Playing Madden 2002 on Windows 10
Patching the game
The latest version of 2002 is apparently v.2.3.1. This includes changes to league.DAT and the main EXE files.
I couldn't find an official/vanilla patch download for 2002. My go-to, Patches Scrolls, doesn't have it. Ultimately though you won't be able to run vanilla Madden 2002 EXEs on Windows 10.
We can stack modified ("no-cd") patches for 2.21 (MyAbandonware or Archive) and 2.3.1 (elsewhere) to get a fully updated, Windows 10 ready installation. If you're uncomfortable with this, see the alternative solution described in Appendix 0.
Running the game
Neither game will start unmodified on Windows 10. The problem is that Madden's DRM isn't compatible with Windows 10. It seems that other classic versions e.g. 2004 crash here as well.
This thread from 2015 complains about framerate on Windows 7, and indeed we'll see the same issue on Windows 10. The solution to use a DirectX 8 -> 9 converter such as DgVoodoo. This will also fix various font rendering issues.
