29 ms·

Rather confusingly the death of the 32-bit version of Windows in practice just means they are dropping support for 16-bit DOS applications. There is a WoW (win

by drbawb 4y ago

Rather confusingly the death of the 32-bit version of Windows in practice just means they are dropping support for 16-bit DOS applications. There is a WoW (windows on windows) subsystem which permitted you to either run 16-bit binaries on your 32-bit system, or 32-bit binaries on your 64-bit system; but there's no 16-on-64 or 16-on-32-on-64. If you have a 64-bit version of Windows the compatibility layer[1] lives at `%SYSTEMROOT%\SysWoW64`. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_on_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_on_Windows

simcop2387 4y ago
You can use winevdm for this though, https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm
- sidewndr46 4y ago
  I'm waiting for the day when people run Linux on windows via a hypervisor to run old programs under wine. This is pretty close.
  - Tuna-Fish 4y ago
    People already do this. There is a very old strategy game (Stars!) that still (barely) has an active community. As it's a 16-bit windows app, the standard advice on how to run it on modern systems is to run it under wine in a VM.
  - amalcon 4y ago
    I actually have already done this -- or, rather, helped someone else to do this. The individual in question was an academic with a license for a rather old version of a particular piece of domain-specific software, which would only run on Windows 95/98/ME. As he taught at a small school, his budget wasn't exactly infinite, so he kept an old Windows 98 machine around to run that software. Turned out, it ran great on Wine. Actually, the performance even improved because the hardware was so much newer.
  - toast0 4y ago
    I used to read about wine for windows, but I haven't seen anything in a while (but there is winevdm, which might be wine for windows for 16-bit)
albrewer 4y ago
> There is a WoW (windows on windows) subsystem Oh my god, I always wondered why the WOW6432NODE registry key was named that but was never bothered enough to look it up. Thank you for triggering the random insight.

by drbawb 4y ago

simcop2387 4y ago

You can use winevdm for this though, https://github.com/otya128/winevdm https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

sidewndr46 4y ago
I'm waiting for the day when people run Linux on windows via a hypervisor to run old programs under wine. This is pretty close.
- Tuna-Fish 4y ago
  People already do this. There is a very old strategy game (Stars!) that still (barely) has an active community. As it's a 16-bit windows app, the standard advice on how to run it on modern systems is to run it under wine in a VM.
- amalcon 4y ago
  I actually have already done this -- or, rather, helped someone else to do this. The individual in question was an academic with a license for a rather old version of a particular piece of domain-specific software, which would only run on Windows 95/98/ME. As he taught at a small school, his budget wasn't exactly infinite, so he kept an old Windows 98 machine around to run that software. Turned out, it ran great on Wine. Actually, the performance even improved because the hardware was so much newer.
- toast0 4y ago
  I used to read about wine for windows, but I haven't seen anything in a while (but there is winevdm, which might be wine for windows for 16-bit)

albrewer 4y ago

> There is a WoW (windows on windows) subsystem Oh my god, I always wondered why the WOW6432NODE registry key was named that but was never bothered enough to look it up. Thank you for triggering the random insight.