"Incompatible Programs" revelation

When incompatible really isn't.

[rocknbil]

My old comp died and, L.S.S., have a new one with Windows 7 home premium, 64 bit. I don't like most of Windows 7 one bit, not because I fear change but because a lot of it is counterproductive for me. But no ranting . . . .

I'm familiar with the potential incompatibility issues. The IDE HD on my old comp was still good and it is installed as a second backup drive. And here's where it gets interesting.

I use a **really** old Adobe page layout app for anything needing page layout (publishing layout) and the expense of updating it was just not effective. Of course, the install choked, incompatible, running in compatibility mode as administrator offered no love.

However, "in the old days" applications never needed to be split up amongst several system objects with varying degrees of permissions, they were all self contained. Just move the folder and run it. So I did.

And it worked. Without error, without problems, without even swapping to compatibility mode, the old application just fired right up dandy as hell and works.

So I'm a bit suspicious here, to say the least. The installer won't install, but the program runs fine. Is this just another marketing ploy to force our hands to buy new software for the sake of digging in our pockets?

Alternatively, has anyone found any tricks to force/work around the incompatible problems for some of these old programs, besides "virtualization" or "compatibility mode" and run as administrator? One thought I had was to reboot and update the IDE with this computer in a new XP install, giving me two systems should I need it. It seems like hell to have to swim upstream for it though.

I threw a bunch of my favorite program disks in the wastebasket, about to go fish them out, might be able to salvage them.

[engine]

I'm in the middle of just such a problem. All the machines are XP, but a recent failure of a machine meant a replacement with Win 7.

There's an old program which won't run on the new machine. I've tried various tweaks, but no luck just yet.

[coopster]

If you are running Win 7 Pro or higher, you can use a virtual machine. It's not ideal if you ask me, but it is the suggested workaround/solution at this point in time. Check out a previous thread regarding MSIE as the software app, but applies to any older apps:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[rocknbil]

Right, a virtual seems like a lot of overhead for old apps. What got my boggle (haha . . . watched Demolition Man again last night) was the program runs just fine.

Since this post I have resurrected *five* apps in which the installer won't run but the program runs fine with a little tweaking. However, word of warning - the sixth one, a (registered but outdated) CD/DVD application, borked my DVD drive and it wouldn't come up in Windows. Uninstalling/reinstalling drivers had no effect, I had to do a restore point. :-( So be careful, I guess.

I did find a very cool resource for old games - gog.com (remove if you must.) Gog is a wrapper that runs old 16 bit apps and is *very* cheap - $2.99 per app. Duke Nukem is alive and well again, until the 64 bit version comes out this year. :-)

[engine]

>If you are running Win 7 Pro or higher

Running Win 7 Home Premium

[bill]

coopster is referring to XP Mode, which requires the Professional or Ultimate version of Windows 7. The Home versions don't have this.

You could try another virtualization option like VMware or Microsoft's Virtual PC. It just won't be as smooth and integrated as XP Mode. XP Mode includes a licensed copy of XP to work in the virtual environment. It also runs seamlessly from your Windows 7 desktop.

[woodysroundup]

However, "in the old days" applications never needed to be split up amongst several system objects with varying degrees of permissions, they were all self contained. Just move the folder and run it. So I did.

And it worked. Without error, without problems, without even swapping to compatibility mode, the old application just fired right up dandy as hell and works.

rocknbil,

I need to run a 16 bit old version of Printmaster Gold on a Windows 7 Home Premium machine. Can you explain what you did to run your old Adobe layout program. I'm puzzled by what you mean when you say "just move the folder and run it." What folder and how do I do that? Thanks.