Windows 7 Professional

[Twilight_Warrior]

Soooo...

My Dad recently killed our Windows XP machine. Not being technically savvy at all, none of our family members could fix it, so Dad decided just to trash the whole thing. Well, not trash, I think he sold some of the working parts on Ebay or something. Irrelevant. Anyway....

Currently we have two machines: one with Windows Vista Home Premium Edition (64-bit) and one with Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). The Windows 7 one is my personal gaming laptop. Well, for half of my games. The other half doesn't work in Windows Vista/7 (possibly because of the 64 bit deal). Which brings me to my predicament. Since Dad got rid of the XP machine (and we had XP factory installed, so I don't have the install disc or a licence key), I have hundreds of dollars invested in fun games that I can no longer play.

Now, I was doing some research and it turns out that Windows 7 Professional (and Ultimate, for that matter) have a "Windows XP mode". I can upgrade my Windows 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional for $90. But I'm not sure if this will fix the problem. You see Windows 7 on its own is only half the problem, sometimes its just the fact that its a 64-bit machine gets in the way. A 64-bit machine is supposed to be able to emulate a 32-bit machine, so long as you set the compatibility mode properly. Thing is, the program needs to be installed to set the compatibility mode. A few of the games say "The program or feature cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of Windows. Please contact the software vendor to ask if a 64-bit Windows compatible version is available."

So, I was wondering if anyone had any experience with Windows XP mode in a Windows 7/Vista 64-bit environment. $90 is cheap money for the library of games that would be reopened to me if Windows XP mode worked like I think it does.

My other options is to purchase a new laptop (smaller than my gaming laptop, so not as powerful, but you don't need THAT much power for older games. I should probably get one anyway, so I don't have to lug around my Alienware m15x across campus all day for class.) with Windows 7 Pro 32-bit. That way I kill two birds with one stone by having the Professional version (and therefore, Windows XP mode) and a 32-bit computer that can run the games that have trouble on a 64-bit machine. However, that option is about 4 to 5 times as expensive for a quality machine than just getting an upgrade on my current laptop.

Hidden/Spoiler:

I'd purchase a copy of Windows XP to dual boot on my laptop, but quite frankly, I don't trust random purchases on the internet. If it's not straight from Microsoft, I'm a little wary

[MercuryNoodles]

This may not be much help, and I apologize in advance, but I also use Win7 x64 and I have very little problem installing games, even several older titles, except for one issue. Microsoft dropped support for 16 bit applications, so older games that may themselves be 32 bit might have a 16 bit installer, which would be why it refuses to install. I've read that utilizing XP mode may resolve this issue as it has some form of 16 bit support, and I won't say it doesn't work, but after a quick search I've picked up conflicting reports about it, so I won't make any promises there. Keep in mind it doesn't guarantee the games won't have other problems like the old OGL version of AvP Gold not rendering properly with modern drivers if you're using an AMD video card, etc, but it's a start. Still, if you don't want to spend the money, I know a few of these games have official remakes, workaround methods to get them installed, or even community made installers.

I'm actually curious as to which games you're having problems with. I've only had two games so far that have this problem that I'm aware of: C&C Gold (Tiberian Dawn), and Star Wars: Rebellion (Supremacy).

[Twilight_Warrior]

This may not be much help, and I apologize in advance, but I also use Win7 x64 and I have very little problem installing games, even several older titles, except for one issue. Microsoft dropped support for 16 bit applications, so older games that may themselves be 32 bit might have a 16 bit installer, which would be why it refuses to install. I've read that utilizing XP mode may resolve this issue as it has some form of 16 bit support, and I won't say it doesn't work, but after a quick search I've picked up conflicting reports about it, so I won't make any promises there. Keep in mind it doesn't guarantee the games won't have other problems like the old OGL version of AvP Gold not rendering properly with modern drivers if you're using an AMD video card, etc, but it's a start. Still, if you don't want to spend the money, I know a few of these games have official remakes, workaround methods to get them installed, or even community made installers.

I'm actually curious as to which games you're having problems with. I've only had two games so far that have this problem that I'm aware of: C&C Gold (Tiberian Dawn), and Star Wars: Rebellion (Supremacy).

Nostalgia time:
Toy Story 2: Action Game
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
Spy Fox
Putt Putt
Pajama Sam
Knights of the Old Republic 1/2 (I have tried the workaround, still refuses to run. Might be graphics card related, have not confirmed)
Roller Coaster Tycoon (works on and off. Depends on the day and it's mood, I guess)
And a bunch of older Windows 3.1.1 games that are probably a 16 bit issue. Spy Fox and the lot of older kids games are the ones that are giving me the 64-bit error message, and it has been confirmed that they work on Vista and 7, but only the 32-bit renditions.

I realize that the XP mode may or may not work for my purposes, that's why I posted here. It'd be a shot in the dark, but if it worked it would save me money. I would like some sort of XP mode, anyway, just to not deal with the hassle of Windows' faulty compatibility mode that only works half the time. Instead of going into the disc files, running the install.exe in compatiblity mode as an administrator, installing the game, finding the game's .exe, and then playing around with all the different compatibility features until it works, I'd just have to download the Virtual PC software and install the program in XP. And as a computer science major, it might help to develop programs in more than one environment.

So, I guess what it boils down to is:
A) Upgrade my 64-bit machine to get XP mode
B) Buy a new 32-bit machine, then get XP mode
C) Get a used copy of Windows XP from amazon.com and dual boot (I don't like this option, but if it's the best option, I'll try it)

[MercuryNoodles]

Wow, I have been under a rock. Well, I can tell you for certain the KotOR games don't have problems on my system. I just ran the KotOR installer to double check and it runs without issue without any special settings, and the same goes for the game's executable as of...right now. In all honesty, it's not that often that I find a need to use compatibility modes, and I think the functionality of it is very limited from what I've experienced. However, as far as know, that 64 bit incompatibility message is actually the 16 bit related error, and doesn't seem to have any other use in Windows. 64 bit Windows only supports 64 and 32 bit applications out of the box. I get the same errors when trying to install C&C Gold or Rebellion, and this is what I found out after doing a little digging among the individual communities and MS's site. For that matter, have you tried digging through any communities that might be based around those games yourself? Sometimes, especially if it's a modding community, they'll have some kind of a solution. I know it's a longshot, but someone should know something somewhere. Just remember that it's not always the fault of the OS that a game doesn't work, and I think the 16 bit error issue is the only one that's actually Windows specific. For example, it could be an issue with OpenGL being used which modern OGL drivers don't always work too well with, especially with AMD video cards. In fact, the KotOR issues might be based on something being weird with the Miles Sound System, which is something I found was a problem with TSL a while back.

If it comes down to it, you could try doing what amounts to a manual installation by copying the game files and creating the registry keys manually to work around a 16 bit installer. This is actually what I had to do to get Rebellion working on my system because it's a 32 bit game with a 16 bit installer. However, you do have to know what those keys are before you can make them, or find a handy .reg file, because they differ quite a bit from game to game. This is mostly a last resort, though, since it involves altering the registry by hand and all changes in the registry are live, plus it'll only do you any good if the game's executable is 32 bit. Anyway, these things are just me waffling on, and are mostly alternatives to using XP, which I gather you need for programming purposes.

As to what you decide on, A or C seem like equally decent options which will let you keep the 64 bit functionality you already have (I like the addressing a lot better), though a dual boot system would eliminate the possibility of a 16 bit application not running properly, which I've read is a problem in XP Mode for applications that are not simply installation executables and run fullscreen, and I don't know if that has changed since these things were posted. Since you have some very ancient games, I'm guessing the games run with 16 bit executables as well, so I'd lean toward dual booting. XP isn't that huge, so it'd only be a worry if you're low on HDD space.