SimCity 4 could not install Direct Draw

[Lost At Sea 0]

i have SimCity 4 and it says it could not install direct draw and the page hangs on a black screen 

i also have SimCity 3000 which does the same

 

running windows xp service pack 3

[CorinaMarie 29,776]

@Lost At Sea 

Are these GOG versions of the game or the physical discs?

[TogaMasterJohn 711]

In addition to Cori's question above, are you sure it says "install" and not "initialize"? The reason why I ask is that what you are describing sounds more like a initialization issue with DirectDraw.

What is your graphics card (GPU)?

13 hours ago, Lost At Sea said:

running windows xp service pack 3

Are you trying to play these games under Windows XP SP3 or under a newer Windows version with XP compatibility mode enabled?
 

Do note that if you're trying to play SimCity 4 under XP, it should be noted that the majority of the DLL mods will not work with XP (non-DLL/other mods should work just fine). I remember correctly, the only DLL mod that works with XP is SC4Fix, and I highly recommend using it if you're wanting to play with the Network Addon Mod (without RealHighway).

[Null 45 3,064]

27 minutes ago, TogaMasterJohn said:

 I remember correctly, the only DLL mod that works with XP is SC4Fix, and I highly recommend using it if you're wanting to play with the Network Addon Mod (without RealHighway).

The Maxis extra cheats DLL would also work under XP. I don't know if SC4Fix works under XP, that would depend on the compiler and build settings.

Even Windows 7/8/8.1 are not officially supported by most DLL mods, those OSes may work but it is up to Microsoft if they want to support those OSes with the Visual Studio 2022 C++ x86 redistributeable. AFAIK Windows 7 and later are supported by Visual Studio 2022, but Visual Studio 2026 only supports Windows 10+.

14 hours ago, Lost At Sea said:

i have SimCity 4 and it says it could not install direct draw and the page hangs on a black screen 

How are you running Windows XP, a virtual machine? That could be a hardware or driver issue in the OS.

Note that you really should not be running any OS that no longer receives vendor security patches on a machine that is connected to the internet.