Running Old Dos/win95 Games On Winxp

[tekt5]

ok, here's the dilemma.. I want to know if its possible to play some older dos/Win95 games on WinXP.

when I run them it comes up with an error saying..

*FILENAME*(name of the file I'm running)
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application.

then it has two options 'Close' and 'Ignore' both of which just close the program.

So if anyone can help me then let me say thanks

 

[DemonStar55]

I know somewhere there is a compatiblity thing in windows XP but I don't know if DOS is on it 95 probably is but I don't use XP so I don't know

 

[c0ncept]

dosbox. its a dos emulator that should allow you to play older games. The reason that older games don't work on xp is not based on DOS anymore (i think it runs off of the NT kernel but I could be talking out my arse there.)

I encountered this problem when I tried to play system shock 2 (awesome game), but I haven't been bothered to d/l dosbox yet.

 

[Belgarath]

A friend of mine had this exact same problem, the strange thing was I knew the game in question worked on mine, so I gave her my copy of autoexec.nt and it worked fine afterwards. Try replacing the autoexec.nt with the one in Windows\repair\

 

[firefly1201]

Get dosbox . If it's not a dos game, but still old (such as C&C Red Alert which is a win 95 game) then:
right click => properties => compatibility => Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows 95 or whatever.

Works for me

 

[markusdragon]

Do what Belgarath said: it's a corrupted file error.

Although dosbox does sound extremely useful...

 

[grooveholmes]

yes. i use dosbox to play old KOEI titles.

 

[tekt5]

A friend of mine had this exact same problem, the strange thing was I knew the game in question worked on mine, so I gave her my copy of autoexec.nt and it worked fine afterwards. Try replacing the autoexec.nt with the one in Windows\repair\

​

Thanks Belgarath!! I copied and pasted it into /system32 and it works fine now!! it wasn't even in there before, I think one of the 59,000 viruses my antivirus program found a while ago might have done something with it!

 

[Twimfy]

dosbox. its a dos emulator that should allow you to play older games. The reason that older games don't work on xp is not based on DOS anymore (i think it runs off of the NT kernel but I could be talking out my arse there.)

I encountered this problem when I tried to play system shock 2 (awesome game), but I haven't been bothered to d/l dosbox yet.

​

There is a patch for System Shock 2 (did you know the game is now freeware?), but I found it worked in XP fine without anyway.

Dosbox is great but gets complicated when trying to run games such as Toonstruck..man how I long to play that again.

 

[PinkSpider]

Yea 95 was just DOS with a Gui frontend.

 

[c0ncept]

Waugh!!!!!


FREEWARE!

Thats really really good news, I'm gonna d/l it now.

 

[firefly1201]

did you know the game is now freeware?

​

*sniff*, this is the greatest day of my life :wub:

 

[Twimfy]

Glad I can make some people happy, I wish I had a link to back it up but it is available somewhere and definately is free, I suppose you can torrent it without guilt now.

 

[Vimacs]

get Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit helps great for many win95 games with right settings, for dos i also sugest you dosbox.

 

[c0ncept]

*SOB*

I can't get ss2 to run, now I'm gonna have to take my own advice and try dosbox...

*sigh*