The problem here is that when Wizardry Gold runs, its looking for files in a very specific place on the C drive, and if the game is installed anywhere else (A steamapp folder for example) it will fail. So for this workaround, it has to be run in "C:\Wizgold\wizardry7gold" and not anywhere else.

Required File:
"wing32.dll" has to be "correctly installed". It's located in the Wizardry 7 directory.

That said, follow these steps:

• 1. create folder "C:\Wizgold\"
  
• 2. copy ".....SteamApps\common\Wizardry7\wizardry7gold" to "C:\Wizgold\wizardry7gold\"
  
• 3.a) 64bit Windows: copy "".....SteamApps\common\Wizardry7\WING32.DLL" to "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\WING32.DLL"
  
• 3.b) 32bit Windows: copy "".....SteamApps\common\Wizardry7\WING32.DLL" to "C:\Windows\System32\WING32.DLL"
  
• 4. launch via double-click "C:\Wizgold\wizardry7gold\WIZARD.EXE"
  
• 5. graphics are not scaled properly for "highres" displays. You are going to want to adjust your monitor settings when running this, or prepare to see the game in a tiny thumbnail.

This workaround means that Steam won't be able to track your gameplay time. If you are like me and you are super OCD about your gameplay time being tracked, just launch the DOS version from Steam, then Alt+Tab out of the DOS version, leave it open while you play, and launch WizGold from its work around location. It's not great, but it does the job.

It may be possible to break the dependency on the location "C:\Wizgold\wizardry7gold". Gold directory contains the file "CDDATA.INI" which contains some drive and path definitions. I haven't done any testing yet, but it may be possible to manipulate this INI file to read it directly from the Steam subdirectory.


Here are the complete contents of CDDATA.INI:

[CDDRIVE]
DRIVENAME=D:\WIZGOLD
[INITS]
TEXTMODE= B
[INSTALL]
TYPE=C
[DELFILE]
DONE=B

This was originally posted in the discussion forums by user "rainerwahn". I have turned it into a guide to make sure that it doesn't run off the bottom of the forums, get buried, or otherwise get lost, but rainerwahn gets full credit. This is his fix. Thanks man!

1/23/2023: Posted Guide