Debris32 installation program won't run, complains about Windows Version

[Nicholas-Steel]

OTVDM 2435 Artifact tested.

Describe the bug
The installation program for Debris32 does not work, it displays a message that I'm trying to run it on an incompatible version of Windows. Here is the shareware release of the game: https://archive.org/details/Debris_201610

Expected behavior
The installation program should open and allow me to install the game.

Screenshots

Environment (please complete the following information):
Windows 10, 22H2

I have tried the Windows 95, 98, ME, XP Compatibility settings for the EXE file.

[cracyc]

The link is to the 16bit version which installs and runs ok other than some annoying pauses at start. The 32bit version from https://archive.org/details/deb3210 also installs fine. It doesn't run but it's a win32 program and so not a winevdm problem. Anyway the error is from the win32 portion of the installer so it's also not a winevdm problem. You can try using elevationshim, see #1259.

[Nicholas-Steel]

Oh damn, I didn't realize that the copy I was looking at was like that. I originally had the copy you linked to but Windows Defender deleted parts of it so I went hunting for a download again (thanks for linking me to that copy).

The copy you linked to does kinda work? I'd have to do some more frequent runs of the program but it seems to intermittently generate some kinda instruction error.

In any case, I guess this can more or less be marked as solved.

[cracyc]

The copy you linked to does kinda work? I'd have to do some more frequent runs of the program but it seems to intermittently generate some kinda instruction error.

I got the error right at start and it closed immediately so I thought it didn't work at all. Anyway, you can close the issue yourself.

[Nicholas-Steel]

@cracyc, are you able to do a quick test of something for me that relates to this game since you've seemingly run its installer on your PC? I would like you to try moving any file on your computer that is named "debris32.exe" (file contents are irrelevant) to another location on your Windows PC, via left clicking and dragging the file to another folder.

In my case, this is erroneously resulting in a shortcut to the EXE file getting created in the destination instead of the EXE file being either moved or copied to the destination.

This behaviour seems to be limited to files named "debris32.exe", files with other file names will drag 'n' drop correctly. The issue persists through reboots of my PC.

[cracyc]

It does default to "create link". For me programs in the reg key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths also do that.