We’re all Football Manager lovers, aren’t we? But as much as we might enjoy the newer titles, I’m sure those of us who’ve been around for a while would love to go back in time – and re-play an older version of FM or Championship Manager.
Technology marches on – and those classic games that were designed for Windows 95, 98 or XP may not run perfectly on newer operating systems. Fortunately, it is still possible to play those older games on Windows 10 or 11, with a little bit of work.
In this guide, I will give you some tips on how to get your old Sports Interactive games running on modern versions of Windows. These instructions might also work for some other video games from the 1990s and 2000s, but I’ll be focussing on the CM and FM series.
CM97/98 OR EARLIER
Up until the late 1990s, many games were designed to run on MS-DOS, which is now long obsolete. This includes every version of CM and CM2 – from the original Championship Manager in 1992 to the eternally popular Championship Manager 97/98.
If you want to run a DOS game on a modern machine, you will need to download a DOS emulator. The one I would recommend is DOSBox, which is available on Windows, MacOS X, Linux… you name it.
Of course, you will also need a copy of CM97/98, or whichever game you would like to play. If you don’t have a physical copy, there’s a good chance you can find a download link on most good abandonware websites… and some rubbish ones too.
Once you have the game installed, you will likely need to configure DOSBox to run the game. Fortunately, Dave Black from CM9798.co.uk has already written a handy step-by-step guide on how to set this up on Windows or Mac, so please check that out. (That guide was specifically written for CM97/98, but it also applies to other DOS games.)
CM3 TO CM01/02
Follow these instructions if you want to play any of the CM3-era games – from Championship Manager 3 to the (also) eternally popularChampionship Manager 01/02. For this example, I will be using Championship Manager 99/00.
Firstly, install the game as normal, along with any patches you might have. This is especially important with the original CM3, which will not run on newer versions of Windows until you have installed the 3.04e patch.
Even after you have installed the patches, you might still have some issues running the game of your choice. In that case, I would recommend setting up Windows Compatibility Mode.
Go to the directory in which you installed the game. By default, this will be “C:\Program Files (x86)\Championship Manager 99-00”. In this folder, look for the application file (cm9900.exe), right-click on it, and then select “Properties” in the drop-down menu.
In the Properties pop-up, click on the “Compatibility” tab. Tick the box under ‘Compatibility mode’, and in the drop-down menu below, select the option to run this program in compatibility mode for “Windows 98 / Windows Me”. If this doesn’t work for you, try “Windows XP (Service Pack 2)” instead.
If you’re still encountering problems running the game, try ticking the option to “Run this program as an administrator”. Don’t worry too much about the other settings – they don’t really matter as far as FM is concerned.
Championship Manager will always check for a CD before you can load a save or start a new game. If you don’t want to keep inserting your physical disk into your DVD drive every time you want to play, you can ‘burn’ a copy of your disk to create a disk image (ISO) that you can save onto your storage drive. I would recommend BurnAware, which has a free version for personal use.
If you don’t have a physical disk, or you don’t have a DVD drive to put it into, you can probably find an ISO file on one of those abandonware websites.
Then you’ll want to ‘mount’ your ISO file onto a ‘virtual CD drive’. If you’re using Windows 8.1, 10 or 11, you only need to double-click on this ISO file to mount it (alternatively, you can right-click on the file and select “Mount” in the drop-down menu). If you’re running Windows 7 or earlier, you will need a third-party program such as WinCDEmu that can mount disk images.
This will allow you to run the game as if you had physically inserted the disk into a DVD drive.
CM4 & CM03/04
The instructions for setting up Championship Manager 4 and Championship Manager 03/04 are essentially the same as for the CM3-era games (see above). The only difference is that you MUST set up Compatibility Mode to run the game properly.
While you can technically launch CM4 on Windows 10 or 11 without Compatibility Mode, it’s not a pleasant experience. It can load your save files, but it WILL NOT load any player histories or fixture data. This makes the game literally unplayable.
To avoid this, go through the same instructions above – and set CM4.exe to run in compatibility mode for “Windows XP (Service Pack 3)”. I would also tick the setting for “Run this program as an administrator”.
Those simple changes are all you need to do. CM4 will now load all fixtures and histories correctly, and the game will be fully playable once again. Whether it’ll be enjoyable, now that’s a different matter…
FM05 OR LATER
This is where the waters get murkier. When it comes to running SI’s first few Football Manager games (i.e. the versions that were not on Steam), it’s a case of “your mileage may vary”.
I was able to run Football Manager 2005 pretty well on Windows 11 without any tweaks, but Compatibility Mode can still be useful if you’re not so lucky. You may want to run in compatibility mode for “Windows XP (Service Pack 3)” if you’re trying to play FM05 or FM06 – or “Windows Vista” if you need help with anything from FM07 to FM10.
Unfortunately, you might encounter an even more serious issue.
From the mid to late 2000s, many video games used SecuROM and/or SafeDisc – two popular digital rights management (DRM) systems. SecuROM and SafeDisc were both full of security loopholes, so Microsoft eventually stopped supporting them. That means any games which used these systems will not run on Windows 10 or 11 at all – and this sadly includes certain retail versions of FM.
If you’re unlucky enough to encounter this issue, there are a few workarounds you can try – some of which are potentially unsafe or even technically illegal. Realistically, your best hope is to use an earlier version of Windows (such as 8.1), whether it be on an older computer or a virtual machine.
A virtual machine (VM) allows you to run another operating system in an application window, and it’ll behave as if it’s a separate computer. To do this, you’ll need to install a virtualization program (e.g. VirtualBox or VMware Workstation Player), and you’ll also need some installation media for the OS you want to use.
Setting up a new VM can take a while, and your old games may not run perfectly – original hardware is always more reliable – but it’s still a useful tool for any retro gaming geek to have. I have set up a couple of VMs running Windows 98 and Windows XP to re-play some childhood favourites that stubbornly refuse to load on newer operating systems.
AUGUST 2024 UPDATE: Actually, there’s an even better way to run 1990s games if you don’t want to invest in building a retro PC – set up a Windows 95/98 emulator.
PCem works differently from a VM, in that it can actually imitate era-appropriate hardware. If you were to set up a Windows 98 configuration that emulates a Pentium II processor and a Voodoo graphics card, it will run pretty much like a real-life PC with those specs. If you’re having problems with certain retro games being much too fast or much too slow on a VM, or the graphics being all glitchy, an emulator will probably hit that sweet spot just right.
In recent months, I have set up a couple of Windows 95 and 98 emulators on PCem – and they run (more or less) like my old childhood computers did. However, you will need a fairly powerful PC to run these emulators smoothly – and again, it will take time to set them up.
I hope you have found this guide to be useful. As with any old programs on new systems, there is no guarantee that these instructions will work, but they should do most of the time. If you still have any issues, please drop a comment below or tweet me @Fuller_FM, and I’ll try to assist you.
