can you tell me exactly what happend when you used 7zip, and the steps you went through? Also, where do you have the games installed? In order for them to work with 7zip, you might want to install them in your documents folder.

I agree, Jack. Well, I don't feel like installing the tweaker just for this purpose, although it might provide other nice tweaks as well, I know. I should probably give it a try. I'm just getting really frustrated with this already, and starting to lose motivation. In any case, my UAC is currently disabled (NVDA reads it as a slider set to 0) through the usual control panel right now.

Bryant, I uninstalled the games and reinstalled them to my Documents folder now, still no luck. Overall, I've already tried a completely different folder called Games, outside of Program Files or Documents, in other words outside of the system protected folders, then I tried the default installation to Program Files (x86), and finally to Documents as you suggested now. No difference at all.
When I try to open the games through 7Zip's file manager, I simply open that, i.e. the file manager, through its link in the Start menu, then I locate the respective game folder and executable, and press enter on that. I even tried the Open context menu item in the file manager but that apparently tries to read the file as raw data or something.

In all cases, no matter what I do or don't do, there is no perceivable response at all, it simply acts as though I haven't pressed enter on the program at all. Like I said, I tried opening the games as administrator and normally, from the elevated command prompt, through the file manager, with various compatibility settings for older Windows, anything, with or without the BSCfix package, and I have a very extensive set of old Visual Basic runtime libraries installed by now. :-D

The only thing the games do when trying to open them is that they create a text file called, for instance, pipe.exe-up.txt, that contains some kind of trace information in hexadecimal form or something. Right after that, they seem to crash immediately, as they are no longer visible in the task manager.
Of course, I have controlled folder access completely disabled in Windows Defender anyway, but just because it was really annoying and interfering with my workflow in general, not just because of the games, and I have even checked the executables with Windows Defender itself, getting no flags at all.

I'm really just about to give up, unless someone knows of a safe to use, virus free, already made talking Windows XP virtual machine.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, guys, though.
Lukas

I do have a windows xp virtual machine. Let me search my hd to see if I still have an unmodified copy.

I think I hav one laying around as well, so if Jack can't give you his I can.

Ok, Bryant, if you're okay with that, could you please give me yours then? You can send me the link either via e-mail or a PM. As I said, I'll be extremely grateful for that.
Does the machine already have NVDA or another screen reader set up, or will I need to do that myself?
Many thanks in advance,
Lukas

Oh, wow, thanks a lot! I thought you forgot about this or didn't have it any more. Really, thanks a ton, man. Since it's an exe, I assume it's a self-extracting archive and not an installer of some kind? I'm writing this just as it downloads in the background, so this is why I ask. Does it have NVDA included or do I need to get it in there first?
Thanks,
Lukas

Dark: Do you get any errors while trying to run blast chamber. I fixed the game by disabling compatability mode and running as admin. After that I ran the game as admin and it worked. If that doesn't work, install aprone's checkup or winkit.

@Dark: What error do you get?

The configuration manager runs fine, but when I try to run the game I get a box with pipe2 error 432, file name or class name not found whilst during automation operation while  loading game intro.

If you did, trying to run the game will result in an error 1566. After that, run the game as admin. The error 432 should only pop up if you have run this game as an administrator checked in the game's properties.
I'll do a recording of getting the game to work if that didn't make much sense.
Here's the recording.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hsK-l … Zu-D7ExoaB

Well yeah, probably. Are you definitely sure Compattibility mode is disabled too?

Guess we'll just wait for an update or something.I could never get Hunter to speak my score inbetween levels. Windows would just say "Hunter, not responding." for like 15 seconds and then the next level would start. Otherwise the game would work fine.