It is recommended that you use the SHP King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow Installer to install King's Quest VI. It will automatically setup the right version for your system. The following information is only for those who wish to manually setup the game.
To get King's Quest VI to run in modern Windows you can install the DOS version (INSTALL.EXE not the Windows SETUP.EXE) in DOSBox.
This should work flawlessly, however you will not get the hi-res dialog portraits that you get with the Windows version and you will have larger, cruder cursors.
(Note that floppy version has no voice track and is DOS only.)
NOTICE: The following information is now dated and only applies to Windows 2000 and Windows XP 32-bit. The game will install normally on Vista 32-bit and Windows 7 32-bit. For Windows XP you can use the SHP King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow Installer to set it up automatically. Owners of 64-bit Windows will need to run the DOS version in DOSBox or the Windows version of the game in an emulator. The Windows version can now be played in Windows 3x installed in the DOSBox. This solution will avoid the cursor bug encountered by the VDMS method found below, but may have less than optimal sound quality.
Normally if you try to run KQ6 in a version of Win NT (both Windows 2000 and XP) the Windows 16 bit launcher, "WOWEXEC.EXE" starts up and then will get locked up in memory before KQ6 can even launch. Even though VDMSound is for DOS applications, I have found a way to use it to get around this problem.
The only problem is that there is a bug with the cursor in the game. When you change the function of the cursor (WALK to TALK for example,) it appears that it
did not change its function when in fact it did. This is only a minor problem which can be worked around by moving the cursor out of the game window and back in.
If you do it quickly, I found that it doesn't interfere too much with the game play. If you can live with this bug, then here is how to get the Windows version
going in 2000/XP:
C:\SIERRA\KQ6CD
The default for the 2nd collection is:
C:\SIERRA\KQC\KQ6CD
and for the Roberta Williams Anthology:
C:\SIERRA\RWANTH\KQ6W
[info]
title=King's Quest VI
cursorview=TRUE
minhunk=204K minhires=375K
audioBuffs=2
synthtype=highsynth
genmidi=true audpath=C:\SIERRA\KQ6CD
audio=C:\SIERRA\KQ6CD
sync=C:\SIERRA\KQ6CD
Sciwv.exe win\sierra.ini
Note: Some versions of the game don't place the sierra.ini file in a WIN subfolder. For the second collection - The King's Quest Collection Series (on three discs with KQ1-7, both Laura Bows, some old Apple games and the making of KQ Mask of Eternity) the SIERRA.INI file is in your game's folder. The default installed location is C:\SIERRA\KQC\KQ6CD\ on your hard drive.
For the Roberta Williams' Anthology the SIERRA.INI file is in your game's folder with a default installed location of "C:\SIERRA\RWANTH\KQ6W\". If you installed The Roberta Williams' Anthology in its default location, the BAT file in this case the batch file should be:
Sciwv.exe sierra.ini
NOTE: If you can't find any .ini files, you probably have explorer set to hide the extensions of registered file types. You can change this by opening up the Windows Explorer and go to Tools-> Folder Options...-> and go to the view tab and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types."
Save this batch file in your game's folder as " King's Quest VI.bat ". The exact name does not matter, but be sure it ends with the ".bat" extension. Or you can UnZIP this batch file to your game folder.
In the game folder you will now find a VDMS shortcut like the one to the left. If you right click on it and go to the properties, you can change some settings such as "Close DOS window on exit" and in the advanced settings you can even change the icon to the King's Quest VI icon. You can copy it to the desktop or where ever you want it (even in your start menu if you want). You can launch the game now by just double clicking this shortcut.
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