Here though, I want to get into the changes that I noticed with these Patches, how the game worked in Windows 10 for me personally, and how Windows seems to handle the game files themselves now. For example, the Save Games for Diablo2 are no longer kept within the Installation Directory (the folder where the game is installed to) - as of Patch 1.14 they are now located at: C: Users Saved Games Diablo II The above location is now where your '.D2S' and '.MAP' files are kept (your Character's save game information) - and where we'll be going to get Ladder-Only Runewords working in Single Player mode in a bit. The above location assumes that C: is your main Windows drive/partition (where Windows is installed to, which is created and used automatically, by Default) and it should also be noted that your User Name or Login Name goes where it says ' [obvious to some, I know, but not everyone knows these things at first]. While I am not a developer for Blizzard, looking at the effects this will have with Windows, I assume this was done to create a maintainable save game system for people upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, as upgrading [or needing to reinstall the game itself] will now not affect your save games in any way and they can then still be found afterward by Diablo 2 (Single Player, etc) [by using this directory setup].
I have to give Kudos to Blizzard for coming back and Updating a 10+ year old game, to address Compatibility issues and 'streamline' how the game works with Windows (updating the installation files to do the things above - not to mention another fun ladder reset)! Initially, I was running D2 directly from my 'old' location (from a previous Windows install) which was something like P:/ProgramFiles, etc and just clicking on the.EXE from there. I wanted to test out the Downloadable Installer from the BattleNet site [to do a Digital Installation, as opposed to a Disc Installation], to test how well it worked with Windows 10 and found that the Launcher didn't work at all for me. It showed 'Play Diablo' and a button for 'Uninstall', but clicking on these buttons did nothing. At the time, these buttons did not work at all. I looked around the BattleNet forii, but nothing was being said - at least about problems with the Installer doing this - so I did some Troubleshooting of my own and found that Diablo2 wasn't listed in the Programs and Features section ('Uninstall or Change a Program') of the Windows Control Panel.