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Each time, I run my favorite game (Starcraft) on Windows 7, my PC gets way too slow, and when I checked the running process, I found a process with the name run32.dll taking over almost 90% of the processor? What is that process, and does it have anything to do with the compatibility required for starcraft to run on Windows 7?

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migrated from serverfault.com Jul 15 '09 at 18:51


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2 Answers

You may want to try running it in compatibility mode. Right click on the shortcut and click Troubleshoot Compatibility. Let windows do its thing from there, then try the recommended settings.

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You could also try running it in Windows 7's XP mode, the XP virtual machine. –  Sam Jul 15 '09 at 13:23
What do you mean the XP virtual machine? Should I install VPC and and XP machine on it to get the game running? –  Galilyou Jul 15 '09 at 15:39
I don't know if VPC supports DirectX, but VirtualBox 3 definitely does. You'll just have to install XP yourself. –  Chris Thompson Jul 17 '09 at 5:42
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Windows XP Mode is the new Windows Virtual Machine solution for Windows 7 that runs a Virtual copy of Windows XP on top of Windows 7 for this specific reason. This was already mentioned in a comment. As far as I am aware it does support older Windows games including Starcraft.

The system is currently in Beta and can be downloaded here however take careful note of the hardware requirements to use this.

Alternatively you can browse to the Starcraft folder, right click on the Starcraft executable and under compatibility force it to run in compatibility mode directly on Windows 7. If I recall there is now a compatibility wizard that will step you through the process. I can't recall if Starcraft spawned used different excutables for different parts of the game.

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