Hi Andrew You sound as if you know a little about this stuff
I have an origional Myst game (windows'95 I think) Will this be ok to play
on my new laptop which supports vista home premium, will I need to change any
settings? I'm a bit nervous of installing something that may disrupt
everything
Ta
"Andrew McLaren" wrote:
Quote:
> "HeyBub" <heybub@xxxxxx> wrote ... Quote:
> > Vista doesn't do 16-bit stuff. At all.
>
> That is incorrect. What is your reason for claiming that Vista does not run
> 16 bit applications?
>
> 32-bit Vista runs 16 bit applications using the NTVDM ("NT Virtual DOS
> Manchine") and, for 16-bit Windows apps, the WoW (Windows-on-Windows)
> thunking layer.
>
> Because of changes in the display model, Vista running with WDDM drivers
> canot display character-mode applications full-screen. If (and only if) an
> application requires full screen access to run, it cannot run on Vista; or
> it must be run in an emulator like DosBox, as Synapse Syndrome correctly
> suggests. Vista using a non-WDDM display driver can also display DOS apps
> full screen (although this is not a recommended solution for the OP).
>
> DOS applications can run just fine in a Window; likewise 16 Windows apps.
> For example, I always run a copy of VisiCalc.com (c.1981) on every new
> version of Windows, to test backwards compatibility. It runs fine on Vista.
>
> 64-bit Vista cannot run any 16 bit applications. This is an architectural
> limitation of the CPU, and is also true for 64 bit XP and Server 2003.
>
> Any DOS or Win3.x application is subject to all the usual compatibility
> constraints when running on NT (eg cannot directly write to hardware
> adresses etc). But apart from that, Vista has the same 16 bit compatiblity
> as XP, Windows 2000 and NT 4.0 (in fact somewhat better, because there have
> been numerous bug fixes to the NTVDM since NT 4.0).
>
> Your statement is either wrong, or else you omitted important caveats
> ("Vista doesn't do 16-bit stuff. At all. on 64 bit Vista. But 32 bit Vista
> is fine"; etc).
>
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>
>