I’ve googled it, “warcraft II, vista” and all I get is some technical jargan and a general “uh, no… unless you’ve got a PHD in computer science.”
Yay for vista.
I loved that game and I think its pretty lame that a simple game like that can’t be at least ported over and sold for a few bucks. I’d definitely pay for it. I already have a copy I’ve used on the last few OSs and everything was fine… but Vista? Nope. I’m not getting anywhere.
Have you tried DOSbox (a DOS emulator)? I don’t know if it’ll work with WC2, but it might be worth a try.
Does it work on XP?
If it ran on XP and you are using vista 32 bit, then try right click the executable and going to “compatibility”. Set it to run as an admin and as a windows XP app. See if that works.
It works on XP, but via a DOS prompt. I don’t know if that makes a difference.
Have you been to the Blizzard Website?
If you go to Blizzard.com and create a account you can download any game that you own the license for. I had an old Windows 98SE version of Starcraft that wouldn’t play on my Vista machine and I just entered the Serial Number from that into the website and was able to d/l and install a Vista version (it even upgraded me to the Anthology version with the expansion packs included) on my current machine. Didn’t cost a penny. So long as you own a copy of the game you should be able to get it from the website.