Just upgraded to windows 10 and tried to run Fallout 3 GOTY edition, it pops something up in the corner of my screen saying this game is not compatible with windows 10, and I am able to launch the game, but when I try to load a save and then it crashes. I have games for windows live installed and am not too PC saavy. Any help would be appreciated.

I'm guessing it just doesn't like the old save path. So you need to regenerate it.

Find where your saves are located ... search for ".fos" files if you need to. Take the save folder they are in ... move it some where else.

Then delete the "Fallout 3" folder along with everything else in it.

Start the game with "FalloutLauncher.exe" It will detect your video settings and recreate the new path.

Then put your saves folder back inside the new "Fallout 3" folder it created. I guess search for it if you have to ... or search for the "FalloutPrefs.ini"

And of course you'll have to re-edit the .ini files again. Like the one to limit it to 2 cores.

Gator Country has gotten Fallout 3 to work on Windows 10. I do not have Windows 10.

Where is the game installed.

Was the game installed prior to the upgrade to Windows 10. Maybe if the step Mktavish suggested does not work maybe uninstalling the game completely and then installing it.

I never upgrade an OS I always install it as a fresh clean OS. I found that most things work better that way. That is one reason why I will not be getting the free upgrade. I would rather just buy Windows 10 when it has had at least one major service patch.

Yeah attempting a reinstall at the moment after trying the first suggestion to no avail. Well if gator country would like to share what he did to get it running that would be nice, otherwise telling me he got it to work does not help. Also, thinking upgrading to 10 was a bad idea lol.

I seem to remember there being a problem with the game recognizing saves from an old OS to a newer one. Have you tried checking compatibility on the .exe for older OS?

But those old saves may just be lost sad to say. Although there may be a way to get them to convert ... can't remember the old details.

I'd say its still to early to tell though.

Add edit : by the way .... can you make new saves?

Yeah, I think it is lost and no I tried to create a new game and it just crashed on me as well. Will switch the compatibility in a few mins when it is reinstalled.

Let us know if it works or not. It helps us when we try to help other players.

Well if you didn't edit the .ini again after you deleted the other one ... it will definitely crash if you have more than 2 cores.

This fix ...

Open up the fallout.ini file in: My Documents\My Games\Fallout3
Find the line:
bUseThreadedAI=0
change it to:
bUseThreadedAI=1
Just hit enter with the cursor at the end of that line

Then input this line at the new cursor below that line:
iNumHWThreads=2

Close and save the text box:
This will limit the game to 2 cores and prevent the engine bug from causing the game to freeze.

However you mention you have the GOTY eddition ... which comes with GFWL. And what your describing sounds like windows 10 is launching the opposite of what you usually played with. There are 2 different save paths ... one for off line and one for logged into GFWL.

So look inside your saves folder .... does it have another folder ?

Or did you do a file search for ".fos" files ?

Were there any other locations they were showing up in? .fos is the extension for any Fallout save files.

Add edit : sorry the link fix wasn't up to date , so I just pasted the info.

There is an edit so re-check my above green text for that fix.

GFWLive may be the problem, Win 10 popped a download for it when I started the Fallout 3 launcher in Win 10.

Then again, GFWL does not seem to even want to launch in Win 10.

I launched Fallout 3 anyway and it seems to be just fine.

What will be missing is the GFWL overlay, which I personally never liked and usually disabled in past anyway.

I have the Steam version installed currently which seems 100% operational in vanilla as well as with FOSE loaded.

Good chance Win may have abandoned GWFL with its new "Store" integration.

Hmmm ... so no issues with you ... but your steam version. I myself have the GOTY disc version , which installs an older version of GFWL.

Playable without getting the new client on vista and older. But newer OS required to download the latest client to even launch.

Although still had to get the latest client to log into GFWL no matter the OS.

Isn't the steam version still requireing you to get the latest client though? just for the .dll

Maybe win 10 will patch that finally since GFWL online doesn't exist anymore.

But thinking the old code might be causing problems.

I guess the OP didn't actually say what version of GOTY he actually had ... Hmmm it might even be a download version from GFWL ??? OUCH!!!

It turned out I had a bigger problem with windows 10. As I was trying to fix Fallout 3, I decided to check on my video drivers. I could not access them. So I tried to restart my computer to see if that would fix it. My comp started and would hit a black screen with just my mouse cursor. So I spent a few hours on hold mostly with microsoft to fix the issue. As windows 10 was resetup, this time my drivers were there along with the nvidia geforce experience program which was not present earlier when I was having my issues. Now fallout 3 loads, it still tells me its not compatible but it works fine and my save loads fine. I will update this if the problem comes back but for not I guess my problem was just a broken windows 10 upgrade. Thank you all for your help.