[Bug 2905] Kings Quest 8 crashes while loading a saved game

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2905

--- Comment #21 from Anastasius Focht  2012-05-03 17:02:59 CDT ---
Hello,

--- quote ---
C:\Windows\AppPatch\AcSpecfc.dll in XP and above has a function named
"KingsQuestMask" that patches the game somehow, has anyone taken a look to see
what it does and use that as a starting point? I have very little experience
with disassembly but I think it was related to file handles.
--- quote ---

"Ac" is probably "application compatibility".
Windows has so called "application shims" that allow gazillion of broken/bad
behaving apps to run on newer Windows versions.

At runtime application signatures are matched in a database and application
specific shims (dlls) are loaded that hook APIs and redirect it to alternate
implementation.
These implementations carry specific workarounds/hacks.

And no, reverse engineering of Windows dlls is not acceptable, it's standard
Wine policy.
Wine has a black box/clean room engineering approach.

The presence of this "KingsQuestMask" shim might indicate that this game is
somehow broken and/or relies on old or undocumented API behaviour which
requires a specific workaround in newer Windows versions.

I'm not sure but did you read my comment #19 ?
I already did an analysis some time ago and gave a possible hint.

Regards