I live in an area of the country where there are a lot of older people. Many of these wonderful people still have old computers running old software. However, they are slowly starting to upgrade their computers and operating systems to the latest and greatest Windows 7 64-bit, but want to continue using their beloved old software. Therein lies the problem!
The other day I set up a new Windows 7 machine for a client. He was extremely happy, and then said, “Okay, now let’s install my wife’s American Greetings CreataCard Gold 5 card and my Hoyle card games.” He and his wife had used these same programs for years and couldn’t live without them!
Well, as you can probably imagine, these two programs would not install. Both of the above programs are 16-bit and will not install on Windows 7 64-bit operating system. If my client had purchased a Windows 7 32-bit computer, he could have run his programs in compatibility mode, but this feature will not work on Windows 7 64-bit.
So the guy was very disappointed, but I was as “calm as a cucumber” because I knew there were several great free virtual machine programs that would allow you to run these older 16-bit programs on Windows 7 64-bit.
These are the programs I recommend (especially #2 and #3):
1) DOSBox (DOSBox is a DOS emulator and only runs 16-bit MS-DOS programs and not 16-bit Windows applications.)
two) VirtualBox (a “virtual machine” that allows a unmodified operating system with all its software installed to run in a special environment, in addition to your existing operating system).
3) VMware Player (a “virtual machine” that will run legacy Windows applications on top of your existing operating system without interfering with the original operating system).
Have fun and continue to enjoy your old programs on your new operating system!
