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American McGee’s Alice


Genre: Platform
Release Year: 2000
Developer: Rogue Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Age Rating: 18+
Playability Status: Perfect
Tested On: Windows 10 x64, Windows 8 x64
Availability: Copyright retained - Still sold

If there’s one genre that’s not well represented on the PC, the platform game must surely be it. There have been few PC exclusive platform games throughout the years, due at least in part to there being no standard PC gamepad to play them on until recently. Curiously, the dark fantasy themed platform game American McGee’s Alice was launched as a PC exclusive in 2000 and would not receive a console port until 2011. Despite launching on the PC, a platform not well known for platform games, the game went on to become a success and remains popular to this day, with original print-run copies changing hands for hundreds of dollars on e-bay. If you’re lucky enough to find a copy of the game, getting it to run on a modern PC is fairly easy. If you have played the recently released sequel, Alice – Madness returns, or if you’re simply curious to see this warped version of wonderland yourself, you will find much to enjoy down this particular rabbit hole.

Installation

American McGee’s Alice should install on Windows 7 and 8 PCs without any difficulties. Simply place the first CD-ROM in your computers optical drive and follow the on-screen prompts. If the installation does not start automatically, browse to the CD in your computer and double click on the “autoplay.exe” file.

During the installation process, the installer will ask if you want to install the “Typical” version or the “Low memory” version. Obviously, you should choose “Typical”.

Windows 10 installation

For some reason (probably related to the games copy protection) the game will NOT install correctly on Windows 10 machines. In order to play Alice on a Windows 10 machine you will need to follow these steps.

  1. Install the game from the CDs as normal. Make a note of the installation directory
  2. Place Alice CD1 back into your computers optical drive
  3. Download and run this fix-file.

 

Our American McGee’s Alice Windows 10 fix program will copy the missing files from the CD-ROM and fix the missing shortcuts. Please note we’ve only tested this on the one machine, so please do let us know if it works for you. The fix does NOT automatically detect your Alice game folder, so if you installed to a folder other than the default, you will need to enter this path manually when the fix program asks you where to install. Remember, you will still need the first CD in your computers optical drive when you play the game.

Improving visual quality

Being almost a decade and a half old, the visuals of American McGee’s Alice have dated somewhat. For best results on a modern PC, we recommend you install either the Alice HD upgrade or the American McGee’s Alice – Madly Enhanced upgrade. Deciding on which of these to install is largely a matter of personal taste.

The American McGee’s Alice HD texture pack can be downloaded here. This is a complete high resolution re-texturing/revamp of the game, the HUD and the menus. It also includes a cheat menu, new enemies, widescreen fixes and much more.

The Madly Enhanced upgrade can be downloaded here. This upgrade includes enhanced textures and also tweaks certain weapons to make them more balanced. When downloading this mod, be sure to download both parts and install the V1 part first. This pack also includes the updated textures that were included with the 2011 re-release of the game (which came bundled with certain versions of the sequel, Alice – Madness Returns).

Both of the upgrades are downloaded as .zip files. To install them, you need to open your American McGee’s Alice installation folder. By default this can be found at “C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\American McGee’s Alice”. Inside this folder is a sub-folder called “Base”. Copy the entire contents of the .zip file(s) you downloaded into the Base sub-folder. That’s all that is needed to install either of the HD upgrades.

Later in the guide we will show you how to play the game in widescreen and HD resolutions, but you should set up controls, sound and the in-game visual quality options before you attempt this.

Configuring Controllers

American McGee’s Alice has no native game controller support at all. If you want to use your game controller, you will need to use Xpadder. Below is a picture of our Xpadder profile.

 

alice-xpadder

 

Alice will walk if you hold down the shift key and run otherwise. To implement this on the gamepad, we used the Xpadder distance zone feature. If you’re unfamiliar with configuring distance zones in Xpadder, see this tutorial.

The rest of the mappings are fairly self-explanatory. Jump is mapped to Y, which could easily be switched with A if desired. When climbing ropes or vines, you need to use B to climb down and A to climb up. The “N” key is mapped to the back button on the pad. This performs a special function, which we will discuss later.

You may need to increase mouse sensitivity in game. This can be done by going to the Settings menu and then clicking on Game Options (the top part of the head).

Tweaking Sound options

American McGee’s Alice features a rather stunning surround sound soundtrack. Unfortunately, like most games from this era, this is only supported through EAX, which relies on OS components no longer present in Windows Vista, 7 or 8. If you have a EAX capable sound card however, you can use the Creative ALchemy software to restore EAX functionality. Simply start ALchemy and the software will detect that you have installed American McGee’s Alice. Select the game from the list of installed games and click the “>>” button.

Now, start the game and go to the Settings menu. A menu will appear in the shape of a human head. Click near the ears on the head to access the audio options. Now, select “EAXZ” as the sound driver. Below this option, make sure to set speaker type to “Surround” (or to match whatever speakers you are using). Make sure “Quality” is set to 44khz and that “Force 8bits” is deselected. You should now get the full surround sound soundtrack restored to the game!

If you don’t have an EAX capable sound setup you can still improve sound quality with a few tweaks. Go to the sound setup as described above but leave the sound driver on the default option. Change the sound quality to 44khz and make sure “Force 8bits” is deselected.

Tweaking visual options

There are a number of quality settings that you can change in the game. If you intend to apply the widescreen mod, you should make sure to set these options before you apply that mod. Start the game and from the games main menu, choose “Settings”. A menu will appear in the shape of a human head. Click near the eyes on the head to access video options.

 

alice-ingame-video-options

 

On a modern PC, all of the above options should be set to the maximum, as shown in the picture above. The only exception is brightness, which of course should be set to taste (avoid setting this too high else you will lose detail in the brightest parts of the image). Pay particular attention to the Texture depth and Color Depth options, these should be set to 32 bit on all modern machines.

If you aren’t intending to use the widescreen fix, you can also select your screen resolution from this menu. If you are, leave the resolution as 640×480 for now (and do not attempt to change it from this menu in the future!).

Playing in widescreen

At this point, we strongly recommend you test all your settings (sound, graphics and controls) and make sure that they are acceptable before making these final tweaks. If you make further changes to the games settings after you have configured widescreen HD resolutions, you will need to come back here and make some or all of these changes again.

To run American McGee’s Alice in HD widescreen resolutions, we are going to need to edit a config file by hand. The file in question is called “config.cfg” and resides in your American McGee’s Alice installation folder in the sub-folder “Base” (“C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\American McGee’s Alice\Base” by default). If you are using the American McGee’s Alice HD texture pack, then you should edit the file “autoexec.cfg” file instead. If you are unfamiliar with editing configuration files, see this tutorial.

Open the appropriate file in your favourite editor and add or edit the following lines for 720p resolution:-

seta r_customwidth "1280"
seta r_customheight "720"

for 1080p add/edit:-

seta r_customwidth "1920"
seta r_customheight "1080"

Or for any other resolution, substitute the values for those applicable to your monitor. We have tested up to 4k (3840 x 2160).

Next, add the following line to the key bindings section near the top of the file (anywhere after the “unbindall” command). Note that you should skip this step if you are using the American McGee’s Alice HD texture pack as the FOV (field of view) is already corrected with this mod.

bind n "fov 106.27"

If you see our Xpadder configuration above, you can see that the letter “N” is assigned to our back button. If you simply configure American McGee’s Alice to run in widescreen, the camera will be too close to Alice. By adding this key binding, each time you load or save a game or change a level, you can press the back button on the controller to fix the camera in the proper position. If you are using a 16:10 screen mode, use the value 100.39 in place of 106.27. Unfortunately this is the only way to fix the camera position (other than installing the HD texture pack) , setting the fov manually in the config file will not work.

If you’re NOT using the HD texture pack, you should also complete the following two steps, otherwise skip these too.

Search the config.cfg file for the following line:-

seta r_mode "x"

Remove the line above, if it exists. Finally, add the following line:-

seta r_mode "-1"

Now, save your changes. If you have difficulty saving your changes, see the troubleshooting section below under “Problems saving games”.

You are now ready to guide Alice through the madness of wonderland. Start the game as normal and if you followed the instructions above correctly, the game should run in your chosen widescreen resolution.

Troubleshooting

Custom screen resolutions not applied or reset:- If the game resets your custom screen resolution, you may need to go back into the config.cfg and add the changes again. Particularly, check for the line that reads seta r_mode “-1”. Without this line your custom resolution will not work.

Graphical glitches:- If the game exhibits graphical glitches, such as white squares showing up, loss of textures entirely, or buildings/geometry getting smeared over the screen, try this fix.

 

  1. Browse to the games installation folder (“C:\Program Files (x86)\EA Games\American McGee’s Alice\Base” by default) and find the Alice or Alice.exe file. It must be the executable file, don’t get the icon (alice.ico) file by mistake!
  2. Right click on “Alice.exe” and choose “Rename”.
  3. Enter “quake3” as the new name. Be sure not to delete the .exe extension, so the full name of the file should be “quake3.exe”.
  4. Run the game. Hopefully your graphical glitches are gone.
  5. Optionally, update the games shortcut to point to the renamed file. If you’re not sure how to do this, there are some tutorials here.

 

Why does this work? Well, aren’t you the curious one? American McGee’s Alice uses the same game engine as the first person shooter game Quake 3. By re-naming the games executable file to Quake3.exe, we actually trick windows into thinking it is Quake 3 we’re playing. Windows then applies some special compatibility fixes for Quake 3, that work well with Alice too.

Problems saving games:- Like many old titles, American McGee’s Alice saves its game data into the same folder as the game itself. In some instances on more modern versions of Windows, this will mean that save games cannot be written. To solve this problem you can either run the game as administrator (right click on the games icon and choose “Run as administrator”) or, better still, set the permissions on your Alice game folder so that your user account has full control. You can find a tutorial on how to configure folder permissions here.

Screenshots

The screenshots below show the game running in 1080p. Click on any of the pictures to see it at full size.

ammcal-20140209-141947

ammcal-20140209-142006

119 comments

  1. Omri says:

    hey! the HD pack you linked to is mine and it’s only a graphic upgrade, a VERY LARGE upgrade.
    the hud, textures, models etc.

    it’s not the madly enhanced pack, that is not mine.
    please fix the name to the correct pack- AMA HD texture pack.

    • BuckoA51 says:

      You’re talking about the first link the one we’ve called “The Alice HD Upgrade” ?

      • omri says:

        oh! i’m such an idiot, i got confused, i didn’t notice you put both mods,

        but what you wrote “The Alice HD Upgrade can be downloaded here. This includes the updated textures that were included with the 2011 re-release of the game (which came bundled with certain versions of the sequel, Alice – Madness Returns).

        WRONG! it’s a fan-made pack!!
        i re-created the textures.
        and re-created the menus, Hud and everything else. don’t let EA take my credit.

        • BuckoA51 says:

          Yes looking at both links again last night I wondered if I’d got that wrong. In fact it seems that the Madly Enhanced mod actually took those textures (and retouched them). I will correct the article, thanks.

          • Omri says:

            Thanks!
            And btw it was recently updated, it adds a lot of features to the game.

            • BuckoA51 says:

              Oh right cool, all just cosmetic changes though?

              • Omri says:

                It includes;
                Bunch of Textures, new hud,an automatic wider field of depth, new config to improve graphics, autoexe which sets the game into an automatic full hd screen, added level select, new menus, added enemies and models.

                That’s it really, i can’t upgrade it anymore.

                • Kudjo says:

                  I’ve used your HD pack over the years and have been VERY impressed by it! Where can I find the newly updated pack? The link takes me to the moddb version which is reading as Jul 2, 2012. I’m thinking your post referred to something more recent than that, correct? Or is that the most up to date version? A link would be awesome!

                  Anyway, thank you again! Great work! I really enjoy playing again with your pack!

              • Omri says:

                Oh! And a cheat menu!

      • jaynoven says:

        hello there, i’ve installed this game today and its keep stop working whenever i go to the loading screen. can any one help me with this issues?

  2. Adar says:

    Your’e absolutely amazing. Thank you so much!

  3. Rachel says:

    Would this work on Windows 8??

  4. hm4steve says:

    Should I install The American McGee’s Alice HD texture pack and The Madly Enhanced upgrade or just one or the other? If both what order should they be installed?

    Excellent work either way.

  5. Yoko Asari says:

    I have a problem. My computer is not responding to the resolution change.
    If you have GTA 3 from steam, you’ll know what I mean when I say that my computer changes its resolution and not the game. My game doesn’t change its resolution. The actual monitor changes its resolution and I can’t get it to stop. So, I can’t even tell if the actual program is running or not. All I’m able to see is the left upper-hand corner of the screen- far enough to see “New Game” and maybe “Settings” -but the screen is so small that I can’t reach anything on the right side to even close the window. Like I said, it isn’t the PROGRAM that changes its resolution. It’s the actual monitor’s pixelation changing. If I put anything into the resolution, it will revert back after two or three tries. Not immediately, but it still reverts back. This not only makes the game unplayable, but inescapable. I suppose you could say it’s maddening. But anyways, do you have any idea what’s going on, and is it the actual .exe causing the resolution change or not?

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Use the scaling settings in your graphics cards software to make sure to “perform scaling on display”. On Nvidia cards it’s under “Adjust Destkop Size and Position” on the Nvidia control panel.

      • Yoko Asari says:

        Okay. Thank you. Now I only have one more problem….my screen is now entirely grey and I can only hear the music. But the resolution is definitely fixed. I’m sure I can figure the rest out from here; it’s just that no one else seemed to have that problem. Thank you.

  6. dettegrade says:

    I purchased the “Alice: Madness Returns Collectors Edition” recently and have had issues with saving the game. It always says that there is no room and that I should try deleting other save files (of which there are none). I followed the tutorial that states how to fix the issue, but it didn’t work. Just wondering if you had any idea on what to do. As good as this game is I can’t play it in one sitting, so I need to be able to save.

  7. Bibifupi says:

    Hi there! I’ve tried everything, but there’s no sound coming out of this game and I don’t know what to do anymore, could you help me please? :)

  8. Lynn says:

    Hi! So I tried to download the American McGee’s Alice (original) on my Windows 8.1, and while it fully downloaded, it would not open. I even troubleshot the game by using other settings (Vista, 7, etc), and still it would not work – Whenever I clicked on an icon, it would not open. Please help. Is there some sort of driver or other item that I need to download to get this game to work on my PC (Acer).

  9. Dawn says:

    I’m having the same problem. I downloaded the game… but it won’t open and play at all. I give it administrated permission, even tried turning off antivirus. But the game still just won’t open at all.

  10. Chris says:

    I recently purchased American Mcgee Alice for my daughter to play on her Windows 8 laptop. I will open the menu , however when you try to launch the game, it doesnt do anything. Ive tried changing the compatibility in the properties and im still unable to get it to run. I downloaded your patch and it still doesnt not work. Any advice? Thanks

    • BuckoA51 says:

      The games copy protection is incompatible with Windows 10 and the latest security updates for Windows 7 and 8. See this page for more information – https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3086255

      • Tom Porfilio says:

        Hi Thanks for all the info. I wish my computer just ran everything as you say your computer does. In the last 3 days I have struck out with No One Lives Forever and Alice. I finally, after about 8 hours, got Alice’s Return to work after going through a ridiculous activation sequence that had to be researched. BTW y discs are all original. I read the info on the Microsoft link; do I delete the update with the inherent risks or use the command prompt and set it to disable, enable, or auto? In your opinion… I am leaning towards auto.

        • Tom Porfilio says:

          BTW Windows 7 32 bit

        • BuckoA51 says:

          I’d look for a no-cd crack personally, or disable that update altogether.

          • Tom Porfilio says:

            Yeah it still is crashing immediately. Thanks though. Not a lot of places to get info. I learned what an elevated command prompt was and messed around with a register. Learned something.

            • Tom Porfilio says:

              Well, that was easy. What a waste of time in looking, but thanks! Started right up with that fix and applied texture mod. Looks great!

              • Kudjo says:

                I apologize. I had no intention of breaking any rules. So, I’ll make sure not to link directly to anything like I did last time.

                I’ve found the game-focused site of (snip) to be particularly helpful when it comes to finding the FIXES required to play these older pc games. Give them a look and see if it helps you too.

                Is this acceptable? (I’m honestly trying to be helpful without raising anyone’s ire.)

                • TOM PORFILIO says:

                  Thanks for the helpful info. Piracy is a problem and I don’t condone that myself. I have the disks and they wont work. I am trying to look for a way, so these sites could be useful.

                  I have learned in the last few days that a large block of my games may not run on my computer because the security is now not accepted by Microsoft. I hope this doesnt keep coming up but I know it is an issue with No One Lives Forever. Wish me luck! It is taking me as long to load the games as to play them.

                  • BuckoA51 says:

                    It’s difficult and really I doubt anyone would say that using a crack to get a game you legitimately own to work again is anything other than fair use. After Paypal froze loads of my money for offering 100% legal game console mods, repairs and upgrades on my other site, just because to them mods = piracy, I take no chances with anything! If a game needs a crack to run the best I can allow is for you to post the MD5 hash of it and the name of the cracking group, then folks can Google for it, but obviously I can take no responsibility for the site(s) that host such things.

  11. Wayne Hayes says:

    You need a no cd exe to replace the original. Microsoft in their infinite wisdom have blocked the secdrv.sys driver rendering many older (2002-2009 approx) games unplayable. Too draconian if you ask me

  12. Wayne Hayes says:

    Yes thank you. I did the Regedit to get this working on my Windows 7 machine. Sadly on my new Windows 10 machine that is not possible. Mine is a clean install Windows 10 so that driver doesn’t exist. I read if one has upgraded from 7 or 8/8.1 to 10 then the driver/service can be re enabled in 10. But for me I am out of luck. Really cross MS doesn’t give users a choice. I know securom or safedisc is horrible but the reality is EA are big offenders and much of library are affected by the move of MS. oh well, I need to source a no cd exe. Trouble is the type of sites that host them can be risky what with malware etc. Makes me nervous in trying to source.

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Only Safedisc is affected, SecuROM still works without a hitch (early reports from the wider gaming press that SecuROM didn’t work in Windows 10 turned out to be based purely on speculation and were in fact entirely false).

  13. Wayne Hayes says:

    Ok thanks, well I guess most of the EA titles I have, including Alice, have safedisc which still doesn’t help me out. All I know is the secdrv.sys driver doesn’t exist in Windows 10 which creates quite an issue with some games.

  14. Alice says:

    Will this game run on Windows 10?

    • BuckoA51 says:

      The game is compatible as far as I know, but the games copy protection is not, so you might need a no-CD patch/crack. Unfortunately I can’t link to those.

      • Wayne Hayes says:

        Yep I can concur. It will only run with a no cd executable. Sadly the sort of sites that host those are to be treated with caution due to malware. I got it running in my machine but an observation is Windows 10 didn’t install it fully. Probably due to copy protection. When I looked at my installation on my Windows 7 machine I noticed the sounds folder was missing and the Alice.exe were missing. Luckily I copied these across over my network. Of course the Alice.exe is useless as you need to replace it with a no cd version. So after doing that it ran but it’s a messy old process

  15. Chris says:

    Does anyone have a creditable source for the no cd exe?

    • Kudjo says:

      Been using this site for YEARS with no issues. Here are the two currently posted there. Let me know if those work for you. If not, I’ll go check my no-cd and see if it’s any different.

      Edit – Links to no-cd patches aren’t permitted here, sorry.

  16. Wayne Hayes says:

    I wonder why links to no cd patches are so frowned upon. We are all legit purchasers of the game. When MS shafts us we are forced to workaround this. Seems pretty unfair. I sourced the no cd patch through a site. It was a nerve wrecking moment as I worry about malware etc and I feel disgusted that MS (and also EA) has made me do it. All because of this ghastly securom/safedisc saga. Unfortunately like the previous poster I cannot link it and you’ll need to do a google search to source. Make sure your virus protection is updated and tread carefully

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Don’t blame me, blame international copyright law. We barely make enough from this site for our morning cup of coffee, let alone a lawyer/solicitor :) Oh also it’s Safedisc that doesn’t work in Windows 10, SecuROM works just fine.

  17. Wayne Hayes says:

    Yeah sorry that wasn’t aimed at you or the site. It’s just a generic comment. Just sucks that MS has done this and a few of us fans are having to tread murky waters to play games. It’s the legit purchasers who get hit hardest. If MS are going to do such draconian measures they should go through every safedisc game and host the patched exe files. EA should get involved too as they are the worst offenders. Of course this will never happen!

    Perhaps MS would argue people shouldn’t be expecting games to run that are older on a new OS. But they have basically stomped on a vast percentage of games, some of which are classics. A slice of the PC history. Why they want to destroy something that has been so good about Windows versions through the years in having a vast catalogue and great backward capability is puzzling. Sadly there is more chance of a game released pre 2002 running on Windows 10 than there is one released between 2002 to 2009 approx.

    I keep getting safedisc and securom mixed up. Don’t know how to tell which game has which. I guess Alice must use safedisc. I did install Battlefield 2 the other day which is old (circa 2005) and to my surprise it worked without any manipulation. Must mean EA done securom on that one!

    • BuckoA51 says:

      The Safedisc drivers actually haven’t been updated by the developers in many years and were certainly a vector for malware (then again, what isn’t a vector for malware these days?). Given that modern PCs are dropping optical drives altogether you could argue (and this isn’t necessarily our viewpoint) that it was more important to drop them going forward.

      “Draconian” is perhaps a term you should associate with this kind of DRM in the first place, rather than Microsoft’s decision to remove it.

  18. Chris says:

    Can’t put my email address on here ? Sounds like a power hungry admin, thanks for nothing

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Sorry, we take our visitors privacy seriously, indeed we’re compelled to by law. We don’t allow e-mail addresses to be left in comments since it would result in you getting a huge amount of spam and indeed would encourage spammers onto the site.

  19. Marvin says:

    First of all, it is great that people still care about these old games and try to help keep them alive, many thanks for that !
    I have both Alice and madness returns and tried to install them on my PC (Win 10, upgraded from 8.1). Unfortunately both are not running after installed without issues. I followed the instructions on the MS support site from the link above to enable the secdrv again, but it did not help. Do I really need a special Alice.exe in addition ?

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Just tried it and Madness Returns runs fine on Windows 10. As for the original Alice, you can’t re-enable secdrv on Windows 10 so yes you will need to find a cracked/hacked executable I’m afraid.

  20. Julia says:

    Well, I just found this post but I’m not sure if anyone else have the same problems as me. I just bought a copy of Alice from Ebay, and I couldnt get the game to start before I disabled the security update and the game actually started…but it says that it cant locate the cd-rom and that I should insert the right one (even though it is the right disc). What do I do?

    • BuckoA51 says:

      When exactly does it say that?

      • Julia says:

        I solved it! Oddly, the first disc has the alice.exe on it but the second disc does not…but it is the second disc that is used to run the game. So I just opened alice.exe (with disc 2 in the disc tray) in the files on my computer and then it worked :)

  21. craftyandy says:

    was just done pulling my hair out trying to get sim golf to work on windows 7 and then this was crashing before starting the same way. thank you so much for this fix it now works like a charm.

  22. Nuklar says:

    Fix file worked a charm on my Windows 10 PC running AMD architecture. Thanks a lot!

  23. Kamorea says:

    I have been wanting to play my alice game again since I got a computer and the dowload to fix the instalation issue worked amazingly well. Wasnt hard or anything. My copy of the game was from the original release so my copy is 16 years old and works wonderfully. I want to say thank you for giving me the ability to play my game again on windows 10. You guys are awesome. I haven’t been able to play it since vista had come out and the game was glitchy on it. But thank yall again.

  24. Graeme MacDonald says:

    I cannot download the fix for Alice on Win 10 as the Mega website is greyed out and is just asking for feedback, clicking the crosses does nothing.

  25. ZsadistRaven says:

    Every time I try to save my game, it closes on me. It’s the same when the game automatically saves. After the game closes I can open it back up and it’ll have my game, as long as I didn’t do a quick save. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a way to fix this?

  26. JennaferThelma says:

    Well, I got it to install all right, started it up, and it won’t get past the very first scene. I can’t actually play. The fix worked to install, and that seems to be it. I’ve got Windows 10.

  27. Anonymous says:

    I’d like to try your patch, but I don’t feel comfortable running an executable from a website I’ve just learned about. Can you share the source for the patch so everyone can review it and benefit from it? Thank you.

  28. MajoraSlayer says:

    I’m absolutely losing my mind here, so if you have any suggestions I would really appreciate it. Someone else commented with the same problem but didn’t get a response.

    I have Alice: Madness Returns The Complete Collection. It launches fine, the controls work great, but I can’t save my game. When I go to the save screen I get a message stating “Disk Full”, suggesting I delete save game files (of which at this point I have none). This is definitely not a space issue. Fixes I’ve tried that haven’t worked include:

    1) Setting the executable to run as administrator. This causes actually adds another issue; every time I run the game the config file in My Documents is overwritten with default settings.

    2) Unchecked Read-Only on the attributes for all of the game’s folders.

    3) Added my Windows 10 account to the permissions tab of all game-related folders and gave it full permission.

    4) Created save folders in both the My Games/American McGee’s Alice and the installed folder’s base folder.

    Still no luck. A couple of notes on my installation, my boot drive is an SSD, so I have all of my games installed on a secondary hard drive for space reasons. So, as opposed to a typical setup, my games are installed into F:\PC Games. Could it be some kind of issue with the folder path, or does this game have some sort of issue writing to SSD (where the My Games folder is still located)?

    If anyone can help I would really appreciate it. Of the few results I’ve seen in Google for this issue there haven’t been any responses.

    • MajoraSlayer says:

      I should elaborate, by the game launching fine I meant the original Alice from within the Madness Returns menu.

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Can you create a new folder within the Alice game folder? Do you need admin permissions to do it? That will show if you did the folder permission step correctly.

      • MajoraSlayer says:

        I ran the game as administrator, and I also made sure all save folders and configuration files were given full control for administrator as well as my own Windows user account. However, I was able to fix my problem.

        Due to my boot drive (C:) being an SSD, I have a secondary hard drive for expanded storage where I install my games to. So, while a typical installation for Steam or any other install of the game would be in “C:\Program Files (x86)”, my game is installed in F:\PC Games. Apparently Windows 10 assigns specific writing permission for programs in the default Program Files folders. To fix the problem, I moved the Alice1 folder to the Program Files folder. This should fix the problem for anyone running Alice on a Windows 10 PC. If Madness Returns is installed in an alternate location the AliceEngine ini file will need to be updated so that Alice1Path contains the full path to Alice1’s bin folder.

        Hopefully this saves someone a headache in the future.

        • BuckoA51 says:

          Yes, the folder permissions have been set like that since Windows Vista, good idea from a security perspective but it trips a lot of old games up. Should be no need to run the game as admin once you set/configure those permissions.

        • Betty says:

          THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!! I was trying everything (and I also found the post where no one replied) thank you so much I love you

  29. Anonymous says:

    Hello, sorry if my problem seems obvious or dumb, I’m pretty new to PC gaming and am still learning a lot.

    I have the PC-CD version of the original Alice, and after installing it on Windows 10 with the Madly Enhanced upgrade, the game seems to have installed and be working ok. My problem is that it won’t recognize any USB controllers that I plug in and will only work with keyboard controls.

    The controllers work absolutely fine with any other games, show up as connected hardware etc, they just won’t work with THIS game whatsoever.

  30. Andy says:

    Hi! Thank You very much for your valuable work which I appreciate very much! Alice has, perhaps surprisingly enough, worked well on all my systems up until win10 when it failed (I understand why since you wrote about the security stuff update with which the game is incompatible). However, thanks to your fix everything works! Ah I can finally return to Wonderland again! ;) Thanks a lot! Btw installing for example winxp on virtualbox and running Alice through that doesn’t work (errormessage “unload debugger and try again) so no need for anyone to try that.

  31. Obi says:

    I was kind of surprised when I tried these modifications on W10, and each of them seems to have worked – I’ve only played for an hour or so, but I haven’t had any trouble saving games, and it looks great. A few artifacts here and there, but a definite improvement over running it with the stock textures! XD I hope the people who posted these mods and the people who made them see my thanks someday: Thanks!

  32. Henrietta says:

    I applied the fix for Win 10 and that works good. I’m having a problem with the widescreen settings tho’. I’m using dual monitors, both are 1920×1080. Before putting the custom resolution changes in, the game fills up the screen in 640×480 mode but moves icons from the main monitor to the secondary one, I assume because it’s changing the resolution of the primary monitor which is expected.

    So I put in the custom resolution lines along with the seta r_mode “-1” line (I did not find a seta r_mode “x” line) . I put all of it at the end of all the seta items, just before the //// Aliases// at the end of the file. (note that when I open the file in notepad, it doesn’t have any “lines per se, it’s just all run together. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be like that or not.) So the last part of the file looks like this:

    seta cg_cameradist “128.000000”seta r_customwidth “1920”seta r_customheight “1080”seta r_mode “-1″//// Aliases//

    I save the file and close notepad. I opened it again to make sure it was saved properly and it was.

    When I run the game again, it appears that it is resetting resolution to 640×480. When I quit the game, I open the config file and the added lines are gone.

    I have not added the bind n line as yet. I am not using either of the HD packs yet.

    Any ideas on this? Thanks!

  33. Kat says:

    Hello. I have started to have problems with the game today and I have windows 8. I have the original CD and the game was working just fine before. Now I’ve started playing it again and I’ve noticed some bugs when I enter Pandemonium. First, at the beginning of the cutscene when Alice jumps onto the roller coaster, it stays stuck. She just remains standing there and the game does not proceed to show her riding it. So I exit the cutscene by pressing the esc button. Another bug happens when I try to enter the two doors that lead into the building to get the key. The first door opens just fine, but the second one will not open and therefore I cannot proceed through the level. The door only shakes a little bit when I go near it, but it won’t open all the way.

    Could this have something to do with system updates? It has been a year since I last played the game but it was working just fine at that time. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game twice and that didn’t work. I’ve tried using both discs with no luck. I even had the madly enhanced texture pack at first, so I removed the files thinking those might have been the problem. Nope, it still had those problems even without the texture pack. I have tried restarting my computer as well. Nothing worked.

    Do you possibly have a suggestion for this issue? Thanks!

    • Kat says:

      Okay, I have found the solution to the problem. It WAS the texture pack. I had my game saved on Pandemonium still when I removed the files. All I had to do was delete my saved progress and start the game over, and it worked just fine during with the roller coaster cutscene. Unfortunately the texture pack is very glitchy. I think it’s because it was created 6 years ago now. I would really hope that someday they would update it or make a newer texture pack for the game.

  34. Alice says:

    Hello, I have installed the game on Windows10 and used your fix, and it worked perfectly. I then decided to install the HD mod, not Madly Enhanced, and things got a bit strange

    I edited a custom resolution of 1920 by 1080 also, and started the game, and the screen was much bigger than the resolution I set, and I couldn’t move the mouse cursor easily, as it kept sliding back to the right, outside of the screen

    I am certain I did everything right, so I apologize if I did indeed make a mistake.

  35. Joe says:

    I have installed alice on my windows 10 system and pointed the updater to the correct folder and it tells me that there is no folder there

  36. Srt says:

    Installed mod but the picture is not centered, every thing is in the top right.

  37. Alice Fan says:

    Hey there.
    I’d like to get the Windows 10 fix-file as well but it seems to be no longer available on the linked Mega storage :(
    Is there any other website with this Win 10 fix-file or a similar fix-file ?

    • BuckoA51 says:

      Someone sent us a DMCA takedown for that file, we’ve no idea who or why, Mega won’t tell us. I’ve filed a counter-claim as I can’t see how a simple patch violates anyone’s copyright.

  38. Pantouffe says:

    Hi ! Firtsly, a great thanks to you for this patch :D. Unluckily, i can’t enjoy your work nor the game, because of a screen problem. I firtst thought that the problem came from my trying to install the hd pack, so i uninstalled the game, and tried to start it only with the fix for Window 10, but i still have the same problem > https://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/838248aliceprob.png
    Can you help me with this ?

  39. Lunal Tepich says:

    Hey, I recently installed Alice and the fix-file and it still won’t run.

  40. Liz Lundberg says:

    I did it! It’s working! In Win 10 with all the mods! I just have to see if she will climb up the vine inside the stump in Wholly Morel Ground. In my version bundled with Madness Returns, she will not climb up and I’m stuck there in the game. But I had this old version I bought a long time ago and it works. I installed everything just as was suggested above, and even learned how to edit a .cfg file in notepad. I did’t screw anything up and it’s plying fabulously. Thanks so much, Alice and Madness are the only games I have ever had an interest in. This will probably be my only post, so I just want to share that I used the Alice Fix file and it worked. At first I didn’t read through the article but when my display was screwed up I did, and at that point I decided what the hell I might as well go for the HD upgrade so I could get full screen anyway, so I did and it worked! I’m a fifty-nine year old who didn’t grow up with computers, barely got past algebra and nearly failed Physics. We had a chance to learn BASIC when I was in high school but I wasn’t interested. I’m good at math and logic now, so I think a lifetime of learning patience helps, but I’ll be danged – I got it right almost immediately. I put trying to set this up for about a year now because I didn’t think I would have such luck! But now I’m totally pumped! Just one question though. Is there any way I could make an iso of the game and place it on a virtual ROM? So I don’t have to have the CD in there all the time?

    • Liz Lundberg says:

      P.S. I’m using an Hp Envy I purchased 3 years ago, with Core i7 processor, Nvidia (integrated) graphics and 8 G ram.

  41. Annie says:

    THANK YOU, FRIEND!!! It took me like 4 hours (I’m a fairly computer savvy, but not very “technical”), but your instructions, and the “fix” program, worked! Thank you so much. Now time to bash some card-people with a croquet mallet :-)

  42. Kimmy says:

    I dowloaded this game and it works perfectly fine but I can’t move my cursor. Any tips?

  43. Keith povall says:

    YOur fix link worked for me. I just got Alice working and am looking forward to playing it after an 18 or so year gap. I’m not a gamer, but was hooked on this back then and another game called MDK.

    I’ve just ordered Madness Returns and hope being a later game it will run under Win 10.

  44. Joe says:

    Hi,I to after years tying to get Alice to work on win 10,I D/L the fix here and it works but I have no sound. I do not know where to address this issue so I apologize . Can you point me in the right direction. This site is awesome!

  45. Keife says:

    I successfully launched and configured everything I need in original American Mcgee’s Alice, thanks to your help.
    But, config.cfg file is different in remasterd one (The one in the Alice Madness Returns Complete collection) so I’m here to ask.

    1. there’s ‘config.cfg’, ‘config_pc_fra.cfg’, ‘default_pc.cfg’ and ‘default_pc_fra.cfg’.
    What do I need to change?
    2. These files doesn’t have ‘seta r_mode’ section. Should I add it?

  46. alejandro says:

    hello, the games runs well, i installed everything and the hd mod. But when i start the game, after the cutscene where alice first talks to rabbit and chesire the game crashes, if i skip this cutscene the game runs, but when i go to the next area of the level, after the dwarf tells you “rabits told us a champion… bla bla” after loading the next area the game crashes. any help?

  47. Nick says:

    I’m running Windows 10 64-bit.

    The game installed just fine and everything seems to work except for character voice-overs. Everyone but Alice is silent.
    I tried all the audio drivers and tweaked everything else in the sound options.
    It seems to just be the audio files under Base>sound>character that don’t work.
    Also, the subtitles skip past character dialogue so quickly, I don’t have time to read it.

    • blobby says:

      Try adjusting graphics options like ‘vsync’ ,might help with the subtitles.

      Or go to cs.rin ,some VERY HELPFUL files and info is posted there.

  48. Calì Agata says:

    Hi!
    I’m running Windows 10 64-bit.
    The game installed just fine but i changed graphic options. I wronged. How could i restore inzial options?

    Thanks for answers

  49. mer says:

    people like you are heroes, thank you so much for helping to keep old games alive

  50. Ciel says:

    No matter what the Win 10 fix file does not see my disc. Is there a guide to what missing files I could manually copy over or something?

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