[KGHN]

I am installing a friend's old W95 software on a refreshed W2K SP4 Pentium3 machine, after her old W98 486 bit the dust. I downloaded the latest (onboard) video driver from HP's site for this specific machine earlier today, and it seems to give plenty of good color/resolution options.

The (Broderbund) TLC Ultimate Children's Encyclopedia installed but would hang on launch, with a black screen sporting a movable hourglass, and CPU at 100% until I ended the "not responding" task. Same hangup trying to launch the Encyclopedia in Safe Mode.

After research (http://www.techspot....ity/index.shtml) I installed the W2K shortcut compatibility mode tool slayerui.dll. All the shortcuts now have a compatibility tab. I immediately get "application failed to initialize properly" when I try to launch the Encyclopedia in either W95 or W98 mode.

The Encyclopedia's CD packaging indicates it was intended for W95, and I hear it was running happily under W98 on the old machine. I searched the W2K/WinXP forum of GeeksToGo for "compatibility 2000 initialize" but found nothing useful. (BTW, Broderbund's site states that they don't support it anymore.)

Pretty cool Windows 2000 has a compatibility function. Too bad it's not working well in this case. I'd love to hear from someone who has solved a compatibility issue like this.

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Um, this technology is already present in Win2k from Service Pack 2 onwards. You shouldn't have to download anything further to use it, though you will need to enable it manually:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279792

So the first suggestion is to patch the system with Win2k Service Pack 4:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260910

Then use the techniques to apply it in the first link I posted and try again.

But having said all of this, some old programs just do not work under Windows 2000, XP or Vista. If this is the case, not a lot you can do.

[Neil Jones]

Um, this technology is already present in Win2k from Service Pack 2 onwards. You shouldn't have to download anything further to use it, though you will need to enable it manually:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279792

So the first suggestion is to patch the system with Win2k Service Pack 4:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/260910

Then use the techniques to apply it in the first link I posted and try again.

But having said all of this, some old programs just do not work under Windows 2000, XP or Vista. If this is the case, not a lot you can do.

[KGHN]

Hi Neil, Thanks for your reply. I am confused by how it can help me, however.

1) The machine is already SP4, which I stated above in the first sentence.
2) Your link describes using slayerui.dll to enable the compatibility tab, which I have already done, as mentioned above in the third paragraph. (I merely installed/activated it, I didn't download anything.)
3) Using the compatibility tab to set W95 or W98 mode has *changed* the problem/error I get, as I described.

I appreciate your posting, and hope you may have other thoughts on the topic for me.

[torbjorn]

Hi Neil, Thanks for your reply. I am confused by how it can help me, however.

1) The machine is already SP4, which I stated above in the first sentence.
2) Your link describes using slayerui.dll to enable the compatibility tab, which I have already done, as mentioned above in the third paragraph. (I merely installed/activated it, I didn't download anything.)
3) Using the compatibility tab to set W95 or W98 mode has *changed* the problem/error I get, as I described.

I appreciate your posting, and hope you may have other thoughts on the topic for me.

I have run into nearly the same problem today. I have to use an old MS-DOS cad application (Cadstar) on a laptop, freshly installed with Win 2000 SP4.
It is well known that this cad application has problems to run under XP or Win 2000 since a Windows Update session sometime during 2006. The problem is somewhat strange, as the application runs (in 640 x 480 graphic mode) but the fonts in menus, dialog boxes and welcome screens are totally corrupted.

However, under XP, i have found that the application runs well provided that "Windows 95 compatibility mode" is set on all its .exe files (more than a dozen files that are called in on demand as overlays). When now trying to apply this compatibility mode under Win 2000, i have performed as usual by registering slayerui.dll , but then i find that the "compatiblility" tab only appears for a few objects. This tab never appears in the Properties dialog for, for example, an .exe file , but it appears for some - but not all - shortcuts. In general, it appears on shortcuts to Windows applications, but never on shortcuts to DOS applications.

[KGHN]

I've been playing with installing some games today. You are right, the compatibility tab doesn't appear for some shortcuts to executables, very likely MSDOS-based executables as these are old favorites. Interestingly, the shortcut to the command prompt does have the compatibility tab. And I did run into one game that seemed fine except the text was garbled = "fonts are corrupted". Some old games run really slowly, and the Program Manager says they are FROZEN. BTW, Neko kitty works fine.

Any other tips to get that Encyclopedia running? Please recall, the (Broderbund) TLC Ultimate Children's Encyclopedia hangs "not responding" with the CPU at 100% when launched normally, and gives an "application failed to initialize properly" error when launched in W95 or W98 compatibility mode. (It also hangs in NT4 compatibility mode.)

[Ztruker]

Take a look at DOSBox, old games is exactly what it was designed for.