I’d like to get some software (a carom billiards game, by the way: recently made free) that is only operable on Win 95/98; it says it does not work on ME or XP (I have XP). Is there a program that anyone knows of that would allow me to operate this and any other Win 9x applications?
Have you tried running it in 98/95 mode?
Right-click on its icon on your desktop or in the folder its in or from your start menu. Choose “Properties” and then click the compatibility tab. There will be some options there for you including “Run As: Windows 95, Windows 98/ME, Windows NT” etc. and some display settings.
Not saying it’ll work for sure but give it a try.
I have a similar problem.
I recently bought The Sims Deluxe Edition for my fiance and didn’t realise it doesn’t run under W2K, but will under XP and W98???
I have dual boot to 98, but it is a pain to have to do that for one program. Any ideas??
You can set up your system for dual-booting. Not sure if that is possible on a WinXP system. Essentially, it means installing both OS on the system, at boot-up you can choose which to run, either Win95/98 or WinXP
Ask around for an expert for help 
I usually ignore what the box says it works on, and try it on my system anyway - I have yet to find a game that doesn’t work on Win2k as long as SP2 or 3 is installed, and the latest sound and video-card drivers are installed.
critter42
I haven’t loaded SP2 or SP3 on my XP box, but I have a lot of software that just plain won’t run under XP. I did try all of the compatibility modes and they didn’t help. My system dual boots 98 and XP (so yes it is possible) but it’s still kind of annoying to have to reboot the machine just to run a different software package.
Games that didn’t work on my system: Unreal (would only run in a window, which I found too annoying, but other people have gotten it to work so YMMV), duke nukem (not too surprised since it’s an old dos game), and heavy metal (crashed every time I tried to install it). At that point I was 0 for 3 on games so I didn’t bother to try any others.
Even though I had rather dismal luck running software in compatibility mode you might want to give it a shot. Some people have reported getting software to work that way.
On my particular system, all software written by microsoft worked on XP, and most software written by someone other than microsoft didn’t work properly. From what others have reported on the internet, most people don’t have quite so much trouble, and many (like critter) report no trouble at all in running their applications, even if they were 95/98 apps.
Okay, so how might I access compatibility mode?
Right click on the icon for the program, then select “properties” which will give you a little pop up box. Click on the top where it says “compatibility” then click on “run this program in compatibility mode for” and select the desired OS (95, 98, NT, or 2000). Try 98 first.
Ah, so that’s what Zipper was saying! I’m a little slow in PC matters sometimes; thank you.