image and sound. The game crashes when I arrive in the correct state to track a VILE thief (shown by an animation of either RoboCrook, Carmine the Cat or Rick and Nick Ick Janitor Brothers).

In millions of Colours: The intro video plays both image and sound. The Chief's and the database videos are only monochrome green and white. The animations for arriving in a correct state are in different colours, although the game doesn't crash.


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

OK :]

Did you try running the game in one of the various compatibility modes, to see if that sorts the issue with colours and/or crashing ?


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## Deleted 03/18/17 (Feb 7, 2017)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Have you tried changing your display settings to get it to run "millions of colors"? I wonder if 16bit would work better. See here for instructions. To try 8bit(256) you can use the Windows Compatibility tab.


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*



Lachdanan said:


> OK :]
> 
> Did you try running the game in one of the various compatibility modes, to see if that sorts the issue with colours and/or crashing ?





Optimus1357 said:


> Have you tried changing your display settings to get it to run "millions of colors"? I wonder if 16bit would work better. See here for instructions. To try 8bit(256) you can use the Windows Compatibility tab.


Hi to you both. 

Yes, indeed, I did try running in compatibility mode; and that's how I got the results described above. The game only runs in 256 or thousands of colours. I ticked to run in 640x860; either 8-bit or 16-bit and disable DPI scaling.

I either get one of 2 scenarios:

Scenario A (16-bit 65536 colours): The intro video only plays sound; but the Chief and database videos play both image and sound. The game crashes when you travel to the first correct state during a case. This has something to do with the animations of the bad guys.

Scenario B (8-bit 256 colours): The intro video plays both image and sound; but the Chief and database videos only play sound (no image). The game doesn't crash when showing the bad guys' animations, but they're always discoloured (and the only animations which are discoloured throughout the game; all the others are fine)

Also, to confirm; I'm running this game in Windows 10.


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Does anyone know what "the NTVDM feature" is? Will it help to run the game in 16-bit colours?


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## Lachdanan (Apr 23, 2013)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*

Hmm I was thinking of the compatibility options such as "Run in compatibility mode for Windows 98" and such, not those directly related to colours and resolution.

Note however that if you've got Windows (or another program) to periodically change your desktop wallpaper, disabling that might help with the colour issues.


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## RobbieD_PL (Jul 15, 2015)

*Re: Installing "Where in America is Carmen Sandiego?: The Great Amtrak Train Adventur*



Lachdanan said:


> Hmm I was thinking of the compatibility options such as "Run in compatibility mode for Windows 98" and such, not those directly related to colours and resolution.
> 
> Note however that if you've got Windows (or another program) to periodically change your desktop wallpaper, disabling that might help with the colour issues.


I don't have a dynamic wallpaper as such. I just tried to edit the Draw Method in QuickTime 32 in the Control Panel, from the video driver to Draw Bitmap (BMP), and it's the same result of either a) the game crashes on 16-bit colors when travelling to a correct state and b) the discoloration of the bad guys' on 8-bit colors.


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