Sim Tower error :(

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After reading another topic on her relating to Sim City, I decided to see if Sim Tower was around. Found a legitimate download on multiple sites although on playing the game it won't let me save it after I've been playing for a while.

I just get an error message "Disk full or locked". I can assure you it's neither so is there anything I can do to fix it?
 
Wow, Sim Tower... I've got a copy of that lying around somewhere from when I bought it years ago when it was released... had hours of fun on that.

Not really surprised it don't work properly on Vista though, that game is OLD! But daz's idea of a FAT32 disk sounds feasible, no such thing as NTFS in them days (well not that I'm aware of).
 
NTFS actually predates FAT32, but like most games of that era I suspect Sim Tower probably didn't run on WinNT anyway.

If I had to hazard I guess I suppose it could maybe be because the game checks for free space when saving, but the disk you are trying to save to has so much free space that the program can't count it all, and hence believes it to be zero (similar to how some old games can't calculate how much memory 4gig is).

Maybe try running it from a USB key or small partition?
 
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If you're interested in getting it again, just search on google for "simtower download". There's quite a few sites that offer it as a direct HTTP download :)

In regards to the error, I've managed to sort of work out what it is. I can save a game for about the first hour or two that I'm playing but after that I get the error. This happens on both my WinXP SP3 and WinVista 32 machines. I'm not sure if I can be bothered to sort out reformatting a disk as FAT32 as I'm not too sure if it'll actually work.

The solution I've come to is to save regularly (Just like at uni :p ) and make a copy of the save every time I do as when the error pops up, it corrupts the save file. Once the error has appeared, quit the game and simply reload. Should only loose about 10-15 minutes play.

It's still just as awesome as it was 10 years ago when I played it :D I'd really love a more up-to-date version with maybe 4-5 layers in the tower, more lifts (24 isn't enough!) and other fancy additions that I can't think of.
 
The problem is most likely that I don't thing applications can write to the Program Files folder, so this tried to and fails. Options are either running it as an administrator or installing it to another location.
 
Hmm virtual machine. I like that idea. Might give it a go although my save often method seems to be working well.

Tried Yoot Tower but it was a bit daunting and I didn't like the lack of a minimap and speed change so I gave up :(
 
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