Windows XP and older programs tip

[Head Surfer]

For those of you who are running or considering Windows XP it has a great feature that will allow you to run programs not originally designed for Windows XP.

It is called "compatability mode". After you install an older program and if it does not run, or does not run or display properly here's what to do:

Right click the icon of the older program that is giving a problem and select "properties".

Then select the "compatability" tab.

Under the "compabability" section you have a choice to run the program in the following modes:

Win 95
Win 98
Win NT
Win 2000

Choose the mode with which the program is known to work properly and save your settings.

I have had several older programs that I use that are not being upgraded by the authors. But I am so used to them and they get the job done just right! Some of these would not run under XP. So I tried the "compabability" setting as per above and they run perfectly.

Another tip:

I also have an old version of Quattro Pro (6 years old) that wouldn't display properly under ANY of the above compatability settings. It would just show about half the screen even when maximized. Here's what I did:

Just below the "compabability" settings described above is a "display mode" setting. One of these settings allows you to turn off Win XP's fancy displays for ONLY the program you choose. I turned them off for Quattro Pro and it runs and displays perfectly.

So far I have been very pleased with Win XP, my computer runs all day and I don't have to reboot any more, no more blue screen of death!

Note that I did not upgrade from a previous version of Windows this is a new computer that came with XP installed. I would not advise upgrading an older computer to Win XP unless you have at least 256MB of RAM and adequate hard drive space. Also I would want to have at least a PIII or P4 machine over 800mhz (not a Celeron or AMD Duron). Otherwise I would stay with whatever operating system you have now as long as it's working.

These are just my opinions and observations.

 

[Stone]

Thanks for the advice Wayne. I'm glad that the technical issues have a separate section in the forum.

Michael Stone

 

[Richard Carlsen]

Wayne,

Do you think the 800+mhz applies even to all computers on a network? What about running a peer to peer with the server computer being say a 1.8gig P4 and the other being a 450mhz P2? Do you think this mix would cause problems?


Richard

 

[Head Surfer]

Richard,

I was talking about a single computer. Actually the 800mhz is only my opinion, Microsoft says it will run on much less. MS has always said their operating systems will run with minimum power. That is so they can sell more software.

What I was talking about is what would be acceptable for me. Having owned computers since 1984 I am not very patient.

For example you could run a 300 or 400mhz computer with Win XP and it would run fine for most people. It would be sorta like having a 4 cylinder engine in a heavy car, it would run but it would be sluggish.

I am sure you will have no problem.

 

[Richard Carlsen]

That's what I thought.

We're currently running a 450 P2 as the main and a 233 tied in peer to peer. We are thinking about going to a 1.8 or 2.0 P4 for the main and moving the 450 to replace the 233. I do want to run XP Pro on both. Everything I hear is that this is the best OS out there right now.