Whenever my SO drags me to one of those “discount” fashion stores (TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls, et.al.) I usually entertain myself by looking at the software they have. Most of it is outdated, but sometimes there’ll be some educational stuff I feel my 7 year old daughter will enjoy. I’ve had no trouble using this software in XP Home, with it’s ability to run software in various compatability modes, until now. I’ve sucessfully installed and used software intended for Win 95/98, Win 3.11, and even a DOS game (I don’t remember how, but it works!). One particular game, her favorite of course, “Fisher-Price Kindergarten” (I know, she’s too old for it, but it is fun, and keeps her from jumping on the sofa for a few hours at least) worked fine for several months, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, stopped. When I try to run it, I get “kinder.exe is not a valid win32 application”. It is intended for Win 95/98, as it sez on the box. I scoured the internet, and found 3-4 other people with similar problems, and suggestions like varying the compatibility modes and virus scans, which I did, but no real answer. I tried uninstalling, reinstalling, varying screen resolutions, installing on XP Pro (my box), to no avail. How could this software suddenly fritz out, when the 3.11 and DOS progs still work?
(I’ve recently worked around the problem by dual booting with WinME. But still, inquiring minds…)