Okay listen: I am less than tech-savvy, but I tried so many step-intensive things on my dinky PC, to no avail.
I use Windows10 home (yes, I know, bear with me!) and am just trying to boot games I already OWN!!! No dice. Now I just sit here, arms crossed, and seethe “I hate u, computer.”
Yes, I’ve enabled the IIS and tried to use the option to allow program to run 32-bit. No dice.
I’ve tried compatibility mode. Absolutely nothing (Windows, you useless-ass shitwad).
I struggled through DOSBOX as a non-tech person, managed to do the Windows 3.1 thing, tried to boot my files through there, got as far as the install screen!!! Stuck at 0% probably forever. So it was a failure.
Tried running old game files from some people who are smarter than me that emulate the D:\ drive instead of the physical disks. Zilch.
FrikkiN AHHHHH!!!
I JUST WANNA RELIVE MY NOSTALGIA AND SHOW MY KID ALL MY OLD AND SHITTY GAMES I USED TO PLAY AS A KID!!!
Could anyone give a solution that won’t have me downloading and installing 6 trillion new programs? Any helpful links a non-tech person could understand?
Swear to god, I’ll Cashapp 5$ to the first person to give a solution I can reasonably follow & that works.
Also you will have my adoration forever. Thanks.
Games, especially back in the day, we’re built with specific operating systems in mind. You own the game and if you install the OS they were designed for, you can still enjoy it like you used to.
Windows has great compatibility with older versions of itself, but not everything survived the transition. 16 bit games have been running in a hacky compatibility layer since Windows 2000, and modern 64 bit operating systems have dropped support entirely. Microsoft still went as far as to detect well-known 16 bit setup programs to secretly replace the files right under your nose with a setup thst works, but not all tools will work. Microsoft also removed compatibility with some old DRM because it introduced horrible cybersecurity risks that basically couldn’t be fixed.
Your easiest option is to go out and buy an old PC that’ll run your old version of Windows. A lot of DOS and 3.1 games still worked on XP, and XP stuck around for ages, so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to get your hands on a PC that will have the necessary drivers.
You can also try to go to Good Old Games and purchase patched versions of the games. Yes, you need to purchase them again, but that’s because the company behind GOG put in the investment to take the old, broken games, and make them work on modern Windows again. If you don’t want to pay for that, you can try looking up the video game manufacturer’s website and see if they have patches that’ll make your game work.
If your game is old enough to run under DOSBOX, you may be able to play it sort-of-legally in your browser thanks to the amazing efforts of the Internet Archive. This is a library of preconfigured DOSBOX environments that save you the trouble of setting up Windows 3.1 and installing the game (and, in 3.1 fashion, configuring sound cards, setting up interrupts, possibly configuring Win32s, the usual for playing games back in the day; things have sure improved since then!)
Without knowing the specific games you want to play, it’s impossible to tell you how feasible this is without using old hardware. Computers have moved on and improved a lot since Windows 3.1, and some old architectures simply don’t work anymore. The ones that do work (32 bit games, mostly) work because they didn’t horrifically abuse technicalities in the inner workings of Windows to get out an extra frame per second or two; unfortunately, back in the Win9x days, that was standard practice, and has caused a lot of Microsoft programmers a lot of sleepless nights.