u/DanRedfield_82

Hi everyone.

I've been working hard on getting the Windows 95 preservation patch in a releasable state, and have been experimenting with adding 16:9 widescreen for a modern full-screen mode.

Trying to get this thing working is driving me pretty nuts, and I'm still not entirely sure whether I'll be able to get it working fully or not, but I thought I'd share a proof of concept video to show everyone how its coming along, and could do with some feedback on whether it's something that you folks would want or not.

It does change the balancing of the game a little though - more enemies on screen in some cases, but also more screen real estate for boss fights.

Thanks for watching everyone - All the best!

Hi, my name is Dan Redfield (POSTAL for Dreamcast & "Project Horsell") and I've been working on a preservation patch for the Windows 95 version of Earthworm Jim, which some consider to be the best version of the game.

Here's a list of current features;

• Windows 11 compatibility
• Full controller support via XInput (I'll probably switch to SDL later)
• CD-check removed
• Soundtrack playback via local FLAC files
• Registry calls replaced with a .ini file
• Suppressed dialog messages about missing DLLs
• Patched original WAIL32.dll

I hope to share more soon as the project progresses and if anyone has the Windows 95 version and would like to test the patch, please feel free to get in touch.

Thanks for watching.

I’ve put together a new v0.9 release of Project Horsell, my preservation project for the 1998 RTS Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds (Download and install instructions at the bottom of the post).

The aim is still the same: keep the game as close to the original 1998 experience as possible, but make it behave properly on modern Windows 10/11 systems without needing disc mounting, registry setup, compatibility mode, or admin rights, or a custom launcher.

v0.8 was already playable, but it was still fairly rough in places. v0.9 is a much more complete preservation build.

What’s new since v0.8:

• Built-in native Win32 splash / boot selector
  • Choose Human or Martian campaign at launch
  • Choose language at launch
  • No separate launcher app
• Integrated multilingual support
  • English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian support in one build
  • Missing regional files are detected automatically
  • Unavailable languages are greyed out
  • Selected language is remembered in wow.ini
• Registry replacement
  • The game’s old registry reads/writes are now handled by Horsell
  • Settings are saved to an INI file instead of the Windows registry
  • This fixes the v0.8 issue where menu settings changed but did not persist properly
• Improved audio handling
  • The game’s CD audio calls are still intercepted and redirected to FLAC files
  • Several timing/overlap issues from v0.8 have been cleaned up
  • The goal is still proper CD audio behaviour without ISOs, virtual drives, or compressed/converted music
• Cleaner asset handling
  • Splash/launcher artwork is now embedded into the DLL
  • The customised ddraw wallpaper is also pulled from Horsell’s resources now
  • Fewer loose helper files needed in the game directory
• Better campaign/language path handling
  • The selected campaign is now tracked internally by Horsell rather than relying only on command-line arguments
  • This makes the boot selector and game logic agree with each other properly

I’m probably not going to bother with an installer for this. In practice, almost nobody uses installers for abandonware-era preservation releases, and this project is mostly intended for people already comfortable copying files into an existing game folder. Keeping it simple seems better than adding another fragile moving part.

v1.0 is where I’d like to tackle the more ambitious stuff:

• A proper 60 FPS mode
• Some kind of revival of the hidden networking/multiplayer functionality
• Maybe a configuration page inside the splash selector for editing INI values

That last one is not the priority, though. Horsell is not intended to become a general modding base. The main goal is preservation: make the original game run cleanly, preserve the original feel, and add only the quality-of-life bits that help the game survive on modern machines.

As before, you’ll need to provide the original game data and music files yourself. Horsell replaces the broken old Windows/CD/registry assumptions around the game; it is not a remake.

Instructions:

• If you need to, download the previous 0.8 repack here, which includes the required .FLAC music files - regional files are not included (see below) https://drive.proton.me/urls/40D45798K4#uBYuIXPqoP29
• Download the v.09 patch here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HTQpUraYxZ5YF05A7hcZU6By5ew61Y42/view?usp=sharing Unpack the v.09 archive into your current game directory, replacing any files where asked. If you are upgrading over v0.8, you can safely delete wow.png and horsell.dll
• Run wow_horsell.exe to start the game

Regional files:
Follow the instructions in the v0.9 readme file to copy and rename the relevant regional files for language support.

Italian: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-it
Spanish: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-es
German: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-de
French: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-fr

Antivirus note:

A small number of AV tools may incorrectly flag WoW_Horsell.exe.

This is a false positive caused by the way Horsell works. WoW_Horsell.exe is a manually patched 1998 game executable containing code caves/trampolines used to redirect broken legacy Windows/MCI/registry calls into horsellcommon.dll. That kind of binary patching can look suspicious to heuristic scanners, even though the file is not malicious.

My local Microsoft Defender scan is clean, and the release archive has also been checked with Kaspersky online and came back clean.

Please verify your download against the release hashes:

wow_horsell-0.9.zip
SHA256: c91db46c08640503edec8001ffc823967ac186ac571e02726fc93f46363ed54b

WoW_Horsell.exe
SHA256: 41aafad3ee66da519d8ec23b064cfdfb20e5a21f2b45ac2d5a227fe1166f1233

If your hash differs, you are not using the same file. If it matches and your AV still flags it, it is a heuristic false positive.

I have submitted the file to Microsoft for false-positive review. Submission ID: 4144ab98-1bf6-49ff-acec-8b821f32cde3

Feel free to ask any questions if you get stuck.

Cheers,
Dan Redfield.

I’ve put together a new v0.9 release of Project Horsell, my preservation project for the 1998 RTS Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds (Download and install instructions at the bottom of the post).

The aim is still the same: keep the game as close to the original 1998 experience as possible, but make it behave properly on modern Windows 10/11 systems without needing disc mounting, registry setup, compatibility mode, or admin rights, or a custom launcher.

v0.8 was already playable, but it was still fairly rough in places. v0.9 is a much more complete preservation build.

What’s new since v0.8:

• Built-in native Win32 splash / boot selector
  • Choose Human or Martian campaign at launch
  • Choose language at launch
  • No separate launcher app
• Integrated multilingual support
  • English, French, German, Spanish, and Italian support in one build
  • Missing regional files are detected automatically
  • Unavailable languages are greyed out
  • Selected language is remembered in wow.ini
• Registry replacement
  • The game’s old registry reads/writes are now handled by Horsell
  • Settings are saved to an INI file instead of the Windows registry
  • This fixes the v0.8 issue where menu settings changed but did not persist properly
• Improved audio handling
  • The game’s CD audio calls are still intercepted and redirected to FLAC files
  • Several timing/overlap issues from v0.8 have been cleaned up
  • The goal is still proper CD audio behaviour without ISOs, virtual drives, or compressed/converted music
• Cleaner asset handling
  • Splash/launcher artwork is now embedded into the DLL
  • The customised ddraw wallpaper is also pulled from Horsell’s resources now
  • Fewer loose helper files needed in the game directory
• Better campaign/language path handling
  • The selected campaign is now tracked internally by Horsell rather than relying only on command-line arguments
  • This makes the boot selector and game logic agree with each other properly

I’m probably not going to bother with an installer for this. In practice, almost nobody uses installers for abandonware-era preservation releases, and this project is mostly intended for people already comfortable copying files into an existing game folder. Keeping it simple seems better than adding another fragile moving part.

v1.0 is where I’d like to tackle the more ambitious stuff:

• A proper 60 FPS mode
• Some kind of revival of the hidden networking/multiplayer functionality
• Maybe a configuration page inside the splash selector for editing INI values

That last one is not the priority, though. Horsell is not intended to become a general modding base. The main goal is preservation: make the original game run cleanly, preserve the original feel, and add only the quality-of-life bits that help the game survive on modern machines.

As before, you’ll need to provide the original game data and music files yourself. Horsell replaces the broken old Windows/CD/registry assumptions around the game; it is not a remake.

Instructions:

• If you need to, download the previous 0.8 repack here, which includes the required .FLAC music files - regional files are not included (see below) https://drive.proton.me/urls/40D45798K4#uBYuIXPqoP29
• Download the v.09 patch here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HTQpUraYxZ5YF05A7hcZU6By5ew61Y42/view?usp=sharing Unpack the v.09 archive into your current game directory, replacing any files where asked. If you are upgrading over v0.8, you can safely delete wow.png and horsell.dll
• Run wow_horsell.exe to start the game

Regional files:
Follow the instructions in the v0.9 readme file to copy and rename the relevant regional files for language support.

Italian: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-it
Spanish: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-es
German: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-de
French: https://archive.org/details/cd-wow-98-fr

EDIT: Antivirus note:

A small number of AV tools may incorrectly flag WoW_Horsell.exe.

This is a false positive caused by the way Horsell works. WoW_Horsell.exe is a manually patched 1998 game executable containing code caves/trampolines used to redirect broken legacy Windows/MCI/registry calls into horsellcommon.dll. That kind of binary patching can look suspicious to heuristic scanners, even though the file is not malicious.

My local Microsoft Defender scan is clean, and the release archive has also been checked with Kaspersky online and came back clean.

Please verify your download against the release hashes:

wow_horsell-0.9.zip
SHA256: c91db46c08640503edec8001ffc823967ac186ac571e02726fc93f46363ed54b

WoW_Horsell.exe
SHA256: 41aafad3ee66da519d8ec23b064cfdfb20e5a21f2b45ac2d5a227fe1166f1233

If your hash differs, you are not using the same file. If it matches and your AV still flags it, it is a heuristic false positive.

I have submitted the file to Microsoft for false-positive review. Submission ID: 4144ab98-1bf6-49ff-acec-8b821f32cde3

Feel free to ask any questions if you get stuck.

Cheers,
Dan Redfield.