wrote:
On Sat, 08 Jun 2019 15:01:57 -0500, NT (Ant) wrote:

wrote:
It also seemed to kill a lot of old 32 bit windows software that will
not even run in compatibility mode. XP did not seem to have a problem
with any of my old stuff except dBase that wants to do direct writes
to the disk.
DOSBOX to the rescue.
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Win%203.1%2...207%20suit.jpg
Virtual Machines would work too like free VirtualBox.

DOSBOX seems to do OK for what I am doing here. It is pretty easy to
set up and once you get into that environment it is pretty close to
real DOS.
I did load up a drive the other day with DOS 6.3 and W/3.1 just to be
sure a couple of my programs were working right.
It was a bit nostalgic when I recreated the environment on my desk at
work in 1996 when I backed up that machine on my way out the door.
One thing DOSBOX won't do is load ANSI.SYS and allow all of those
"Prompt" tricks.
It does run a whole lot faster on a 2.4gz machine than that 25mz 486 I
was running tho.

You can install the same OS twice on the hard drive, using
the same key. You could install an x86 version for your
legacy software collection, and an x64 version for when
you want to use the maximum amount of RAM. I haven't tested
dual boot of different bitness, for boot loader issues.

You could also use separate drives, one for each.

Paul