old program no more supported

M

Maurizio

Hello:

I used an old freeware program which run well under xp and vista, but no
more with w7-x64, saying to contact the software publisher if there is
any x86 or x64 version.

how that technically? I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible, how can the program be run with vista and not with w7-x64?

is there an issue to resolve that? I need really this program

Thanks for clarification
 
L

Larry__Weiss

I used an old freeware program which run well under xp and vista, but no more with w7-x64, saying
to contact the software publisher if there is any x86 or x64 version.

how that technically? I know that always newer OS are backward compatible, how can the program be
run with vista and not with w7-x64?

is there an issue to resolve that? I need really this program
Click to expand...
I have some old programs that I also can't use under Windows 7 64-bit.
I have wanted to find the time to try to get them to run using DOSBox.

http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBox_and_Windows_Vista_and_Windows_7
http://www.dosbox.com/
 
J

John Williamson

Hello:

I used an old freeware program which run well under xp and vista, but no
more with w7-x64, saying to contact the software publisher if there is
any x86 or x64 version.

how that technically? I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible, how can the program be run with vista and not with w7-x64?

is there an issue to resolve that? I need really this program

Thanks for clarification
Click to expand...
64 bit Windows 7 will not run 16 bit code, which some old programmes
originally written for Windows 3.xx and DOS contain. Vista, Windows 7
32-bit and XP all have the capacity to run 16 bit code.

Try using DOSBox or using 32 bit Windows 7.

What is the program? There may be a known way of working round the problem.
 
K

Ken Springer

I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible,
Click to expand...
My experience has been this is never 100% true. As an OS evolves, older
programs simply will not run. My first issue with this was when the old
Atari 16/32 computers went from TOS 3.xx to 4.xx. The increased power
of the upgrade broke many programs, especially in the graphics
capability area, both software and hardware changes.

I assume you've tried one of the different compatibility modes? My
brother-in-law has an old church software program that needs to be run
in XP SP2 compatibility mode.

Larry_Weiss has another option, virtual machine software. I run Windows
OS's using virtual machine software on this Mac. But be aware, VM
software does not give you 100% compatibility. Some features use
different keystrokes, or may be disabled.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.2
Firefox 19.0
Thunderbird 17.0.3
LibreOffice 3.6.5.2
 
J

John

I had the same problem with Autodesk "Auto Sketch" when I upgraded to WIN 7.

Microsoft offers "Windows Virtual PC" as an upgrade to WIN 7 Professional,
free of charge. Unfortunately, you must pay a small fee to upgrade from your
current edition of Win 7 to the Professional Edition. BTW, the Pro edition
has additional features. Anyway, Upgrade to the Pro edition, then download
the Virtual PC and all is good. Now you can run nearly all software from XP
or Vista. Hope this helps.

"Ken Springer" wrote in message
I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible,
Click to expand...
My experience has been this is never 100% true. As an OS evolves, older
programs simply will not run. My first issue with this was when the old
Atari 16/32 computers went from TOS 3.xx to 4.xx. The increased power
of the upgrade broke many programs, especially in the graphics
capability area, both software and hardware changes.

I assume you've tried one of the different compatibility modes? My
brother-in-law has an old church software program that needs to be run
in XP SP2 compatibility mode.

Larry_Weiss has another option, virtual machine software. I run Windows
OS's using virtual machine software on this Mac. But be aware, VM
software does not give you 100% compatibility. Some features use
different keystrokes, or may be disabled.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.2
Firefox 19.0
Thunderbird 17.0.3
LibreOffice 3.6.5.2
 
P

Paul

John said:
I had the same problem with Autodesk "Auto Sketch" when I upgraded to
WIN 7.

Microsoft offers "Windows Virtual PC" as an upgrade to WIN 7
Professional, free of charge. Unfortunately, you must pay a small fee to
upgrade from your current edition of Win 7 to the Professional Edition.
BTW, the Pro edition has additional features. Anyway, Upgrade to the Pro
edition, then download the Virtual PC and all is good. Now you can run
nearly all software from XP or Vista. Hope this helps.
Click to expand...
Isn't the upgrade to Professional Edition, to use WinXP Mode ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Virtual_PC#Windows_XP_Mode

"Windows XP Mode is available free of charge to users of
Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Users of other editions of Windows 7 are not eligible to
download and use it.

This restriction does not apply to Windows Virtual PC itself."

The Windows Virtual PC should install for free. And then, you
have to install an OS to run as a guest in it.

I think in fact, on my Home Premium, I had Windows Virtual PC installed
(for doing stuff, like running Linux). I've since removed it,
because the interface to it is a pain to use.

Windows Virtual PC, is the version for Windows 7. It's like VPC2007
(also free), except the user interface was severely dumbed down, to
look like the rest of Windows 7. Consequently, it's hard to figure out
how to run stuff in it.

The virtual PC software is usually tied to the OS, to give
Microsoft some control. That's why they make sure the old versions,
don't run on the newer OSes. Hyper-V is the version that runs on
Windows 8 for example (assuming your processor has SLAT).
Microsoft has a "soft block" on running an older software,
on Windows 8. In Windows 8, your options are Hyper-V or
VirtualBox (Oracle), or maybe even VMWare.

WinXP Mode, is a 500MB download that runs on top of Virtual PC.
Basically, a canned OS, ready to go.

Your own OS WinXP Mode Your own OS
and license key Canned OS and license key
as a guest OS and license as a guest OS
| | |
| | |
Windows Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC Hyper-V
| | |
Windows 7 Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, Windows 8
Enterprise

You can also run the WinXP Mode VM on top of VMWare, but VMWare
enforces the Microsoft licensing requirements, by checking whether
Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, or Enterprise is present. And there might
even be a VMWare version dependency (they might not carry forward
support for WinXP Mode forever - I don't use VMWare and can't
tell you anything more about it).

For my every-day OS, the setup is like this. I have a fairly
large number of OS choices loaded in this setup. Windows 8
won't run in here. Windows 7 x32 works fine (tested a few days
ago).

Your own OS
and license key
as a guest OS
|
|
VPC2007
|
WinXP

I don't have an actual copy of installable MSDOS, so have never
tested that one :) I'm not really a history buff.

HTH,
Paul
 
N

Nil

I used an old freeware program which run well under xp and vista,
but no more with w7-x64, saying to contact the software publisher
if there is any x86 or x64 version.

how that technically? I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible, how can the program be run with vista and not with
w7-x64?

is there an issue to resolve that? I need really this program
Click to expand...
If you really wanted to resolve your problem, you wouldn't keep the
name of the program a secret.
 
M

Maurizio

Hello:

I used an old freeware program which run well under xp and vista, but no
more with w7-x64, saying to contact the software publisher if there is
any x86 or x64 version.

how that technically? I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible, how can the program be run with vista and not with w7-x64?

is there an issue to resolve that? I need really this program

Thanks for clarification
Click to expand...
thanks for reply.
the program is not secret, it's PICDELAY.exe from
http://ingenieropic.wordpress.com/descarga-de-programas/
the link to download is: http://www.mediafire.com/?r23c0f6f1lzl6p6

it's a GUI program, I don't think that it could be run using DosBox

Thanks anyway
 
K

Ken Springer

On 3/21/13 10:59 AM, Paul wrote:

<snip>

There is also the Parallels VM, the actual name of the PC version I
don't remember at the moment. But it's commercial software.

Virtual Box is free, and supposedly supports OS X.

I've never used either of these programs under Windows, but I do use the
Mac version to run Windows on my Mac.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.8.2
Firefox 19.0
Thunderbird 17.0.3
LibreOffice 3.6.5.2
 
J

JJ

Maurizio said:
thanks for reply.
the program is not secret, it's PICDELAY.exe from
http://ingenieropic.wordpress.com/descarga-de-programas/
the link to download is: http://www.mediafire.com/?r23c0f6f1lzl6p6

it's a GUI program, I don't think that it could be run using DosBox

Thanks anyway
Click to expand...
That program and probably others too, are 16-bit Windows programs and are
designed for Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows
Vista 32-bit and Windows 7 32-bit. But not for 64-bit Windows.

64-bit version of Windows no longer have 16-bit program support, so it
can't run any of them without using additional software. The only way to
run 16-bit Windows programs under 64-bit Windows is to use VirtualBox or
VMWare by running the 16-bit Windows programs under compatible Windows IN
the VMWare/VirtualBox.
 
S

Stan Brown

I know that always newer OS are backward
compatible,
Click to expand...
You are using "know" differently from other people. You may
_believe_ that, but it's not true.
 
S

Stan Brown

When I go to a site like that, I want to know what DOSBox is and what it does.
Click to expand...
Then why don't you read this newsgroup. It has been mentioned
frequently, by me and by other satisfied users.
 
N

Nil

When I go to a site like that, I want to know what DOSBox is and
what it does.

I couldn't care less about whether "DOSBox is the first-ever
second-time winner of "Project of the Month"!
Click to expand...
"A site like" what? There are two pages listed above, one of which is
the actual product site main page, on which is a very visible
"Information" link that tells you exactly what you're asking for.
 
P

Paul

Ken said:
On 3/21/13 10:59 AM, Paul wrote:

<snip>

There is also the Parallels VM, the actual name of the PC version I
don't remember at the moment. But it's commercial software.

Virtual Box is free, and supposedly supports OS X.

I've never used either of these programs under Windows, but I do use the
Mac version to run Windows on my Mac.
Click to expand...
I have Connectix Virtual PC on my old PowerPC based Mac, for that purpose.
Before Microsoft bought Connectix and acquired the VirtualPC staff,
Connectix used to make software for the Mac. And in that case,
it was supporting x86 guests, on a PowerPC host, so no opportunity
for running instructions directly (without a translation step).

The beauty of a lot of the VMs we use today, is it's x86 on x86, so you
don't lose much performance (lots of what is happening, is just native
code running, properly wrapped). When I use a VM today on my PC,
I can be assured of getting about 90% of the clock rate equivalent
performance.

Some of the worst VM environments *ever*, the user gets any where
from 0.1x to 0.01x clock rate equivalent performance. That's when the
guest instruction set if different than the host instruction set,
and non-optimal translation methods are used. At least one
"hobbyist" implementation of emulator, was down around the
0.01x ratio. That's how fast it would run, if I wrote one :)
The 0.9x we see today on our PCs, is nothing short of amazing,
if you're ever had the misfortune of experiencing the other types.

Paul
 
P

Paul

JJ said:
That program and probably others too, are 16-bit Windows programs and are
designed for Windows 3.1, Windows 95/98/ME, Windows XP 32-bit, Windows
Vista 32-bit and Windows 7 32-bit. But not for 64-bit Windows.

64-bit version of Windows no longer have 16-bit program support, so it
can't run any of them without using additional software. The only way to
run 16-bit Windows programs under 64-bit Windows is to use VirtualBox or
VMWare by running the 16-bit Windows programs under compatible Windows IN
the VMWare/VirtualBox.
Click to expand...
There are tools you can use, to tell what kind of program it is.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3629/usingfileexe.gif

The file.exe program is from here.

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/file.htm

The reason I was testing "md5sum.exe" in that case,
is because I'd already run into the problem, where
md5sum.exe would not run on my x64 laptop. The program is
not listed as "PE32", and thus I would expect trouble.
It's some older flavor of executable. So you can do
some research in advance, if you suspect some of
your favorite programs might be older (16 bit) ones
that won't run.

If Microsoft would only offer a tool, that would
identify all loadable executables, then we wouldn't
need to use stuff like file.exe :-( Microsoft does
make tools, but no single tool covers every possible
kind of executable. (One tool does cover .NET, but
doesn't tell you about traditional EXE file types.)

The file.exe program, originated on Unix. And the fact
it can tell you about Windows files at all, is pretty amazing.
The identifications that "file.exe" makes, are
community contributions, and probably more than 100 people
have contributed identification information for files.
Which is both a strength and a weakness for the program.
It's strength, is in attempting to "identify everything".
It's weakness, is being spread too thin, and not being
tested well. For example, my testing indicates file.exe
doesn't identify all possible .NET formats properly.
So bug-fixing the database on the thing, is a never-ending
job for the primary developers.

When it identifies text files, it can give around one
hundred different ident strings describing the files.
Which is another weakness - providing perhaps too much
info in some cases, when all you wanted to know was
whether there was a "CRLF" problem with a text file.

Paul
 
G

Gene Wirchenko

On Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:31:34 +0200, Steve Hayes

[snip]
When I go to a site like that, I want to know what DOSBox is and what it does.

I couldn't care less about whether "DOSBox is the first-ever second-time
winner of "Project of the Month"!
Click to expand...
Well, you could always click on FAQ. That brings up the answer
right smartly.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

Program cannot load dll from c:\temp folder 0
delete old security program 0
the action can't be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program 10
documents folder missing in programdata folder 3
All Programs/Folders Question? 2
All Programs folders 10
Managing Program Folders? 5
running old programs possible? 29

Top