1701 A.D. and Tagès CP Issues with Windows 7 x64

I picked up a copy of 1701 A.D. (made by Aspyr) for $15 at Target as it seemed to be a well designed RTS/Sim game. I tried to install it on Windows Vista 7 x64 RC and I received a ‘driver incompatible with this version of Windows’ message when it tried to install the ‘Tagès drivers’.

The ‘Tagès drivers’ appear to be a form of copy protection for DVD-ROMs; without this driver the game attempts to start but fails with the error that copy protection is not installed. I highly suspect that this is due to it not being written to support an x64 Windows version.

I could find no information on this on the Aspyr site- save for the 1701 A.D. 1.02 update. The patch tried to re-install the Tages drivers- and appears to have somewhat succeeded- save for now when I start Windows 7 I get an error ‘Tages driver blocked due to incompatibility issues’.

I resolved that I would just uninstall the drivers and the game and be done with it. I uninstalled the game, but the Tages drivers persisted and I could find no way to remove.

A search of the web turned up a Tagès driver update page- with both x86 and x64 support. I downloaded the v5.5 driver, re-installed the game and it now works.

I believe (albeit I have not tested as of yet) I will need to run the Tages 5.5. setup again to eventually remove the Tages driver.