Hello,
I have several "older" games that require Windows 2000, XP.
I am using Windows 7.
Can I install and play games that are from before Windows 7? or does the game have to match the system?
Thanks!

Hi, kdj, check out our Windows 7 and Games thread stickied at the top of the Glitches forum. The answer is... depends!

There is an extensive list of games there plus hints and help.

Loos like it depends on which "bit" a computer has?
I have a "new" to me, used Dell desk top. I do not know which bit it has. How do I find that?
also, I tried to install Nemesis and the first screen opens, I clicked on install, but it does nothing.
I did look at the Windows 7 post you have. I have several more games to try on the list you gave.
Thanks in advance for any other advice you might have.

Click on Start and then RIGHT click on My Computer and select properties. It should tell you in there, but chances are it's 64-bit Windows 7.

Have been going through the games and trying them and they are not installing...looking like I need to sell those that will not install. Sad.
Just checked the properties, it is 32 bit.
How do you get 64? is this a download?

Are you getting error messages when trying to install? Have you tried installing using compatibility mode? I got many games from 1999 and even before to install that way.

No, it isn't a download. A 64-bit operating system simply allows the OS to use more than 3.5 or GB or RAM. You have one or the other - it isn't an upgrade. Having 32-bit may allow more older games to play.

Found a couple of games that ARE for 7 so I'll go with those for now.
Thanks

Just because they don't say they are for Windows 7 doesn't mean they won't run. I got games from the mid-1990's to run!

Remember that if you encounter a 16-bit installer, though the installer will not work on x64 Windows, the game itself may very well. The problem may be just with the installer. This applies to many of the late Win9x to mid XP era games. There can be workarounds for this problem. First, see if there is a modern replacement installer. This is the easiest solution if one is available for the game in question. For the Sierra games I have many new installers on my site.

http://sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/NewSierraInstallers.html

I even have a few non-Sierra installers here:

http://sierrahelp.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=3925

Though limited, there are the Squirt the Cat installers:

http://www.squirtthecat.com/

For LA games there are the Quick and Easy Software installers/launchers:

http://quickandeasysoftware.net/software

These are the preferred solutions as if there are any compatibility issues, these will have most likely been addressed, too.

If it is an InstallShield installer, you can try the generic 32-bit replacement installer. http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90351 Just note that there can still be issues such as wrong path statements that would need to be corrected, but you risk nothing in trying.

Another more involved way is what I do to effectively reverse engineer the old installers is to use the original installers in a virtual machine while tracking the changes that the installer makes. I can use this information replicate what the original installer did. This can be used to manually install the game of, in my case, write a replacement installer.

One more option is to use a replacement interpreter like ScummVM or if one exists for the game, a source port.

Lastly, there is the emulator or virtual machine (VM) route. I did not mention this earlier as outside of DOSBox for DOS games, this is usually the least satisfactory solution. They can be clumsy, difficult to setup and even before you can install the game you have to own and install an earlier version of Windows in it first. Some may not support some features of DirectX, which, as you can imagine will cause issues with some games. Some are free and some not. You can find emulators for nearly any of the old systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computer_system_emulators


Note that if there are also compatibility issues with the target game that both the generic 32-bit InstallShield replacement installer and the manual install will not fix these and they will still need to be addressed separately. But that is a whole other topic.

Was this on your 32-bit Windows 7 install?
Like Collector said, there are games that are 32-bit but which used an old installer, which happened to be a 16-bit installer.

I would be very suspicious that a game from the mid-1990's might be using an older 16-bit installer. Even if the game claimed to be for Windows 95, early versions of Windows 95 were 16-bit.


For older games that use 16bit code, you want 32bit Windows 7.

However if you are talking about

those aren't likely to contain 16-bit code. So either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Windows 7 would be equally good (or bad). That's assuming they aren't actually games made for Windows 95/98 that were claimed to work in XP (like some Dreamcatcher games), but which actually expected you to use XP's Compatibility mode.

Maybe you could tell us the names of these games you're trying to play.

Sometimes the reason a game won't play has nothing to do with the operating system -- and instead the problem is with the video drivers, or that you're playing on a laptop without discrete video memory, or that you're playing using a widescreen monitor, or some other thing more related to the age of the computer than the operating system.

I checked the list and it looks like the earliest one I got to play was Shivers II from 1997 using a Squirt the Cat installer.

About the most common reason that a old game will have trouble on modern Windows is because it was written of the APIs that were current at the time. APIs, or "Application Programming interface" are how programs and an OS talk to each other. In the DOS and to a lessor extent Win9x days programs could address the hardware directly. While efficient, this introduced high level of instability and security issues. One badly written program could easily crash the entire system. Now, any decent modern OS will be an intermediary where a program tells the OS what it needs and the OS via the driver for that hardware will tell it what to do. This extends beyond The OS itself. DirectX presents additional APIs. Even things like QuickTime can have APIs for games or programs that use them.

The problem is that the APIs are moving targets. They are constantly changing. New APIs are added to expand capabilities when needed, such as when a new class of hardware is released. Also, older APIs are updated or changed to match the current needs. It is common for them to be depreciated or even dropped. Many problems stem from when an older game tries to use one of these old APIs that is missing functions or is even not even present.

This does not mean that all older games have problems or that those with compatibility issues cannot be fixed. In many cases the solutions have already been created. Before disposing of any games you have, it is worth it to first try, then if there are problems, ask or check for solutions before giving up on them.