Running XP Ys The Oath in Felghana and Ys VI on Windows 7

Before I begin, I assume you are familiar with running Japanese games on your PC. I always run mine in Japanese mode instead of using Applocale, but whatever works for you!
Now, I couldn't find a guide for this anywhere for these specific games, and I know there are some others who are having the same problems I had. Well I have finally gotten both games running perfectly, and I'll tell you exactly what I did. Hopefully it will help you too!

I'm always learning new things, but I'm a person of limited technical skill when it comes to computers. So when I got a laptop with Windows 7 (64-bit) I immediately started going through my Falcom "XP" PC games collection to check their compatibility. I haven't bought any of Falcom's Windows 7 or Vista versions as of yet. Out of 12 games, the only two that didn't work at all were Ys VI and Ys - The Oath in Felghana.

Here's a screenshot of my current laptop's specs:


IS IT WINDOWS 7 SERVICE PACK 1?
Now my system didn't come with Service Pack 1, and coincidentally, I only tried using this method to get the games to work after upgrading to SP1. I don't know if that presented an issue for these two games specifically, since all my other Falcom titles worked fine without WIN7 SP1. I wanted to mention that just in case you haven't upgraded, it may be necessary. SP1 should install in your automatic updates. I'll link to Microsoft at the end of this post.

FALCOM'S SUPPORT PATCHES WERE THE KEY
Looking around for help, I always encountered the same tips:

1. Under Properties for the game, check compatibility mode, and run for compatibility with a previous version of windows.
2. Run as administrator
3. Check the game company's website for patches.

Under XP, I never had to install any support patches for Falcom's PC games. I've now found that it was necessary for the two games in question to work on Windows 7. At least in my case that was definitely part of the issue. Before I go further, I would like to mention that I have the first, or Limited Editions of both games, DVD-ROM versions. But I don't think that should be a problem, you just need to download and install the support patches directly from Falcom.

Installing the games and the English patches won't work at first. I tried it dozens of times. For some reason, and I don't know if it's just Win7, but installing the English patches didn't properly install Falcom's support patches like I thought they were. Thus it never occurred to me that it wasn't installing the support patches(I certainly never had any trouble like that on XP). I also tried installing the games and running them without any support patches at all, and all my other XP Falcom games still work normally like that under Win7.

Here's how my properties for both games look now:

Ys VI:


**FOR YS VI DIRECTX9 MAY BE REQUIRED**

YsF:


Note: The only option I chose for both games was to run as administrator, the OS compatibility was chosen automatically.

Falcom's Ys VI Support Patch

Official Falcom Ys VI Support Site: Update Version 1.1.0.9

Do a clean install of the game, then install the patch linked above. That should do it. If that doesn't work, Falcom has a couple more Ys VI support patches:

Ys VI Support Patch Version 1.2.0.2

and

Ys VI Support Patch Version 1.3.0.5

The one that worked for me was 1.1.0.9.

Now for Ys - The Oath in Felghana

Falcom's YsF Support Patch

Official Falcom YsF Support Site: Update Version 1.2.0.3

Just like for Ys VI, first do a clean install of the game, then install the patch. This is the one that worked for me. Also, in both cases, after doing this, I was able to run the English patches for both games and they finally worked normally.

Additional thoughts:
I've heard it mentioned that Windows 7 has a 32-Bit version. I don't know if that has any implications here, but Falcom's support patches are designed for Windows XP 64-bit, so there may be something to that.

About Windows 7 Service Pack 1 - I am still unsure if this has helped the games run for me. If anyone knows an answer please comment. Anyway here is a link to help upgrading to Win7 SP1 from Microsoft:

Instructions from Microsoft on how to install Windows 7 Service Pack 1

I hope this has been of help to you, I have tested the methods above including trying to run the games (unsuccessfully), installing the patch, and then successfully running them first try after the patches were installed.

I'd like to thank Red Hairdo over at the Ancient Land of Ys Forum for creating a topic about all the different versions of the Ys games. It was that topic specifically that got me motivated to "try again" and also make this post.

Later!