doBefore we start, let us pause and take this in: Windows dropped support for 16-bit applications, and they didn't have to. It amazes me that Microsoft didn't leave a simple path for average PC users to keep using their old programs. In my world, this move is criminal, because people who had 16-bit programs that worked for them have had to waste billions of dollars ro replace their software, and millions of hours to migrate to new (bloated) programs they really didn't need.
If you are running a 64-bit edition of Windows 10, there does not seem to be a way to run 16-bit applications. 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. Running 16-bit apps and games. Truth be told, there's no actual method of making 16-bit applications or games work without some special tweaks. Windows on 64-bit architectures doesn't support.
Windows 10 has twelve editions, all with varying feature sets, use cases, or intended devices. Certain editions are distributed only on devices directly from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), while editions such as Enterprise and Education are only available through volume licensing channels. Windows 16 was released on August 19, 2035. The thingy that the're not have'n in windows 15 edit edit source new themes; windows photo maker (which is like Adobe photoshop™.) Some Roblox obbys; minecraft modes and skyblock map of the minecraft. Are you looking for windows for your new house, replacement windows or window hardware for your existing home? You'll find a wide selection to suit your style and needs at Lowe's. Explore our selection of double hung windows, single hung windows, sliding windows, casement windows, accent windows, double pane windows and awning windows.
With that rant out of the way, here is what to do about it. The good news is that you can still run 16-bit applications in modern systems. The bad news is that it takes a bit of work. The really great news is that once you've done that work, you are in a better place than where you started—with a system that will go with you whatever new operating system you install.There are two kinds of 16-bit applications you might have run on your old system: Dos programs and Windows software. Each kind requires its own treatment as covered below.
Running Dos Programs in Vista
To run Dos apps in Vista, there are two solutions: a quick workaround and a more complex workaround (covered in the next section).Here is the quick workaround: Install DosBox.
DosBox will not automatically map your hard-drive: you have to 'mount' the Windows folder you want to use in Dosbox, where it becomes a virtual drive. This means that a folder that is called 'folder1' in Windows might be accessible as drive C in Dosbox.
How? Here's the easy way. If it's not too large, copy the Windows folder you would like to use to the root of your hard drive (probably C:). Run Dosbox. Replacing 'myfolder' for your folder's actual name, type:
mount c c:/myfolder
Notice the forward slash (backslash doesn't work on some installations without further workarounds).
Is There A Windows 10
Now, still in DosBox, type 'c:' You are now inside the Windows folder you wanted to access. You are ready to run your Dos program!
There is a second way to run Dos programs in Vista, and I recommend that method over the long term. It is to create a 'Virtual Windows 2000 computer' that runs on your Vista system, as explained in the next section.
Running 16-bit Windows Applications in Vista
The solution to this problem takes a bit of work, but it is really, really cool. Really. In fact it is a bit magical…We will be creating a 'virtual machine', a virtual computer that runs Windows 2000 inside your current operating system (such as Vista, Windows 7 etc.). This virtual computer will just appear as another program windows on your computer—just like Firefox, Word and so on. Since 16-bit applications run on Windows 2000, you will be able to run them on the virtual computer. And here is the best part: you will be able to take this virtual computer and install it on any new machine you choose to use! This means you can create a Windows 2000 'box' that you can keep for life, with all your precious applications!
To create this virtual Windows 2000 box, we will be using 'virtualization software'. There are several providers of virtualization software (discussed lower on this page). Here we will be using VirtualPC by Microsoft, because it is very strong at creating Windows virtual machines.
Download Virtual PC from the above link. (If Microsoft breaks the link, you should be able to find a torrent with the same program).
The installer may say that Virtual PC does not support your version of Vista-64 or of whatever OS you are running. The key word here is 'support'. Microsoft may not support it, but it will work anyway!
Creating your Virtual Machine
Run VirtualPC. Setting up a virtual machine is a two-step process:
1. Creating the virtual machine in VirtualPC, then
Is There A Windows 12
2. Installing the OS on that virtual machine ('VM').Step 1: Create your VM, choosing an OS for which you have the disk on hand or an ISO file. Ideally, this would be Windows 98 SE or Windows 2000 Pro SP4, possibly the two favorite versions of Windows (before XP) for their speed and stability. XP will probably run too slow on your VM. My favorite is 2000 Pro SP4. Make sure to allocate a workable amount of RAM, e.g. 500MB. Don't worry too much about the size of the hard-drive, as the real size used is allotted dynamically as needed.
Step 2: Once the Virtual Machine is created, install the OS from within VirtualPC. Don't install it outside of VirtualPC or you can say goodbye to your current system! To install, within VirtualPC, when your virtual machine is selected, click Setup. The new window that opens will allow you to select a CD drive or mount an ISO file. Just follow the OS install instructions! One tip: At some stage you may want to click outside the OS instructions, but find that your mouse is 'prisoner' of the virtual machine. To release it, hold the right ALT button while you move your mouse outside the window.
Once the OS is installed, choose Select, Install VM Additions. The VM will reboot a couple times until it's done. VM Additions will you allow to drag & drop files between the host and the VM.
Your virtual machine is ready! You can start installing your 16-bit apps.
Need internet? In the VM's Settings, choose Networking, then select 'Shared Networking (NAT)'. Reboot the VM: you should have internet. If it still doesn't work, I have read, on the guest OS, go to Control Panel / Networking / LAN / TCPIP / Properties, click 'Use the following DNS server addresses' and enter this: 192.168.131.254.
You'll probably want to install an unzip utility such as 7Zip, as well as a PDF reader and other such utilities.
If you want Windows 98 to log you in automatically, download Tweak UI, unpack into c:windowssystem, open Tweak UI from the control panel and change the logon options.
Full Screen Bug
In the VM settings, if you choose 'Always start this virtual machine in full-screen mode', you may be entering the twilight zone. When I did this, I wasn't able to switch back to the host except through ctrl + alt + del. And I couldn't change the setting back, as whenever I ran VirtualPC the VM would boot automatically! The way out? Find your VM's config file on your hard drive (it ends with vmc). Open it in a text editor. Search for 'full_screen'. On that line, replace 'true' with 'false'. Now you can run Virtual PC. The first time, it will still auto-boot, but not in full screen. Hit settings, check the setting and uncheck it again, it should be fixed.
Driver Bug After I installed VMWare and VirtualBox (other virtualization programs), VirtualPC stopped working. It gave me this error message: 'The Virtual Machine Monitor Driver required by Virtual PC is missing. Please reinstall Virtual PC and try again.'
What happened, I think, is that I removed by mistake a Network Connection created by Virtual PC. I reinstalled Virtual PC (five minutes) and everything worked again. The installer warned me that I should close the Explorer process, but since the system just spawns new Explorer processes everytime they are killed, I clicked 'Ignore' a few times and the install finished without problems.
Moving or Copying your Virtual Machine
You'll probably want to install an unzip utility such as 7Zip, as well as a PDF reader and other such utilities.
If you want Windows 98 to log you in automatically, download Tweak UI, unpack into c:windowssystem, open Tweak UI from the control panel and change the logon options.
Full Screen Bug
In the VM settings, if you choose 'Always start this virtual machine in full-screen mode', you may be entering the twilight zone. When I did this, I wasn't able to switch back to the host except through ctrl + alt + del. And I couldn't change the setting back, as whenever I ran VirtualPC the VM would boot automatically! The way out? Find your VM's config file on your hard drive (it ends with vmc). Open it in a text editor. Search for 'full_screen'. On that line, replace 'true' with 'false'. Now you can run Virtual PC. The first time, it will still auto-boot, but not in full screen. Hit settings, check the setting and uncheck it again, it should be fixed.
Driver Bug After I installed VMWare and VirtualBox (other virtualization programs), VirtualPC stopped working. It gave me this error message: 'The Virtual Machine Monitor Driver required by Virtual PC is missing. Please reinstall Virtual PC and try again.'
What happened, I think, is that I removed by mistake a Network Connection created by Virtual PC. I reinstalled Virtual PC (five minutes) and everything worked again. The installer warned me that I should close the Explorer process, but since the system just spawns new Explorer processes everytime they are killed, I clicked 'Ignore' a few times and the install finished without problems.
Moving or Copying your Virtual Machine
Need internet? In the VM's Settings, choose Networking, then select 'Shared Networking (NAT)'. Reboot the VM: you should have internet. If it still doesn't work, I have read, on the guest OS, go to Control Panel / Networking / LAN / TCPIP / Properties, click 'Use the following DNS server addresses' and enter this: 192.168.131.254.
You'll probably want to install an unzip utility such as 7Zip, as well as a PDF reader and other such utilities.
If you want Windows 98 to log you in automatically, download Tweak UI, unpack into c:windowssystem, open Tweak UI from the control panel and change the logon options.
Full Screen Bug
In the VM settings, if you choose 'Always start this virtual machine in full-screen mode', you may be entering the twilight zone. When I did this, I wasn't able to switch back to the host except through ctrl + alt + del. And I couldn't change the setting back, as whenever I ran VirtualPC the VM would boot automatically! The way out? Find your VM's config file on your hard drive (it ends with vmc). Open it in a text editor. Search for 'full_screen'. On that line, replace 'true' with 'false'. Now you can run Virtual PC. The first time, it will still auto-boot, but not in full screen. Hit settings, check the setting and uncheck it again, it should be fixed.
Driver Bug After I installed VMWare and VirtualBox (other virtualization programs), VirtualPC stopped working. It gave me this error message: 'The Virtual Machine Monitor Driver required by Virtual PC is missing. Please reinstall Virtual PC and try again.'
What happened, I think, is that I removed by mistake a Network Connection created by Virtual PC. I reinstalled Virtual PC (five minutes) and everything worked again. The installer warned me that I should close the Explorer process, but since the system just spawns new Explorer processes everytime they are killed, I clicked 'Ignore' a few times and the install finished without problems.
Moving or Copying your Virtual Machine
The best part about a virtual machine—as if it wasn't amazing already—is that you can take it with you anywhere. Just copy the VHD file (the virtual hard drive), install VirtualPC on another machine, point it to your VHD file, and you've got a full system already set up! If you plan to do this, it pays to shrink the size of your VHD before copying it:
1. Run a disk cleaning utility such as 'Cleanup!' or CC Cleaner to get rid of temp files.
2. Defrag the disk.
3. Wipe out the delete files from the disk. (When you defrag, the deleted files are still there, so that data bloats your hard drive. You need to write zeros in that space.) In the VM, choose CD, Capture ISO, then navigate to something like c:Programs Files (x86) Microsoft Virtual PC Virtual Machine Additions Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. Allow it to run.
4. Close the VM. In Virtual PC, run Settings for the VM. Choose the hard drive, use the VHD wizard to compact it.
Last word: It works!!! Yeah!!!
To run 16-bit on Vista and 64-bit platforms, there are two other solid (and free) virtual machine options: the VMWare Player, and Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox. Both are substantially larger downloads than VirtualPC. It's good to have these other options, but do bear in mind that these programs will not read the virtual hard drive you created with Virtual PC. This means that in case you ever need to abandon Virtual PC, you should back up your data somewhere outside the virtual environment (for instance, on SD cards or cloud storage). NOW. Then, if something goes wrong with VirtualPC, you can always start a new Windows 2000 machine on VMWare or VirtualBox, reinstall your applications, copy your data, and get going again in less than one day.
I have not reviewed VMWare and VirtualBox for this page, because VirtualPC is maintained by Microsoft and I trust Windows 2000 to run well on a Microsoft product. However, VirtualPC does not run non-Windows operating systems, so when I wanted to create a Linux virtual machine, I tried both VMWare and VirtualBox. I made a page where you can read everything about running Linux inside Windows with VMWare or VirtualBox.
Smiles,
Andy
You'll probably want to install an unzip utility such as 7Zip, as well as a PDF reader and other such utilities.
If you want Windows 98 to log you in automatically, download Tweak UI, unpack into c:windowssystem, open Tweak UI from the control panel and change the logon options.
Full Screen Bug
In the VM settings, if you choose 'Always start this virtual machine in full-screen mode', you may be entering the twilight zone. When I did this, I wasn't able to switch back to the host except through ctrl + alt + del. And I couldn't change the setting back, as whenever I ran VirtualPC the VM would boot automatically! The way out? Find your VM's config file on your hard drive (it ends with vmc). Open it in a text editor. Search for 'full_screen'. On that line, replace 'true' with 'false'. Now you can run Virtual PC. The first time, it will still auto-boot, but not in full screen. Hit settings, check the setting and uncheck it again, it should be fixed.
Driver Bug After I installed VMWare and VirtualBox (other virtualization programs), VirtualPC stopped working. It gave me this error message: 'The Virtual Machine Monitor Driver required by Virtual PC is missing. Please reinstall Virtual PC and try again.'
What happened, I think, is that I removed by mistake a Network Connection created by Virtual PC. I reinstalled Virtual PC (five minutes) and everything worked again. The installer warned me that I should close the Explorer process, but since the system just spawns new Explorer processes everytime they are killed, I clicked 'Ignore' a few times and the install finished without problems.
Moving or Copying your Virtual Machine
The best part about a virtual machine—as if it wasn't amazing already—is that you can take it with you anywhere. Just copy the VHD file (the virtual hard drive), install VirtualPC on another machine, point it to your VHD file, and you've got a full system already set up! If you plan to do this, it pays to shrink the size of your VHD before copying it:
1. Run a disk cleaning utility such as 'Cleanup!' or CC Cleaner to get rid of temp files.
2. Defrag the disk.
3. Wipe out the delete files from the disk. (When you defrag, the deleted files are still there, so that data bloats your hard drive. You need to write zeros in that space.) In the VM, choose CD, Capture ISO, then navigate to something like c:Programs Files (x86) Microsoft Virtual PC Virtual Machine Additions Virtual Disk Precompactor.iso. Allow it to run.
4. Close the VM. In Virtual PC, run Settings for the VM. Choose the hard drive, use the VHD wizard to compact it.
Last word: It works!!! Yeah!!!
VirtualPC, VMWare, VirtualBox
VirtualPC is not the only virtualization program out there. One thing I love about VirtualPC is that it works. One thing that worries me is that it might stop working, because it's owned by Microsoft and they might decide to break the compatibility down the track. They've done it with 16-bit, why wouldn't they do it with the software that allows you to run 16-bit?To run 16-bit on Vista and 64-bit platforms, there are two other solid (and free) virtual machine options: the VMWare Player, and Sun Microsystem's VirtualBox. Both are substantially larger downloads than VirtualPC. It's good to have these other options, but do bear in mind that these programs will not read the virtual hard drive you created with Virtual PC. This means that in case you ever need to abandon Virtual PC, you should back up your data somewhere outside the virtual environment (for instance, on SD cards or cloud storage). NOW. Then, if something goes wrong with VirtualPC, you can always start a new Windows 2000 machine on VMWare or VirtualBox, reinstall your applications, copy your data, and get going again in less than one day.
I have not reviewed VMWare and VirtualBox for this page, because VirtualPC is maintained by Microsoft and I trust Windows 2000 to run well on a Microsoft product. However, VirtualPC does not run non-Windows operating systems, so when I wanted to create a Linux virtual machine, I tried both VMWare and VirtualBox. I made a page where you can read everything about running Linux inside Windows with VMWare or VirtualBox.
Smiles,
Andy
1-1 of 1 Threads
Subject: thanks with the great help
Been battling a while sourcing a program to run my 16-bit program. It is working again great relief.
In Windows 10, you decide when and how to get the latest updates to keep your device running smoothly and securely. To manage your options and see available updates, select Check for Windows updates. Or select the Start button, and then go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update.
Here's some other info you might be looking for:
If you get an error when trying to update, see Fix Windows Update issues.
If you're trying to activate Windows 10, see Activation in Windows 10 for more info.
If you're having trouble installing updates, see Troubleshoot problems updating Windows 10.
For answers to frequently asked questions, see Windows Update: FAQ.
To get the latest major update of Windows 10, see Get the Windows 10 October 2020 Update.
