- Joined
- Jan 4, 2002
- Professional Status
- Retired Appraiser
- State
- Florida
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.
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.