Instructions: The first thing you need to know is that you MUST be the administrator on your XP machine for any of this to work, and that this is a registry edit, as I said before, so there won't be a proper uninstall process for the program. Here we go! 1.) After placing the Playground CD in your drive it will post an error box which says:

launcher.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

You may safely click "Don't Send" to not send Microsoft the Error Report.

2.) Click on your "My Computer" Icon on your desktop.

3.) Right Click your CD Drive Icon that contains the Creatures Playground CD. (This will be the icon that has an Encore box.) now choose the "open" option.

4.) You should now see a folder marked "Install" click on the Install folder.

5.) Right Click on Setup.exe and choose "Properties" Then click the "Compatibility Tab" now click the check box next to the option "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" Use the box below that option to select "Windows98/ Windows Me". Then click "Ok"

6.) "Right Click on Setup.exe again and choose "Run As". Now click the radial button next to the option "The following user". Make sure the box says "Administrator" and then input the administrator password. Now click "OK"

7.) The Program installation will start. Choose your setup language when the box pops up, and then click Ok

8.) You will soon be welcomed to the Creatures Playground Setup program. Click "Next" when you are ready.

9.) You will now be asked to Choose your destination location, and click "Next". I recommend using the default installation path. ( Which on most machines will be C:\Program Files\Creatures Playground ) You can however change this path to install the game as you wish, but you will need to remember the path you gave the game so as to edit the shortcut paths that are mentioned in step 17 of this mailing. As well, I should note that I found that the installer wouldn't allow me to change the installation path to anything but the default. It seemed that if I did, the program would simply stop installing and pop back to the desktop. :(

10.) You will now be asked to Select Program Folder. Generally this option is left as the default. Click "Next".

11.) The installation will proceed until it hits about 98 Percent or so... (forgive me I can't remember exactly, and my notes aren't clear on this point.) At which point you will be presented with an error message. DO NOT CLICK on the Ok button or acknowledge this error in any way!

12.) Now hit the control + escape keys, and then open your my computer folders to navigate to the newly installed Creatures Playground folder. Right Click on this folder and choose copy. Then right click on a blank area in the same folder and choose paste. A full copy of the Creatures Playground folder will be created, and will be named "Copy of Creatures Playground".

13.) You may now go back to the installation program, and acknowledge the error message. This will back up the installation of the game, and it will be automatically uninstalled. Don't worry, you still have the full installation minus the registry keys, and the program shortcuts.

14.) Rename your "Copy of Creatures Playground" folder to say Creatures Playground.

15.) Now open your registry editor. You'll find it in the windows folder - regedit.exe. Back up your registry, and then hand type the registry keys provided below into the Registry.

UPDATE!: After having made the instructions above, I uninstalled Creatures Playground from my machine, and deleted my own registry entries so that I might actually follow along step by step and assure myself that I hadn't missed anything. What I discovered was that I was NO LONGER getting the error that stops the game from installing! Imagine my surprise and shock!!! I've since tested this on another machine, and what I discovered is that you could possibly make things a lot easier on yourself by following Steps 15/16 and simply merge the registry keys, and then install the program by following steps 1-10. Lastly you would then need to set up the compatibility modes for the game to run. (though I found I didn't need them.) Bonus mention... You will also have an uninstall if the setup finishes out properly, as well as the shortcuts. ;) So by all means please try merging/adding the registry entries first!

Credits: TreeSprite