ALT-TAB switch TA, and running in a window

[andwan0]

I run Total Annihilation under Windows XP SP2. Sometimes I like to ALT-TAB switch back to windows - ie to read a walkthrough guide. Now sometimes about 50% of the time, TA would crash. Other 50% of the time it's fine and I can resume gameplay. Anyway get this issue too? How to resolve? Even better, is there a way to run TA in a window?

[LoC_Boogieman]

To kill the alt tab bug as well as play in windowed mode, first right click Totala.exe and send to desktop (create shortcut).

Then right click the Totala Icon and seletect properties and then click the compatibility tab. Set that to Win98/ME on XP and Vista. You may have to use the Win95 mode but 98 is preferred. This will kill the alt tab bug. Its also a good thing if you accidentally hit the stupid windows key while playing.
Note** this can also be done directly by right clicking totala.exe in your ta directory and same steps as above.

On Win7, I guess you can only select Windows XP mode and it wont work otherwise. Also, you still have the alt tab bug.
There is a multi-core patch that helps some with the alt tab bug, and I will link it as soon as I find it.

To make TA run in windowed mode you need to add the switch -d to the end of the command line FROM the DESKTOP icon. This may be also set in the windows registry but dont mess with the registry if you dont know what you are doing! So right click the Totala icon on your desktop again and select the Shortcut tab. If you have TA installed to the default directory then the command line (Target) will look like this >>>> C:\CAVEDOG\TOTALA\totala.exe . So you add the -d switch to the end of the command line and it looks like this >>> C:\CAVEDOG\TOTALA\totala.exe -d . Note the space between the command and the switch.

There are some bugs when running in windowed mode tho.
1) The tahook and many commands will not work at all. I have
experienced this also on linux using a windows emulator. This bugs me and gives clues as to why this problem exists and how to possibly fix it.
2) If you click outside the window there are other bugs including not being able to click in it again and it can crash. I don't recommend it really. I hope this helps people out.

[PhalanX]

Well FU is back up, and the multicore patched exe is found here.

files.tauniverse.com/fu/DesktopModules/XSDocumentLibrary/Components/FileDownloader/XSFileDownloaderPage.aspx?tabid=93&xsdid=11769&xspid=0&xslrf=/fu/DesktopModules/XSDocumentLibrary/App_LocalResources/XSDocumentLibrary&xscl=en-US&xsmcs=%2ffu%2fDesktopModules%2fXSDocumentLibrary%2f&xsuarn=Administrators&xscd=false&xstmid=272&xsift=1

I am running in a C2D 6850 and Win 7 64bits Ultimate and able to Alt-Tab freely from fullscreen TA with this patched exe. Also helped me do alt-tab when i was running XP and then Vista when i first got my dual core cpu a couple years back.