pawz7 Posted October 18, 2011 Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 don't suppose anyone will be able to help with this but worth an ask. A friend brought a floppy round today with an old Win 98 era utility on there that he needs to use. He told me that it would not open on his Windows Seven machine and that it gave the message that the version of the file is not compatible with the version of Windows he is running, however, it ran fine on mine. Both machines are 32 bit Windows 7. I copied the .exe back on to a flash drive, he took that home and ran that from his desktop - but with the same result. Hmm, don't get it. The file is called SU16PFRS.exe. I have looked on the web to see if there might be a later version but found nothing. it is some sort of finance profiler is all he could tell me about it. Just a small program, no libraries or runtimes involved I wouldn't have thought, just 36kb. Any ideas folks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted October 18, 2011 Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 Have you tried Compatibility Mode? You must be logged in as Administrator. See http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/316-compatibility-mode.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted October 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 worth a try isn't it - but it not need compatability mode on mine.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted October 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 18, 2011 Sorted. He told me it was 32bit OS, but when I think back, he only bought that machine a few months back and, it being a Dell, it will have come with 64bit OS I am sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted October 19, 2011 Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 Do Dell still put floppy drives into their machines or is this a free standing one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted October 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 probably the latter. He phoned this a.m. to confirm he is running 64bit OS, and then tried the .exe on his wife's 32 bit machine, and it ran, so that settles that - though I do have a question. His wife does not have a floppy drive on her laptop ( I know that 'cos I recently changed the hard drive on it for her and posted on here about the risk of losing the capability to restore from a hidden partition in that situation), so I am guessing he either used an external floppy or copied it to her machine from the flash drive I lent him yesterday. My question is... what is it that enables some ( but clearly not all) 32bit applications to run on 64bit OS's? I suppose it must require them to have a proper setup/install files, and I understand that drivers are key - but this little utility was all of 38kb and just a standalone.exe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted October 19, 2011 Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 It might be that the files on the floppy disk are 16 bit, the 32 bit OS's are backward compatable with 16 bit programs but the 64 bit OS,s are not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted October 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 that makes sense - why did I not think of that? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted October 20, 2011 Report Share Posted October 20, 2011 I think that 64-bit operating systems should still be able to execute 16-bit programs. Does anybody know of a 16-bit program to download, so I can try it here? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted October 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 20, 2011 as I recall, if you want to run dos-games on 64bit machines you have to use a DOS box to get it to work.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted October 20, 2011 Report Share Posted October 20, 2011 ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb, I have just tried to install a 16 bit program on Vista 64 bit and got the message it is not compatible Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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