Have tried Reinstalling and making a registry entry for it but still getting the same error

"unable to read one or more registry entries. Please reinstall Close Combat

any help would be great, Thank you in advance

No idea, but I would try this:

Uninstall the game, clean everything from registry.
Disable antivirus and install+run it as administrator.

tried that I still get the same error :(

Well I know you've tried things, my a quick google search of the series basically says this about the registry key:

- Either the installer didn't create it (check with RegEdit) or there is some sort of security / access issue preventing the game from accessing the registry key.
- If the registry key does exist, have him try disabling all anti-virus / security software just to test and see if this is the problem.
- If the registry key doesn't exist, then he can create it by hand (and just leave it empty) and try starting the game.

So yeah, basically what bela555 said, and not really a help to you given you've already tried it.

Have you also tried changing your compatibility settings to older OSes?

The dumb thing about the Close Combat games is that in order for them to run, they need to register several entries in the Windows Registry, because I guess having it all centrally located in the equivalent of a badly sorted archive was better than typing "*.ini" into find. Thing is. it requires running a batch file to write these entries. which itself tends to be a rather controlled action in many versions of windows and impossible in Linux. You could try hand keying the entries, but that's not happening.

I did the whole " HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Strategy 3 Tactics\Close Combat\45\". " and made that and then tried starting the game again and still no luck, still get the same error

I think you really should start a support ticket for this one.

ADDED: Well I just downloaded and installed the game on my machine and I didn't have that problem. It installed and launched fine. My problem is no sound. Despite going into options and ensuring sound and music are toggled on, and they are, I get nothing.

If it's not one thing it's another...

You're running 32-bit windows?

^ I think that's excellent advice. It may be time to lean on Support.
Don't forget to tell Support what version of Windows you're running, and all the variations of fixes you've tried including disabling software, running as admin, and fiddling with compatibility settings. The more you tell them, the less frustrating the "to and fro" will be.

64 bit

I was getting the same error with CC5. The game had crashed and somehow that seems to have wiped the reg keys it needed. I also found the uninstall didn't work properly and reinstalling it wasn't creating the reg keys. So I installed it on another PC, went into regedit and found the keys (in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Mattel Interactive\Close Combat\5.00 for CC5) and exported them to a reg file. Installing that on the other machine it all worked fine. I'd expect it'd be similar for any of the CC games.

I got a similar error, but I don't have a spare computer at the moment. Tried to play a bit with the compatibility menu, turns out it's compatible with the windows 95 and windows 98/ windows Me options, but then I get "unable to add DSound Stream". I've looked everywhere, both in the files and in the interwebs, and I can't find a clue of what it is. No idea if it's a file missing, a program needed, or something else...

Edit 1: OK, something kind of magical happened. I figured it had something to do with the sound, so I went to tthe folder named LocalFX, and changed the Sound.sfx for a Sound.exe.

I got an entirely different error, which is exciting I guess.

I tried to then run the game, it asked me to insert a CD and click OK. After I clik "accept", the message shows again. I click a second time, and then a message saying Close combat was unable to open Sounds.sfx pops up. I click accept, and finally the game loads... But only partially. I can only see some parts of the menu, and the graphics are absolutely screwed. I'll see what can fix this crap.

The same thing happened when naming the Sound.sfx "DSound.sfx" . Note that I have no idea what I'm doing.

Window 64 Pro, 2x 4K screen, Intel 12th Gen CPU, Windows 11 (latest update), NVidia 3080ti

I looked at the GoG help support page:

- Check DirectX Dxd9_43.dll (checked)
- Notion about SSL issue, but it is written that Galaxy version above 2.0.43 should be ok (checked)

I was unable to start, change to compatibility to Windows 98/ME launched the game but I faced the DSound issue.

Looking at the renaming file sound.sfx, and DSound error, we can assume it is related to sound driver.

Change the media option of the game found in registry:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Close Combat\3.00
PlayMusic
PlayVideos
PlaySound

Put them at all zero, this disable the media option of the game.

Was able to start the game. After some test, I went to my System>Sound and found out I had monitors with DisplayPort that created Digital Output in the list. I removed them by going to properties and "Not Allow", so I got only the valid output remaining, only one (not two or more).

I was then able to activate the PlayMusic & PlaySound to 01 00 00 00.

Video still is not working, possibly a codec not on my computer for the AVI files for DirectX processing. To investigate more.

Ok, I was also able to make it start from Galaxy version 2.0.64.31 - Beta by changing registry value:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
U:\GOG\Close Combat3\cc3.exe
$ DWM8And16BitMitigation WIN98 DISABLEDWM HIGHDPIAWARE HIGHDPIAWARE

I think only Win98 is required but I did not test without the other value as it is working now.

So now only the video are not being shown. But same video are shown on CC2, so it is less likely a missing codec. Most probably that CC3 use another API from DirectX which is badly supported in Windows 11.

I test on a virtual machine with Windows 11 Home edition and it work straight from the Galaxy install and play. In that install if I change the setting to compatibility with Win98, it crash with the DSound issue. Which require to disable the video (indeo codec support not working in Win98 mode)

So using Win98, is most possibly the issue causing the DSound crash.

With my main Windows 11 Professional, it does not start, same clean install, and in that case, you need to disable the video in the game to have it worked and compatibility with WIN98 is needed. Note that I have a Nvidia card and for the home version it is the VMWare driver.

So Windows 11 Professional or nvidia could be the issue. Version were not exactly the same for windows 11 but latest from update.

You can use process monitor to get a log of all registry keys a software wants to access.

This is how I was able to change the language in some TT/WB games before GOG released the games with a language selector.

You are already using compatibility mode with Windows 98 as I understand it, that's good.

If you can't access DirectSound, try a emulator like IndirectSound.

https://www.indirectsound.com/

That's dgVoodoo for sound cards :)