new PC's vs. old school games

[Hobie-wan]

I only figured to start w/ Win8 because the OS is completely new to me, and I'm not a big fan

FYI you can get the 8.1 update which might make using the OS a little better. Not that it will probably help with the games.

[noiseredux]

I only figured to start w/ Win8 because the OS is completely new to me, and I'm not a big fan

FYI you can get the 8.1 update which might make using the OS a little better. Not that it will probably help with the games.

I didn't think 8.1 was out for another week or so.

I am planning to update - if only for the Start Menu. For a while I was using ClassicShell, but it wasn't perfect. To be honest, if downgrading to 7 was free, I'd have already done so. I really thought that 7 was excellent and felt like something truly worth ditching XP for.

[Hatta]

One thing that may be useful for you is installing Windows 3.1 in DOSBOX.

How would that work?

I have thought about trying to install some older Win versions as Virtual Machines.

It would work just like it does in a real DOS machine. Get floppy images or an ISO with Windows 3.1 on it, and run the installer. When you're done, type 'win' to start Windows. There are some details at VOGONS.

Windows 98 in Virtualbox does work, but there's no guest additions and there are some complications in getting Windows file sharing to work, and obviously hardware accelerated games are out. I ended up just using a vintage PC (400MHz celeron on Intel al440lx, with 384MB RAM and Voodoo2 SLI. ). Vmware might be a better option, 98 is officially supported, but I haven't tried it myself.

[Stark]

I only figured to start w/ Win8 because the OS is completely new to me, and I'm not a big fan

FYI you can get the 8.1 update which might make using the OS a little better. Not that it will probably help with the games.

I didn't think 8.1 was out for another week or so.

I am planning to update - if only for the Start Menu. For a while I was using ClassicShell, but it wasn't perfect. To be honest, if downgrading to 7 was free, I'd have already done so. I really thought that 7 was excellent and felt like something truly worth ditching XP for.

I think 8.1 came out Tuesday.

[MrPopo]

My understanding is that 64-bit Windows 8 does not support 16 bit Windows apps. Does the version of Myst you're installing require Windows 95? It should say on the box. If not, it's a 16 bit game. One thing that may be useful for you is installing Windows 3.1 in DOSBOX.

Yeah, all the 64-bit versions of Windows don't support 16-bit apps.

I think 8.1 came out Tuesday.

It came out yesterday.

[Stark]

I think 8.1 came out Tuesday.

It came out yesterday.

Ah, I knew it must be this week. Someone here updated a Surface RT to 8.1 yesterday.

[isiolia]

I didn't think 8.1 was out for another week or so.

I am planning to update - if only for the Start Menu. For a while I was using ClassicShell, but it wasn't perfect. To be honest, if downgrading to 7 was free, I'd have already done so. I really thought that 7 was excellent and felt like something truly worth ditching XP for.

Update came out yesterday, retail release of 8.1 came out today (probably because 18 is 8.1 backwards, sort of).

There's no real Start Menu per se. The button is back though, and the right-click menu on it has a few more things (like Run, and Shutdown). That said you can make it boot straight to the desktop, and you can make the Start Screen open right to All Applications instead of the tiles. So, it's somewhat better there.


While I don't imagine your computer came with 8 Professional, those with that can install Hyper-V to use for VMs (at least some of them). Just have to checkbox it in add/remove features.

[BoneSnapDeez]

[noiseredux]

so who has installed 8.1? I'm slightly nervous cuz I read on the Steam forums it's messed w/ folks' GPU settings. Granted they all had NVidea and I have a Radeon, but still.

[isiolia]

I have. It caused the Stanley Parable to run in red/blue 3D (GTX670) >_> I tried to install the beta nVidia drivers, those failed, but made Windows redownload the drivers from Windows Update and that fixed it. FFXIV had no issues last night right after I'd installed it though.