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December 15th, 2004 00:00
Installing old windows programs
I just upgraded computers from a Windows 3.1 operating system to XP Home. I have several old Windows programs I would like to install. I tried installing Corel Draw 4.0 and it started to load files into the Windows/System subdirectories. I aborted the installation.
I then noticed that there is an empty set of Windows/Systems directories (folders) under the Documents and Settings Folder of Windows XP.
1. Can I install the program without harming the computer.
2. If yes, will these files load into the folders in paragraph 2 above or the folder where XP is filed?
Thanks. If the above is not clear, please advise.
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Denny Denham
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December 15th, 2004 01:00
There is no such folder on my system so I suspect that Corel Draw must have created the System folder when it began the installation. (I assume the full location is something like C:\Documents and Settings\Windows\System. My guess is that if that is what created the folder installing the program into it won't hurt your system since its location should be properly identified in the registry, but that's only an educated guess on my part, having never tried to install a program of that age onto an XP system.
fireberd
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December 15th, 2004 09:00
Some general comments.
Many older programs, especially the Dos and Win3.1.11 programs, are not compatible with Windows XP. XP is not DOS based and handles memory and system resources much different than the older programs. There are no Operating System "hooks" or modules that many older programs need to operate. e.g. although I haven't tried it, I doubt that an old dBase II, III or even IV would run on an XP machine, same way with an old Lotus 123 program. I had an older (DOS version) of WordPerfect that I tried to load so I could get some older WP files saved to a format that MS Word would accept and it wouldn't run either.
There are some 3rd party Windows XP programs that will allows some of the older software to run. I don't have any links to them and never tried one personally.