Windows audio patch for Dorling Kindersley DK software

Windows audio patch for Dorling Kindersley DK software

If you're trying to run an old educational CD-ROM game by Dorling Kindersley (DK) on Windows XP, you'll probably see an error message like this:

"Sound Software is not installed properly or has been disabled" or "1058 Sound Decompression Software not installed properly".

There's a patch to fix the problem. It's available through Global Software Publishing's support website. (GSP bought the DK Interactive Learning back catalog.) Here is a direct link to the DK audio patch file. (UPDATE 2024/04/05: Internet Archive Wayback Machine link to the patch file.)

UPDATE 2024/04/05: Stephen Stromberg, who found this entry while trying to get some old games running, reports that GSP's website is no longer active, that the company was acquired by Avanquest, which no longer hosts the patch. He was able to find the patch here, at what appears to be a clone of GSP's site on compupixny.tripod.com. File access appears to be intermittent through tripod (try a right-click Open in New Tab), but I was able to fetch the file from the Internet Archive using my original direct link. (Internet Archive Wayback Machine link to the patch file.) The patch Stephen found on compupixny.tripod.com was also captured by the Wayback Machine from GSP's website in 2013.