I upgraded from 7 Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro so I could hopefully get some of my older programs (DOS) that I have on my XP computer that do run to run on my Windows 7 computer. I need some help on what I need to do to hopefully get these to work in Windows 7. The cogo program works on 7 now, but is kind of funky and the drafting program won't come up on the screen. I remember that somtime back Virtual Machine was mentioned that would allow XP running programs to run on Win 7. I guess what I'm asking is where to find the Virtual Machine function and what else needs to be done.
Have you tried DosBox?
It runs well on Windows 7 Home. Might be worth a shot.
Try here : http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx
I'm using it and it works great.
Does DOSBOX work with all DOS based programs or games only which is what the examples show?
I use a free program from Oracle called "Virtual Box". It will allow you to run any operating system within any other operating system. But you will need an install disk for XP or any other OS you want to use.
Once you download the program, then do you have to load or reload your programs into Virtual Machine again or do you load them right into Windows 7?
I don't know for sure. I recommended this to Cliff Mugnier once for some DOS applications he wanted to run. He may have something to say about it.
Some of the front-ends for DosBox are worth looking at as well.
To answer one of your questions above, once you have VB & and OS system installed, you invoke VB from the Win7 desktop. Then you invoke the OS and it's like you are on a brand new computer. You then install programs there. The two OS's programs do not cross each other, but you can set it up so that you can access files from either one.
One more vote to VirtualBox.
It works well and it's open source.
You will have a virtual windows xp machine inside the windows 7 so there is no conflict between them.
> Once you download the program, then do you have to load or reload your programs into Virtual Machine again or do you load them right into Windows 7?
Once you set up the virtual machine, you then load the XP operating system on it, then load your programs into that operating system. In short, its just like having a separate XP computer. Right down to needing to maintain separate anti-virus software in XP.
If I wish to run my old DOS based programs in VirtualBox, then wouldn't it be more logical to load in DOS 6.22 and maybe Windows 3.11? or will it support these OS?
If I remember the documentation correctly, it says it will run any OS inside any other OS. But you are getting back a ways with those OS's.
Suggest you go here:
But it does say it will host DOS/WIN 3.x
The reason I mentioned the DOS and Win 3.11 is because these programs run fine in them as that was the OS in use at the time. So why not put that in and maybe save some configuration hassles with a later OS. I had these all running in Win 98SE but due to hard drive crashes and reloading the programs, for some reason they all no longer want to work together. Some will and one will require it to change to DOS or one 98 System after a hard drive crash gives an out of memory message for all the programs. Could never solve the reason it would do this.
