« Sharing sound between Pulseaudio instances in Ubuntu Karmic 9.10 | Main | Apport integration »
If it’s not broke, sometimes it just can’t be broken.
By sparky | December 4, 2009
As part of my work, I was required to do a demonstration / instructional on an introduction to Windows 7. My main interest was getting people to understand how Windows 7 has changed from Windows XP (since many people avoided Windows Vista, and now have heard how great Windows 7 is) and also to see the benefits in moving to Windows 7.
One of the things I really wanted to demonstrate was the compatability mode, showing how old programs can be forced to run in a environment that pre-dates Windows 7.
It’s quite useful for older programs that worked fine under Windows XP, but seem to struggle / have issues (for whatever reason) under newer Operating Systems.
So, I hunted around my office, and found a copy of Lotus Smart Suite 9.6.
I figured that since this program came about in 2000/2001 it should break enough to require Compatability Mode.
However, sadly (or goodly, as it may be) it didn’t need to. When installing, I did have to run the setup.exe as an Administrator (because otherwise it couldn’t write to the registry). It prompted that there was an incompatability with Lotus 1-2-3 printing certain formats, but you clicked through that, and it installed OK. And then – it ran fine. No problems.
I even tried an old version of Winamp. That worked fine too.
I’ve only ever had to force Compatability Mode for playing older games, and they work fine under that.
I’m keen to find an actual program that WONT work in Compatability Mode, and that requires the Windows 7 Professional ‘XP Mode’ Virtual Machine.
So far, all I can say is that Windows 7 is freakin’ awesome.
Topics: OS, Software, Windows | 2 Comments »
December 5th, 2009 at 9:06 am
I’d recommend Heavy Gear II
… that one never worked under Windows XP.
Compatibility mode is mainly required for applications that used “naughty” Windows calls… look for either ultra-specialised systems (think security/defense/firewall/crap-cleaners), or really high performance apps. Most other programs won’t have a requirement to go beyond the relatively sacred Microsoft API
January 8th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
[...] Friday after reading an entry about Windows 7 that my friend Kris wrote over at Equima, I finally bit the bullet & updated my laptop from [...]