Windows 11 & old NBA games

I tried few days ago Windows 11 on my computer.
I had to roll back, because 2K9 to 2K14 dont work anymore ,black screen or instant CTD.
I tried to reinstall directx, compatibility mode etc... in vain.

Fortunately 2k15 to 22 works.
Basketball Classics works as well.

Cant tell about old NBA Live games.

Bad news for backwards compatibility for sure. Disappointing to hear.

I recently upgraded to Win11, and have found the following:

2K titles:
2K9 May not start and gives a message about side-by-side configuration not correct. See Andrew's post below for the fix to this.
2K10 however worked after it asked to install an older .NET framework.
To me this suggests that there is hope for 2k11 through 2k14 so I will test those out.

Regarding Live titles:
So far have been able to successfully reinstall and play NBA Live 2005
NBA Live 2004 works but you will likely require the updated executable file from the downloads section.
NBA Live 98 runs successfully as it did on Windows 10, using the steps on the NBA Live 98 entry on NLSC Wiki

I will continue to test older titles on Win11 as soon as I can and post more findings here.

Last edited by Kieran on Sat Oct 18, 2025 8:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Try this for NBA 2K9: viewtopic.php?f=119&t=116086

Hopefully we can troubleshoot some of the other classics!

Thanks Andrew, the 2K9 fixed worked as described.

Also for anyone experiencing the NBA Live 2004 issue as I detailed above, the updated .exe file in the forum downloads for has solved this issue.

Good to know on both counts! Considering the Xbox's backwards compatibility, recent versions of Windows have been a bit of a letdown for retro gaming. It's fortunate we have these fixes, though!

There's a website that feature repacked PC games and NBA Live 96-2005 are there. I have tested both 96 and 2005 on Windows 11 and they do work. I have gotten 2K11 to work on Windows 11 to work as well, but I forgot where I got the game from. I think it was from the Internet Archive.