Getting ChessMaster 9000 to work on Windows 10

Since Windows 10 came out, many have bemoaned the fact that Chessmaster 9000 will not install on it.  I was one such person, and I personally think 9000 is far better than the "10".  9000 had lots of nice colors and graphics and options.   the "10 Grandmaster" was little more than washed out black and white pastels. Reminded me of how Microsoft 'upgraded' from XP to Vista.  Yeah right.

I figured out very easy way to make it install and work properly...including with that 'no cd patch' that UBI put on the internet years ago, so you don't have to have the cd spinning in the drive during play.

Install Advanced System Repair.    File ASR_Blue_Installer_7GA-G-F2.
https://advancedsystemrepair.com/

You don't need to make any actual repairs...just install.

Now insert Chessmaster cd 1 and do 'complete' install.

After install, it will ask you to insert Disc 2.  Do so.

After it looks like its done, you have to go through a few more quick additional installs with the second disc still in the drive.  Including installing Acrobat 5, which can be safely declined.  Now remove the disc.

Take your chessmaster "no cd patch", making sure it is named exactly Chessmaster, and copy into
C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubi Soft\Chessmaster 9000.
If you don't have the patch, I'll give you a copy, as i think UBI no longer support 9000 in any way.

You are replacing the original .exe with this patch.  Confirm.  Now right-click and drag a shortcut from the patch.exe to your desktop, or wherever you'd like the icon to be.

Double clicking the shortcut icon should then cause Chessmaster to work exactly the way it did on XP, starting as it normally does with that video.  One small hangup:  if you let the video play all the way through, the game might freeze. Simply left-click your mouse when the video starts, and the video will stop and you'll be given the functioning game window.

Restart.  confirm that Chessmaster still works.  You can then uninstall "Advanced System Repair", and Chessmaster will still work.

Don't ask me what ASR actually does, I don't know...it just works.  It would appear, therefore, that patching Chessmaster to make it compatible with Windows 10 would have been a relatively easy and inexpensive affair for UBI, but for whatever reason, they chose to just abandon the idea.  Hope this helps.