I'm a big fan of the game Freelancer, but for some reason they decided not to finish the "play in a window" support. You can tell they intended to get it done, but I guess they didn't have the time. Anyway. I've hacked up the two binaries that need hacking to get it to work:

freelancer.exe
rp8.dll

I did this with a little Direct3D8 debugger I wrote and some hex editing. Improvements include:

• SafeDisc removed, so you don't need the CD in the drive. (If you just want this, use this exe).
• The three (yes, 3) splash movies have been skipped.
• Starts up in a window, and doesn't lock the mouse.

The window resolution is set to 1024x768.. I haven't bothered trying to get 800x600 to work.

To install, copy the above files over the ones you have in the Freelancer\EXE directory - but I recommend you make a backup of the originals first. There's likely some bugs that I haven't fixed and you don't want to have to reinstall.