I've finally managed to get WCIII up and running with XP completely intact with all sound and movies. I used a DOS emulation program that I consider a little superior to dosBox since it's much easier to use and delivers the same thing if not a little better.
The lastest version of VDMSound gives you a couple of interesting customization options. First of all, running WCIII with the default settings will cause your CD to not be read since WCIII gets mighty confused when it finds a CD drive that reads faster than what was possible at the time. To solve this VDMSound has an option that automatically slows the CD speed to something WCIII is more happy with. I still have to mess around with the Sound Blaster emulation, even though VDMSound is capable of emulating any Sound Blaster I just used the basic SB since simpler usually works easier.
To use VDMSound install it with all the options it has and choose to intigrate it with your shell so all you'll have to do to play WCIII with it is right click on the install file on the CD and choose the VDMSound options you'll be using for the game to install it. Then since you can't save options on a CD of course, make a shortcut to WC3.exe on your desktop and set it up with the VDMSound options.
After all that WCIII Should work without a hitch on your Windows XP system. You can fool around with more options in VDMSound if you like but it's really not neccesary. The only problem I get is occasional freezing, but it's very very rare and it works better than anything except DOS itself that I have tried so far.
If you knew this already then oops, if not then I hope I've helped somebody out! If you've failed to get WCIII to work any other way then give it a shot.
You can get VDMSound at http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/
The lastest version of VDMSound gives you a couple of interesting customization options. First of all, running WCIII with the default settings will cause your CD to not be read since WCIII gets mighty confused when it finds a CD drive that reads faster than what was possible at the time. To solve this VDMSound has an option that automatically slows the CD speed to something WCIII is more happy with. I still have to mess around with the Sound Blaster emulation, even though VDMSound is capable of emulating any Sound Blaster I just used the basic SB since simpler usually works easier.
To use VDMSound install it with all the options it has and choose to intigrate it with your shell so all you'll have to do to play WCIII with it is right click on the install file on the CD and choose the VDMSound options you'll be using for the game to install it. Then since you can't save options on a CD of course, make a shortcut to WC3.exe on your desktop and set it up with the VDMSound options.
After all that WCIII Should work without a hitch on your Windows XP system. You can fool around with more options in VDMSound if you like but it's really not neccesary. The only problem I get is occasional freezing, but it's very very rare and it works better than anything except DOS itself that I have tried so far.
If you knew this already then oops, if not then I hope I've helped somebody out! If you've failed to get WCIII to work any other way then give it a shot.
You can get VDMSound at http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/