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Category: HOW TO INSTALL Page 11 of 13

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How to install Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF

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On April 8, 2024

In HOW TO INSTALL

How to install Jane's Combat Simulations USAF
How to install Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF

In this post I’ll show you how to install the flight simulation video game Jane’s Combat Simulations: USAF on a modern Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC and make the necessary configuration to make it run smoothly. A classic video game that deserves to be enjoyed by the old and new generations alike.

What is Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF?

Is a combat flight simulation video released in 1999 as part of Jane’s Combat Simulations series. The game is set from the late 1960s to the early 2000s and it is a jet aircraft survey simulation featuring satellite imagery for terrain which allowed quite detailed graphics for the time of the release of Jane’s USAF.

The game features four campaigns: the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf War, and two fictional campaigns, one based on the Red Flag exercises and one depicting a war between NATO and Russia over Germany in the then-future of 2005. Also included are single missions, with maps from the Middle East to Korea. Training missions include take-off, landing, and refueling in Nellis Air Force Base.

What do you need to make the installation

To complete the installation of Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF on your Windows 10/Windows 11 PC you will need the following programs or software:

1. The Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF installation CDs or .ISO images. (Download)
2. The Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF Windows 7 patch. (Download)
3. WineD3D for Windows for 32 bits applications. (Download)

Jane’s USAF installation process

1. Mount the .ISO images or introduce the Jane’s USAF game CDs in your CD drive and open the installation program and follow the regular installation procedure of the game. Just remember to let the program to be installed in its default installation path:

C:\Program Files\Jane’s Combat Simulations\USAF

Don not open the game yet!

2. Now install the Jane’s USAF Windows 7 Patch. To do so, extract all the files from the compressed .ZIP patch’s file and copy, don’t move, those files to the game’s installation folder.

You will be asked to overwrite some files, say yes to all.

Don not open the game yet!

3. Install the 3D3 wrapper. First extract all the content of the .ZIP file on its own directory. On that directory locate and copy, don’t cut, the win3d3.dll and ddraw.dll files. Paste those files inside the Jane’s USAF main folder.

Don not open the game yet!

4. Compatibility configurations. Open the windows explorer and go to the game’s main fonder (C:\Program Files\Jane’s Combat Simulations\USAF) and execute the USAFConfig.exe program.
Once opened, select “DirectDraw HAL” on the Display Device option and click on “TEST”. After the test is done close the program by clicking on “OK”.

Don not open the game yet!

5. Shortcut configurations. Finally, right click on the Jane’s USAF shortcut at the Windows PC’s desktop and open the “PROPERTIES” option from the menu.

Now click on the “COMPATIBILITY” tab. There, check the “RUN THIS PROGRAM IN COMPATIBILITY MODE FOR” checkbox and on its drop-down menu select Windows 7.

Also on the settings section, check the “RUN THIS PROGRAM AS AN ADMINISTRATOR” checkbox and click on “OK” to save the changes.

Now double click the Jane’s Combat Simulations USAF shortcut and… enjoy the game!

Jane’s USAF installation video

The following video shows the step-by-step installation process as it was described above for a more graphical depiction of the process.

How to install Wings Over Europe on Windows 10/11

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On April 4, 2024

In HOW TO INSTALL

How to install Wings Over Europe on Windows 10/11
How to install Wings Over Europe on Windows 10/11

Wings Over Europe is a PC combat flight simulator game set during the Cold War era where the USSR has attacked NATO forces in West Germany. The game includes a wide variety of real jets and weapons from the era which can be employed in various mission types such as Combat Air Patrol, Interception, Close Air Support, Iron Hand, Wild Weasel, and Reconnaissance. 

The game originally was released to run on Windows XP and it’s not officially compatible with newer versions of this OS. However there is a way to make this game work on modern platforms. 

Here I’m going to show you a step-by-step guide to install this pretty old but still awesome game and make it playable on Windows 10/11.

Software needed

In order to install Wings Over Europe in your Windows 10/11 PC you need to have the following list programs:

1. The installation CD/DVD or .ISO image of Wings Over Europe. It’s pretty cheap on Steam if you don’t have it.

2. The Wings Over Europe official October 2008 patch. It can be downloaded by clicking here or here.

3. The HDR Mod 1.01A. Available for download at CombatAce, an excellent online community of flight simulation players and modders. Here’s an alternative download link just in case.

4. dgVoodoo, a legacy DirectX and Glide graphics card API wrapper/implementation program1 that provides support to run Windows and DOS-based old programs using Glide or DirectX. Available for download here or here. 

Installation process 

Before we begin: If you have a Windows 10 PC, this whole process also works for Windows 11 based PCs. Now let’s continue with the install.

Once you have all the required software at hand, we can proceed with the installation of Wings Over Europe on your Windows 11 PC. The installation process will be as follows:

1. Insert the Wings Over Europe CD/DVD on mount the .ISO image and open the setup file. This is one of those “click Next and then Next” cases until the installation is completed.

Do NOT open the game yet, it still will be unplayable at this point.

2. Open the Wings Over Europe official October 2008 patch (WOE_Update_Sep2008.exe) and complete the installation process, another case of “click Next and then Next”. Just remember to install this patch in the same folder the game was installed.

3. Unzip the HD1.01 mod into a new directory then open the enbseries.ini file using a text editor and find and change the following command line from:

[GLOBAL]

UseEffect=1 

to

[GLOBAL]

UseEffect=0

Then save the enbseries.ini file.

4. Copy the modified enbseries.ini and the unzipped d3d9.dll into your game install directory, copy a second copy of the enbseries.ini into your Flight sub-directory of your game install directory (this is very important).

5 Unzip the dgVoodoo file into a different folder and look for a file called DDraw.dll. Then copy this file into the Wings Over Europe install directory.

6. Open, play and enjoy Wings Over Europe on your Windows 10/11 PC.

Wings Over Europe: Installation video

The following is the same step-by-step installation process explained in video: 

How to Install Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on Windows 11

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On December 6, 2023

In HOW TO INSTALL

How to Install Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on Windows 11
How to Install Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on Windows 11

Jetfighter II: Advanced Tactical Fighter was THE very flight simulation video game that got me into flight simulation back in the early nineties. 

In this post I’m going to describe the process needed to install this very old MSDOS game on a Windows 11 PC platform.

Software needed

Off course we will need several pieces of software, don’t worry they’re all free in order to install Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter in our PC. Those programs are the following:

1. The game files: This seems to be obvious but still is good to mention. Since this game is, as far as I know, under the abandonware category, it can be found all over the Internet. I personally downloaded it from this link at Abandonware.com.

2. DOSBox: Since the game was released for MSDOS, a now defunct Operative System, we’ll need an MSDOS emulator that will give us the right environment to install and play our MSDOS based games. This is a free and open-source program that you can download from its official website.

Installation process

1. Create a folder called DOS right on the root of your hard drive. This will be the virtual C:\ drive inside the DOSBox’s MSDOS environment.

2. Enter your newly created DOS folder and create a subfolder called JF2.

3. Extract all the game files into the C:\DOS\JF2 folder. The ones inside the .RAR file you downloaded from Abandonware.

4. Install DOSBox. This is a straightforward process. Just execute the installation file you downloaded from the official DOSBox website, and basically click “next” on every step until the program completes the installation.

Play Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on Windows 11

1. Open DOSBox by double clicking on the program’s shortcut located on your main desktop screen.

DOSBox desktop icon
DOSBox desktop icon

2. Once you open the program, you will see a screen showing the MSDOS environment. By default, DOSBox will be showing a “Z:\” as the default virtual drive. 

DOXBox's main screen
DOXBox’s main screen

3. Now you will have to “Mount” your virtual “C:\” drive first in order to play your games using the following commands:

mount c c:\dos 

Once the command is written, just press ENTER. If everything is all right, you’ll see the following message “Drive C is mounted as local directory c:\dos\” as you can see on the following screen:

DOSBox screen after the "Mount C" command
DOSBox screen after the “Mount C” command

4. Now, in order to play the game, you’ll to run the following commands:

c:\ <ENTER> This command will take you the virtual c:\ drive you mounted earlier.

c:\jf2 <ENTER> This command will take you into the game’s main folder.

jf2 or jf2.exe <ENTER> This command will open the actual game. 

If everything goes all right, you’ll see a screen like this before running the game:

Opening Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on DOSBox
Opening Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on DOSBox

5. Enjoy playing Jetfighter II Advanced Tactical Fighter on Windows 11.

If you have any questions about this process, please leave it at the comment section bellow and I’ll answer you as soon as possible to help you play this awesome flight simulation game.

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