Solved Playing Adobe Shockwave games (.dcr files) offline

spapakons · Jun 15, 2023

Hello!

Back before Adobe Flash and Adobe Shockwave were not EOL (2020 and earlier) I had downloaded some Flash games (.swf files) and a couple of Shockwave games (.dcr files). Please don't judge me, I am sure some of you have done it too or at least thought about it. I just wanted to play these games offline without internet connection, such as in our holiday home at our village. Apart from the Internet Explorer ActiveX plugin and the Firefox/Chrome addons, Adobe had also made a standalone Flash player. Thankfully I downloaded the Adobe Flash player standalone version (called Projector) before it was EOL and removed from Adobe's site, so I can still play these Flash games (.swf) files, but there was not standalone Adobe Shockwave player on the download site for playing Shockwave games (.dcr files), so I had to install Adobe Shockwave and use Internet Explorer or old Firefox browser (that still supported Flash and Shockwave addons) to open these games. However, I noticed that these don't work in Windows 11. Internet Explorer is hidden. Even if I use a VB script to launch it is no use since both Flash and Shockwave are removed from Adobe's site and I cannot install it. I managed to install it in an old version of Firefox (49) that still supported Flash and Shockwave, but the game never loads. The same method, using Firefox 49 with Shockwave, works fine on Windows 7 that I have on another system! This must be some weird incompatibility of Windows 11, probably has to do with access rights. I tried Pale Moon browser, The Pale Moon Project homepage which is based on Firefox and supports many legacy addons, nothing changed. The stubborn games never load. All I can see is the old Adobe Shockwave logo for 1-2 seconds and then a blank page. I have even found a standalone Adobe Director (aka Shockwave) player (projector), Shockwave Standalone Player : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive, but this doesn't work in Windows 11 either (after selecting the .dcr file to play it quits after 2-3 seconds), it only works as expected in Windows 7. It drives me crazy! I already tried to run the projector as Administrator and with Windows 7 compatibility mode, nothing changed! I have also tried a couple of projectors from here: Projector Skeletons for Director : Adobe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive, they also quit after opening the .dcr file while they work OK in Windows 7. Is there any way to play .dcr files in Windows 11? Anyone had done it?

thecaretaker · Jun 15, 2023

Not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I run many .swf files with Ruffle. Not sure about .dcr files though.

Ghot · Jun 15, 2023

@spapakons
You might want to check these out...

Windows Games - Old Games Download

Microsoft Windows is a group of operating system families, which are developed and marketed by Microsoft. They include Windows 95, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 10 and the most recent operating system, Windows 11.

oldgamesdownload.com

Windows abandonware games - My Abandonware

For the Windows platform, you can choose .kkrieger: Chapter 1, "Tahl": Uncover the Evil Within, (T)Raumschiff Surprise: Periode 1, €uro-Man, 007 3/4: Disappearance Time amongst the results.

www.myabandonware.com

Download Archive | ZeldaClassic.com

www.zeldaclassic.com

And ofc... https://www.gog.com/

spapakons · Jun 15, 2023

Ruffle is a third-party Adobe Flash player (.swf) files. I can use the standalone Adobe Flash Player (projector) for this, however it doesn't support Adobe Shockware files (.dcr) I am looking for a software that can play .dcr files, the Adobe Shockwave (aka Macromedia Director) files, not .dcr images.

spapakons · Jun 15, 2023

SOLVED!!!!!
I uninstalled any Adobe Shockwave version from Control Panel, Programs and Features, apparently the Shockwave Standalone Player (see my previous posts) doesn't work with late versions, it requires version 10. So I downloaded the latest FULL (to also include all xtras) Adobe Shockwave 10.3.0.24 from here: Shockwave Installers : Adobe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive and then the Shockwave Standalone Player worked as expected! The SPR.exe is the standard window mode player, the SPRD.exe is the window mode debug version and the SPRS.exe file is the full screen version. So if I want to play at normal size I load SPR.exe and if I want to play full screen I load SPRS.exe Thanks to all for reading this.

PS: If you rename SPRS.exe it doesn't work properly in full screen mode. It displays a background color corresponding to the first game screen and then plays the game at normal size. Keep the original name to work in full screen mode (maximized game image).

spapakons · Jun 16, 2023

thecaretaker said:
Not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I run many .swf files with Ruffle. Not sure about .dcr files though.

I managed to run the games using the original Adobe Flash (.swf files) and Adobe Shockwave (.dcr files) in Internet Explorer 11. You can launch IE11 in Windows 11 using a VB script. To avoid the Adobe EOL message you have to set the system date back before 2020 EOL date. I just set it to whatever day in 2019. If you try to open a flash game (.swf) with the current date (past 2020 EOL), then you see a Flash logo instead and if you click on it you go to the Adobe site warning you about Adobe Flash EOL. Using the standalone players you don't have to change the date plus you can play full screen instead of a small window. See my previous post for links to the player.