Evan_Wylde

I`m playing FM19, and it`s still making me go online, every few weeks. I also played FM21, but that hasn`t yet It might be tied into steam updates in general, but it`s still annoying. Oh, and I also get a ton of windows error reports with this, hundreds of kb`s worth every time.

It started in 1983, with the original FM by Kevin Toms on the ZX Spectrum. I couldn`t wait to come home after school, and play ! Even my Father enjoyed playing this, and I came home one day, to hear him laughing upstairs in the computer room, so I went up to see what was going on, and he proudly showed me how he`d used the editor, to change the name of all 64 teams in the game. I looked to see what he`d done, and every team was now called something silly, Div 1 now had a top 4 of Dogs, Cats, Monkeys & Fish, and down at the bottom Poop, Turds, Bottoms & Boobies were fighting relegation, and he`d done this all the way down the leagues. Had to admire his effort, as I`ve thought about doing something similar on a current version, but not sure I could come up with that many silly names ! Lot`s of ZX Spectrum games in between then, The Boss, The Double (LOVED this one !) FM 2/3 & the World Cup one, and some others I`ve forgotten. And then in 1994, I was in my local Boots, and saw CM93/94, and gave this a go, and this was light years ahead of football management games on a computer ! I`d not played them for a while, and this was my return to the genre, but I just could not stop playing this ! Even when it took 2 hours to update at the end of a season, I`d go downstairs and watch TV, or just have a sleep for a bit, and once it was done, I was back to playing. Lent my Amiga & that game to a friend one weekend, and couldn`t wait to get it back, and carry on playing, and he didn`t want to give it back ! Then it was the 95/96 version, and I think there was a 96/97 version also ? There were also several European versions you could get, and I have a few of them something in the house, but I recall the Italia one had an issue where you filled the squad up, and couldn`t sign any more players, so I just stuck to the UK one. It was also the version I`ve spent the longest game time on, without stopping. 36 hours straight on that one, as my Father had 2 long shifts at work, and in between them he slept, so I got to use the PC whilst he was busy, and I had to get in as much time as I could before he wanted it back. I remember one of those versions, had Ian Harte as a LB, and if you had him charging forward, he would score 40+ goals a season ! I got the CM 99/00 & 00/01 versions, but it was CM01/02 that got me addicted again. It was only when FM took the step of adding in game highlights, that I left that one behind, but had so many great saves on it, it was probably the most exceptional Football Management game ever created. If modern FM could create a version that resembled this, and gave us back Classic/Touch then I`m sure it would make a lot of us older players very very happy. I know the game is still being kept going, but I`ve not looked into it. I did get CM4 & CM03/04, but didn`t play them much, and one of them I`m sure I refunded as it was a mess ! So back to CM01/02 I did enjoy FM05, but what grated me was the training module, and having to manually change everything each week, so I went back to CM01/02 I LOVED FM07, and that`s probably the version I`ve spent the most time on after CM01/02, I played that for a few years, and went back to it after not liking FM09 very much. FM09 was the last time I waited outside a store just before 9am in the morning, waiting for them to open, and pick up a copy off the shelf, and marvel at it, and read the back, before taking it to the cashier, and taking it home, ready to dive into it for several days. It was enjoyable, and such a change from the dots moving around the screen, but after a few months, I grew a bit bored of it, and yearned to play CM01/02 or FM07 again. So I went back to them for a few years. Never been happy about the move to steam, but I reluctantly bought FM13, and played it for a few months, before going back to FM07. Not wanting to go through steam each time, I then picked up FM10 & FM11 in charity shops, and I LOVED them both ! I have an old PC that still runs FM11, and I jump back into it now and then, but such a shame that microsoft stopped those games from working on Windows, as I`d love to have them there to play if I fancy a game, and not have to deal with petulant children every 2 days, wanting a new contract, and being offended over something. I bought FM16 & FM18, but never really got into them, and went back to older versions. Reading how great FM17 is, I really should have grabbed that version, but hope to find a copy of it one day, and not for the silly prices I see it for online. FM19 was the version I`ve played the most of, since they went to steam, and I`m playing a save at the moment. I did grab a copy of FM21, but just couldn`t get on with that, and felt the constant demands of players was too much, and I had a nightmare getting the resolution right each time I loaded it up, and some things that I`d gotten used to in FM19, seemed to be missing, so I went back to FM19. FM24 was the first one that had me thinking about buying in the first 6 months of release, and haven`t felt that way about an FM game for 15 years. I`m going to hold off for now, and see what it looks like in the next few months, after an update or 2, but will wait for it to come WAY down in price before buying it. These games do give me so much value for money, but something about dropping £30+ for an FM game, the way the series has been over recent years, never sits right for me, and I don`t think current versions have done enough to earn my money. But hoping once this current version gets settled, and they can work on the issues it has, then I`ll be leaving FM19 behind, and getting into FM24. Thanks for reading, if you made it this far !

Ran into a bit of trouble installing Windows 7 from the CD on an old PC. I can`t get it to update, and the browser on it, IE 8 only loads some pages. There was an issue with an adapter, but I kept a copy of it on a USB stick when I last installed it a few years back, and that got me to some pages online, but I can`t seem to get anywhere on updating it, and have only the base setup. I know Windows stopped supporting it, but I thought they`d still allow you to update it after installing from the CD, to it`s last build. Anyone got any ideas how to get it up to service pack 2 or 3 or whichever the last one was ?

I set my age as old enough for a Son to generate, but it`s never happened yet. And I`ve never liked using my real name, so I`ve used the name Dr Zoidberg for many years now

Is there anyone who can still help getting FM05-FM11 running on Windows 10 ? Managed to get FM08 & FM10 running a year ago, without any trouble, but a Windows update has stopped them working, and I get a black screen on launch. Many thanks !