How to run 16-bit software on a 64-bit Windows 7 computer

16-09-2021

I live in an area of ​​the country where there are many elderly people. Many of these wonderful people still have old computers running old software. However, little by little they are starting to update their computers and operating systems to the latest and greatest 64-bit Windows 7, but they want to keep 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 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 older programs are 16-bit and will not install on Windows 7 64-bit operating system. If my customer had bought a 32-bit Windows 7 computer, they could have run their programs in compatibility mode, but this feature will not work on 64-bit Windows 7.

So the guy was very disappointed, but I was so “cool as a cucumber” because I knew there were several great and free virtual machine programs that would allow you to run these old 16-bit programs on 64-bit Windows 7.

These are the programs I recommend (especially # 2 and # 3):

1) DOSBox (DOSBox is a DOS emulator and runs only 16-bit MS-DOS programs and not 16-bit Windows applications).

2) VirtualBox (a “virtual machine” that allows 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 continuing to enjoy your older programs on your new Operating System !!

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