The game Star Trek: Armada is an older title from 2000. As such it as certain problems with installing and running on different platforms. As there are a number of combinations where to install which version of the game, here is a breakdown of them.
First thing that is important to differentiate is the medium for installation. The original game came with a CD from which it is supposed to be installed. Nowadays a GOG release exists. Both have different requirements and lead to different games (although that will not change the game's contents in any way).
Basically you should either install the game regularly or at least copy it. The game requires directx, but this is included. For a fresh installation the patches should be applied. If you want to play 1.2 with crack, you should make a backup of the Armada.exe, because network games don't work with the cracked and uncracked version in a common match. So to get back to the original file, keep it as backup! The English version has much better unit messages and cutscenes than the German dubbed version.
Install, apply patch and if necessary copy crack over. That's it. In theory. The game installer from the CD is unfortunately not the fastest and the game tends to have some issues on modern systems. For the details, see sections below.
For multiplayer matches the game might work without patch 1.2 as long as all players use the same version. But patch 1.2 fixes some annoying problems of the game (e.g. units can now be handled better than before). It's definitely worth it. Only the AI got nerfed considerably. In difficult and medium modes you'll quickly notice that when you switch to 1.2. It cheats by ignoring the tech tree and requiring a lot less construction time/-cost.
Be aware: The GOG version 1.2 is not compatible with the CD version 1.2. So just from comparing version strings you cannot see if all players have compatible versions.
In this case the installer fails it is necessary to copy the game manually by simply copying all the files from the setup directory of the installation CD to a directory named accordingly, with the exception of the data directory. The contents of data must be in the same directory as the rest, but without the directory data containing it. Only its contents.
In this case the patch cannot be installed normally, because the information from the registry is missing. Then you have to get the corresponding files from someone else and copy them in manually (the patch installer looks in the registry for the path in which Armada would have been installed, but this information does not exist when doing a manual installation). The following files are added/overwritten by the patch when coming from 1.1:
So copy those files from a 1.2 installation to patch 1.1 manually. The help-files are obviously optional, but the rest should be updated. As this is a lot of manual work, it is recommended to install the game completely at least once and to apply the patch 1.2. Then you can simply compress the game directory as it is and store the resulting archive for re-use.
The patch to version 1.3 actually only consists of one file, WonInterface.dll. This file replaces the original one. Once you replace the original file with the patched version, the game will declare itself as version 1.3 and allow for a lot of additional resolutions to be set in the graphics settings. Also the crash with more than 2 GB RAM will not happen any more. Also with very long Windows PATH variables the game crashes without this patch. The patch also adds an in-game editor mode switch (typing edit in the chat will activate it, but that requires the map editor files).
Be aware, that the selection menu for the available resolutions now behaves a little bit different. To fit in the additional resolutions, the menu items are packed together closer, which makes them overlap with one another a bit. This leads to the strange behavior, that the menu items can only be selected properly, when hovering in the upper half of a menu item. You can clearly see, if 1.3 was applied in this menu, because the item labels (e.g. 1920x1080x32) are displayed in the upper half of each selection item box.
The patch installer will not find the GOG installation folder by itself (different registry key used for that information), so you will have to pick the folder manually. 1.3 also fixes a few bugs beyond the 1.2 patch. And last but not least, it removes the CD check, so you don't need a crack anymore.
On Win 98 the GOG Version will not install but, nevertheless it does run. Simply copy the folder of the installed game over to your Windows 98 system but remove the following files from the destination folder afterwards:
The game will start then, even on Win 98.
If you want to get a Win 98 version 1.3, you can do the installation on XP & newer, and save the resulting directory. Or you simply copy over file WonInterface.dll.
At least under Win 98 it is almost mandatory to install the game. On a fresh Win 98 Armada does not run from a copied folder. So install it regularly and apply the patches. Under Win 98 the 1.3 patch installer doesn't work. Therefore, keep a pre-installed version to be able to copy WonInterface.dll over.
When installing the game, then a major problem may by the following: The moment you click Change Directory, the installer freezes the entire system. If that happens, take the steps described in section Manual Installation.
Here you can install, patch and crack everything straight forward without any problems (also the GOG version). The difficulties here are more centered around sound problems. The GOG version is also affected by the sound bugs. In order to fix this, see section Sound Stutters on XP.
There are no more sound problems here (at least not with patch 1.3), but on some systems there are graphics problems in the main and campaign menus. Sometimes the textures from the previous menu are displayed, so that the buttons are no longer visible. The combination Win 7 x64 + Nvidia driver version 320.49 causes problems. But an update to the drivers fixed that. Apart from that it works quite well.
The only requirement for playing: Run it with XP SP 2 or 3 compatibility mode and with administrator rights (or use RunAs Spc). After that, however, it runs pleasantly smoothly on current systems. With Gameranger you can even play Armada via internet under Win 7. The only problem are occasional crashes when the game has been running for a while (not only multiplayer is affected). However, there are more and more signs that this has something to do with the Windows updates in the background. Most problems with sudden crashes obviously occur when updates are searched for in the background or when the notifier reports that updates have been found. It is recommended to turn off the update service for testing purposes. Experience shows that crashes only occur after a while. 3 PC opponents on easy are no problem considering play time. An 8 player map with 7 PC opponents on medium or heavy takes sufficiently long to be confronted with the problem in general. In principle, a loss of progress (partly) can only be avoided by frequently saving (this also works for non-campaign matches). How this works in multiplayer is still untested.
Works as intended. The 1.3 patch might enhance the experience with widescreen support, but it is not required.
For the CD version there's more to be done here:
You can get the latest version of the DirectDraw Wrapper here: https://github.com/elishacloud/dxwrapper/releases.
The actual installation from CD may pose a bit of a problem, when trying to use the installer setup.exe from the root directory of the game under Win 10 x64. Instead, use the setup.exe from folder setup on the CD. It will work in any case. It is possible that the game cannot be started via the starter (slaunch.exe), but directly via the binary (Armada.exe). In addition it can happen that Armada »loops« a bit when starting, i.e. the screen turns black, then the splash screen appears again a few times, until the actual game finally comes up.
On Windows 10 some players have reported, that it is impossible for them, to join an existing LAN game. You can see it in the ingame match browser but when trying to connect to it, the attempt fails. See section Game is Visible But Cannot be Joined for a solution to this problem.
The GOG version works well without any additional steps to be taken, except maybe applying the 1.3 patch (adds widescreen support).