I’m trying to get an old Windows game running for a friend.
It seems to be a 16bit macromedia app and I kind of got it running in a Win 98 VM using Virtualbox. DOSBox seems to get confused by it being a Windows app.
Thing is, the friend is very much not good with tech and I want to set everything up for him to “just work”. Installing VBox might be a bit too much.
Apparently, you can install Windows inside DOSBox, but is that really stable and usable for layman? Are there any other approaches?
I have found that sometimes, old games run better on linux via Lutris than on Windows. If it’s a 16 bit game you should give it a try. If it doesn’t work, VM might be your only answer.
bottles, lutris, heroicgamelauncher
I would think the easiest way is to get a cheap old PC and install XP or 98 etc. If you’re afraid of getting hacked keep it off the network.
Does the game exist on modern platforms like steam? It might be worth the $5 and then just install it that way.
Gog.com is always worth a look. I found a functional copy of Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri there.
Super basic, but have you already tried using the compatibility mode? If it runs in a Windows 98 VM it should theoretically work with compatibility mode set to Windows 98.
Native solutions are best, if they’re effective.
Ah, I didn’t realize that was a limitation.
So here’s an article about packaging a 16-bit application with winevdm, an open source 16-bit emulator, into an MSIX which makes it installable and launchable as if it were a single application: Running 16-bit applications on Windows 10 64-bit.
Definitely a more complex process though.
I also suggest looking for the software on myabandonware.com because they collect community-built fixed versions of older applications, especially games. If anyone has made a fixed version for this game, it will probably be there.
I could be way off base here, but I’d probably start with the 32-bit version of Windows 7 to hack it into working.
First, you want a 32-bit OS – unless you can get one of the 16-bit OSes virtualized well, but I have no experience with that. 32-bit Windows has NTVDM for running emulated 16-bit apps. 64-bit Windows only has the WOW64 (Windows-on-Windows) emulator for running 32-bit apps.
Also, Windows 7 has a large collection of shims and compatibility layers built in, plus a ton of tweaks you can do with the Application Compatibility Toolkit. I don’t know if there are ACT limitations with 16-bit apps though since I haven’t had to do any serious work with it since the XP -> 7 upgrade wave.
