3 ms·

Love the collection of tiny, standalone EXEs from Windows NT 3.51 that still run great under Windows 10 (described at the bottom of https://gekk.info https://ge

by miles 6y ago

Love the collection of tiny, standalone EXEs from Windows NT 3.51 that still run great under Windows 10 (described at the bottom of https://gekk.info https://gekk.info ; download directory: https://gekk.info/nt351/ https://gekk.info/nt351/ ).

iforgotpassword 6y ago
I've commented this a few times in the past unsuccessfully so here I try again: Ages ago I stumbled upon a website that described a way to run Windows 1.0 EXEs on Windows 10 (32bit obviously). Iirc it involved patching the PE header with a hex editor to say it's for Windows 2.0 or maybe 3.0 and then using an old version of Borland resource editor to recompile the embedded resources, since the that format changed some time between 1.0 and 3.0 and that old editor happens to support both variants. The page had screenshots of some old programs like reversi, calc etc running on 10. Some looked a little glitchy but it basically worked. Unfortunately the site either went down or my googlefu is weakening.
- jchw 6y ago
  As an alternative, WineVDM should be able to run most 16-bit Windows software on Windows 10 64-bit. (I think this may not be what you are talking about, but at least on 64-bit Windows, there is no ordinary way to execute 16-bit code at all. Somebody probably did get it working in 32-bit Windows 10, though.)
- jaclaz 6y ago
  Only as a side note Windows 1/2/3 exe would be a NE (16 bit), not a PE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.exe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.exe
- rasz 6y ago
  There are only few nerds geeky enough to attempt such feats for pleasure. http://www.os2museum.com/wp/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/ Michal Necasek https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/ https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/ neozeed and https://soylentnews.org https://soylentnews.org NCommander come to mind Maybe this is what you were thinking of https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203 https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203 Edit: and indeed NCommander guest post on neozeed blog https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2020/05/22/examining-windows-1-0-hello-c/ https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2020/05/22/examining-wind... has first comment mentioning http://toastytech.com/guis/misc.html http://toastytech.com/guis/misc.html , Nathan Lineback is your nerd. His whole website is a treasure.
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    That last link is it! Thanks a ton, I'm gonna set up a win 10 VM tomorrow :-)

by miles 6y ago

iforgotpassword 6y ago

I've commented this a few times in the past unsuccessfully so here I try again: Ages ago I stumbled upon a website that described a way to run Windows 1.0 EXEs on Windows 10 (32bit obviously). Iirc it involved patching the PE header with a hex editor to say it's for Windows 2.0 or maybe 3.0 and then using an old version of Borland resource editor to recompile the embedded resources, since the that format changed some time between 1.0 and 3.0 and that old editor happens to support both variants. The page had screenshots of some old programs like reversi, calc etc running on 10. Some looked a little glitchy but it basically worked. Unfortunately the site either went down or my googlefu is weakening.

jchw 6y ago
As an alternative, WineVDM should be able to run most 16-bit Windows software on Windows 10 64-bit. (I think this may not be what you are talking about, but at least on 64-bit Windows, there is no ordinary way to execute 16-bit code at all. Somebody probably did get it working in 32-bit Windows 10, though.)
jaclaz 6y ago
Only as a side note Windows 1/2/3 exe would be a NE (16 bit), not a PE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Executable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.exe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.exe
rasz 6y ago
There are only few nerds geeky enough to attempt such feats for pleasure. http://www.os2museum.com/wp/ http://www.os2museum.com/wp/ Michal Necasek https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/ https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/ neozeed and https://soylentnews.org https://soylentnews.org NCommander come to mind Maybe this is what you were thinking of https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203 https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=20/05/10/1753203 Edit: and indeed NCommander guest post on neozeed blog https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2020/05/22/examining-windows-1-0-hello-c/ https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2020/05/22/examining-wind... has first comment mentioning http://toastytech.com/guis/misc.html http://toastytech.com/guis/misc.html , Nathan Lineback is your nerd. His whole website is a treasure.
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  That last link is it! Thanks a ton, I'm gonna set up a win 10 VM tomorrow :-)