*more stuff: Installed the game to 'D:\Program Files\Freelancer' and not in 'C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Games\Freelancer', installed unofficial patches 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, tried to install WMFDIST.exe from the REDIST directory on the game CD (but I think it failed), manually extracted l3codecp.acm from the LC3.EXE file above and copied it to C:\Windows\System32\l3codecp.acm, applied some mp3 registry setting fix (file is clean, just sets some registry entries), manually applied another registry setting fix as per this guy's suggestion. You can play in windowed mode by appending '-windowed' to the freelancer-shortcut target path, btw., which is nice, because the game won't let you set 16:9 resolutions it will with the 1.1 patch. I did more stuff*, but I think these are the steps that mattered. Check the Direct Play checkbox and click Ok. Look for Legacy components, double click it or press the plus sign to see all components.
On the left, click on Turn Windows features on or off. Check if the Programs and features part of the Control Panel has opened. but it still offers challenges and gives you options on how you play it. Heres how you do that: Press Windows key and R. Then run the game as Administrator, works without compatibility mode. Freelancer setup game for PC is a space flight simulation game developed by. I ended up still having sound issues (no dialogue, no music), at which point I downloaded and installed the audio codec required (copy and open the url ending in 'LC3.EXE' on that page). The game seems to crash because the copy-protection test doesn't work on Windows 10.