The following story just happened to me, and I figured it'd worth sharing, and getting a discussion going about crazy things you've had to do to get old (or even new) PC games to work. Console stories are welcome too, if you've ever had a console that needed a weird fix for something. I just specified PC games because typically a console game either works with the hardware or it doesn't.
So for discussion, share your weird compatibility stories.
Here's a weird tale of PC compatibility for you. I recently got the urge to play Betrayal in Antara, which was the first RPG I ever owned, even before FF7, which was the first one I was exposed to and my first JRPG. Unfortunately, Windows Vista, 7, and potentially 8 (haven't tried it and apparently neither has anyone else, since the game is on GoG) can't read the third disc. Just something about the way it was authored makes it show up as nothing being in the drive. Not that I'd be likely to actually get to disc three, but it still bothers me, and it's what's prevented me from replaying it in the past. I've been able to get it to run both natively in Windows 7 and in various virtual machines, so it's not like that's the problem.
Anyway, I did some poking around, and found out that to this day the only way to get disc 3 to work on a Win7 computer was to find an old XP machine, copy the files, and burn them to a CD, which has been the "fix" for almost 10 years now. I remembered that I had a Windows XP virtual machine knocking around on the hard drive, and decided to try something. Sure enough, the virtual machine can read it. Why, I have no idea, but it can read it. So I transferred the files to a flash drive, and will make an ISO out of it at some point down the road. Probably the weirdest compatibility issue I've ever had, and the most nonsensical fix. I mean, why can the virtual machine read the disc? It doesn't have direct hardware access, it's all routed through Windows 7. Makes no sense.
Edit: It's worth noting, this game was originally made for Windows 3.1, and it's the spiritual successor to Betrayal at Krondor, which was a DOS game. XP was just the last version of Windows that could read that disc.
Anyway, I did some poking around, and found out that to this day the only way to get disc 3 to work on a Win7 computer was to find an old XP machine, copy the files, and burn them to a CD, which has been the "fix" for almost 10 years now. I remembered that I had a Windows XP virtual machine knocking around on the hard drive, and decided to try something. Sure enough, the virtual machine can read it. Why, I have no idea, but it can read it. So I transferred the files to a flash drive, and will make an ISO out of it at some point down the road. Probably the weirdest compatibility issue I've ever had, and the most nonsensical fix. I mean, why can the virtual machine read the disc? It doesn't have direct hardware access, it's all routed through Windows 7. Makes no sense.
Edit: It's worth noting, this game was originally made for Windows 3.1, and it's the spiritual successor to Betrayal at Krondor, which was a DOS game. XP was just the last version of Windows that could read that disc.
So for discussion, share your weird compatibility stories.