A guide on how to run kanon on windows 11 with the Ultimate Voicepatch

for people that know their stuff, this is basically using WSL to install RLVM and pasting the game's files there then running it from RLVM on WSL

becuase no one else has done it and documented it properly(this guide is definately not proper)

I dont wanted to deal with seo optimisations, and its not like i was going to earn money posting it there, this guide exists for the betterment of humanity and github is the most visible website i can post it to freely

This guide needs Hyper-V and WSL2, if you are running VMware,

well, if you are running vmware figure something out yourself,

run linux on vm or something, you probably know more than me about VMs.

VMware and HyperV doesnt mix together very well.

Kanon is technically Abandonware at this point, so i am linking an archive.org link to the iso i used to install it and a link to the voicepatch

If kanon gets a remaster on PC I'll remove the link of the iso and voicepatch , for the iso, you can probably find it in archive.org and voicepatch is in vndb.org 's translation section

Kanon Visual Novel Collection : https://archive.org/details/kanon-visual-novel-collection

Kanon Standard Edition Direct Link (From archive.org) : https://archive.org/download/kanon-visual-novel-collection/Kanon%20-%20Standard%20Edition.iso

TakafumiSakagami's Kanon Ultimate Voicepatch (follow his guide posted there for installation process first) : https://plsnohate.wordpress.com/visual-novel-hacking/ultimate-voice-patch-for-kanon/

Hey All, KuudereEnthusiast here

And your know what i hate the most

An operating system whose strong points are compatibility, but fails at it

After wanting to play kanon for like ages

I finally decided to download it and install all the patches, English translation, voice over and stuff

English translation worked great

But the voice over, it didn't

So naturally I got to work trying to fix it.

After a few google searches and archived reddit posts later

I found that Kanon has doesn't work with windows 11 and the voiceover's provided w11.exe that is working, doesn't have the voiceover. Ironic

So

Like a maniac

I loaded up Ubuntu dual boot and tried to run the game on wine

It worked

well, looks like windows got beat by a translation layer.

So now, like a wreckless manic, i ran the game from bottles installed in wsl in windows 11

it worked

but it was laggy as FqUaCK.

then after hours of hitting my head against the wall,

i remembered that rlvm exists for real live visual novels

i installed that from the repo.

works perfectly

So

Its a long abandoned project that tried to remake/reverse engineer the real live engine to run on linux and macOS, and suceeded at it. Its like those doom source remakes/ports like ZDoom.

It's abandoned but it still works, and through the beauty of debian, i can confirm that it will work till Debain 11 is available for mankind to boot, and thats probably a long time. So, using WSL we will reverse the situaltion and run the game on WSL's VM for backward compatablity, Ironic. Still, better than running the original game from wine.

Official website : http://www.rlvm.net/

Open the Start menu and type "Windows features". Click on "Turn Windows features on or off". Check the "Windows Subsystem for Linux" checkbox and press the "OK" button. Restart your computer.

Once WSL is enabled, you can install Linux distros from the Microsoft Store.

I recommend Debian if all you are going to use WSL for is only RLVM because it is the easiest to configure.

but any distro should work if you know your stuff

(i used debian for this guide, tested it on Ubuntu 22 LTS,23 Stable and Debian 11 and 12 on WSL for this guide )

If on Ubuntu then install the ubuntu universe repo for rlvm package.

then run Debian, update it with

    sudo apt update

then

    sudo apt upgrade

then install rlvm

    sudo apt install rlvm

then run rlvm by typing

    rlvm

If it runs and opens a file picker, then close it and paste your files roughly in debain/home/YOURUsername/Kanon for easy access.

then open rlvm again

then pick your kanon files from there

then boom

thats kanon for ya

RLVM is pretty good, but it kinda feels like a slight downgrade compared to the original engine sometimes.

Like you can't skip audio or increase text speed

Window Scaling is pretty weird and it remains stuck to its 640x480p windowed resolution

Janky fix to this issue it to use windows magnifier at 2x with the game to make it look big in 1080p displays

No ai upscaling (waifu2x and fsr) on the game with magpie or gamescope , if you want it, use linux or windows 10 or below (with magnifier that game doesnt look that pixelated compared to running the original game from bottles)

And now if for some reason it doesnt work you can try installing flatpak on wsl then install bottles and run the game exe through it

I'll put the rough instructions i made for installing it from wine and bottles in wsl, but its incomplete and i lazily made it go through an ai chatbot to do make it human readable

I would only recommend to follow that when in serious issues RLVM should be prefered 99.99% of the time

If there comes any issues (or if you want to throw rotten eggs and tomatoes at me for this shitty guide) contact me on discord at kuudereenthusiast

Now I ain't no linux super user, but if there is a small issue or mistake in the guide feel free to message me. Setting an issue in github might get my attention,but discord message will be much faster (If any issue is widespread i might set an FAQ page here)

If you feel like improving the guide feel free to fork it or make a pull request, just give me a shoutout in the end

I keep improving/updating this guide whenever i feel like i can make an improvement, so if you see any mistakes that might have came up from my careless typing then pls contact.

I just made the guide to help others enjoy this gem years later, also, try clannad too, made by the same author, available on Steam, so no need for any workarounds

Enable WSL on Windows 11. Install Ubuntu on WSL. Open a terminal in Ubuntu and run the following commands:

    sudo apt update

    sudo apt upgrade

    sudo apt install flatpak

    flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

    flatpak install flathub com.usebottles.bottles

Once Flatpak and Bottles are installed, restart the pc,( or the explorer.exe if you feel adventurous ) and open bottles(ubuntu from the start menu)

Let the bottles setup do its job

then

Make a bottle, (i named it confusion to avoid any confusion (ha)).

The challenging part might come when you open Ubuntu in File Explorer. It's probably docked on the left tree of Explorer.

Go to Ubuntu in File Explorer. Navigate to

    Ubuntu\home\user\.var\app\com.usebottles.bottles\data\bottles\bottles\BOTTLENAME\drive_c\Program Files

Paste the Kanon folder there. (Bottles has Flatpak containerization limitation so you cant run anything properly if its outside its flatpak directory.)

Add a shortcut

Go to Bottles and click Add shortcut. Go the long way to the Kanon folder in Linux again. Add the reallive.exe file. Cross your fingers and run that .exe from the shortcut menu.

Congratulations!

If it runs with audio, you're good to go! Click the Add shortcut button and select the reallive.exe file from the Kanon installation directory. Run the shortcut.

Troubleshooting

If you get a DirectSound with a bunch of bogus text error, restart your computer.
If the game audio gets choppier over time, restart your computer.
Audio is pretty choppy compared to rlvm or original game, if you want to play on the original engine , you gotta cope with this issue and install older versions of windows(like 10) to play it.

Conclusion

This guide has shown you how to install Bottles from Flatpak and play Kanon on Windows 11. With these tools, you can play Kanon and other Windows applications on your Windows 11 system.

I hope you enjoy playing Kanon!

english is my 4th language, throw rotten eggs at my english teacher not me