windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit

#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit install
#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit windows 10
#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit code

So what happens if your legacy application does not want to play nice with Windows 10? Microsoft actually provides a way for you to shim the application to make it (hopefully) run correctly. Even if you are able to execute the application code, the application is likely to produce errors because it was never designed to run on Windows 10. Normally an application that is that old will put up a bit of a fight when you try to run it on a modern OS. After all, this particular application was created at a time when Windows 95 reigned supreme. In this case, the application ran without issue. If you look back at the previous paragraph, you will notice that I used the phrase “you should be able to execute 16-bit code” not “you should be able to run the 16-bit application.” There is a big difference between the two. As you can see below, I was able to run the Setup wizard for MGI Photosuite on Windows 10.

#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit windows 10

That’s why you can’t run a 16-bit application in a 64-bit Windows 10 OS.Īfter installing the NTVDM component, you should be able to execute the 16-bit code. Incidentally, NTVDM does not exist in 64-bit editions of Windows 10, as illustrated in the next image. You can find NTVDM listed in the Legacy Components section, as shown in the image below. Just open the Control Panel, go to Programs, and click Turn Windows Features on or off.

#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit install

You can easily install this component yourself by using the Windows Control Panel. This is a fancy way of saying that the NTVDM component provisions Windows 10 with a 16-bit subsystem through the use of virtualization. In case you are not familiar with NTVDM, it is the NT Virtual DOS Machine. In this case, the dialog box actually gave me the option of installing NTVDM, which kind of surprised me, because in the past I have had to install this feature manually. If I try to run the app on a 32-bit copy of Windows 10 however, I get a message indicating that I need to install NTVDM. If I attempt to run the application on a 64-bit version of Windows 10, I am presented with a message that simply says that the app can’t run on the PC. This was one of the oldest applications that I could find. As you can see in the next figure, the application files are about 22 years old. It is a lightweight graphical editor that I used to use frequently back in the day. The application of choice is called MGI Photosuite.

Once I got a 32-bit edition of Windows 10 up and running, I went into the attic and dug out the oldest application that I could find that wasn’t on a floppy disk. You can see the particulars of the operating system in the figure below.

Running 16-bit applications? Let’s experimentīut what if you have a 32-bit edition of Windows 10? In an effort to find out, I installed a 32-bit edition of Windows 10 onto a Hyper-V virtual machine. If you are running a 64-bit edition of Windows 10, then the only way that I know of to run 16-bit applications is to install an alternate operating system into a Hyper-V virtual machine. When you really stop and think about it, this seems completely logical, as it would mean that a single operating system would have to simultaneously be able to run 16-, 32-, and 64-bit code. If you are running a 64-bit edition of Windows 10, there does not seem to be a way to run 16-bit applications.

#Windows 95 emulator for windows 7 64 bit code

So with that in mind, I thought it might be fun to talk about whether or not it is possible to run 16-bit code on Windows 10.īefore I get too far into this discussion, I want to give you a quick spoiler alert.

In fact, I found myself having to do exactly that earlier this week. Even so, I have worked in IT for long enough to know that it occasionally becomes necessary to fire up an ancient application, even if only for the purpose of converting an archived file to a more modern format. It seems absurd to be talking about 16-bit applications in the year 2018.