getting old games working on new system?

[Starfury_2260]

in an attempt to have something to do when someone else is on the internet (i hate dialup!), i have gone back to play some of the older games i have. 2 of them seem to have quite a problem with my new system. one, called machines, has a problem with it's main exe. when i try to run it windows says it's not a valid win32 app. i know that the program works just fine because i played it along time ago and this never happened. i even attempted to download the update (which includes a new exe) but this one did the same thing.

another game is called metal fatigue. when i run it it seems fine but freezes up the system after a few seconds, forcing me to reboot. i tried using both the directx and opengl drivers for it but got the same result.

any ideas are appreciated.

[Starfury_2260]

i've got windows xp and an ati radeon 9600pro.

i dont understand why a program would give that not valid win32 program message just because it's on a different OS.

[TheChronoRogue]

I know I had problems running old dos games on win9x and I eventually gave up. I heard about a program called PowerPlay that fools old games into thinking they are on an old platform. Im sure you can find as a free download by now of order it online for under $5.

[GohanSSJ]

How old are these games, are these games that you require windows for, or even older?

Anyway you can click right on the icon, then click properties, then go to compatibility and then you can mark the box, and change under which windows compatibility it works, try Win95 or Win98.

[Cyclone2]

You probably had Win 98 on your 'old' rig and apparently does not run on XP http://www.ntcompatible.com/cdetail6323.html

[Redwolf]

If these games are really old nd DOS based, you may be able to run them under DOSBOX. Do a google for it.

[Starfury_2260]

they ran on win98 yes. i thought about trying a dual boot with win 98 but i found out that we dont have win98 but win95, and i'm not spending money to get it just to get those games working.

[GohanSSJ]

Read my post again, you can run a game/program under Win98 compatibility...

[Starfury_2260]

that does not help the machines game. it says the same thing for any compatibility mode. i think i tested this with MF on my old win xp system. i will have to try again later. it will take time since it freezes up the system and i have to reboot when it errors.

[thronka]

This happens with the NTFS file system (being A+ cert) that it requires fat16 or fat32. you need to patch it to work or daul boot the system. this exact thing happened with my copy of Sims Hot Date