How to Run Old Windows Based Programs in Windows 7?

• First of all, go to your start menu and head directly to the control panel, normally present at the right hand side of your system’s start menu. You will reach the control panel screen as shown in image 1 below. Then click on “find and fix problems” as shown by the arrow key.

• This will bring up the next screen as shown in image 2 below. Here just go ahead and click on “Run programs made for previous versions of Windows” as shown by the arrow key.

• This will make the system to scan for all the programs installed in your machine and to present you with a list of all these programs as shown in image 3 below. Here you will see all the programs recognized by your windows OS (Windows 7 in this case), including the ones that are not working at the moment due to incompatibility issue.

• For example, as shown in the above screen by the arrow symbol, let’s consider Adobe Photoshop is not working due to compatibility issue. Select this program and then hit next. It will pop up another screen with two options as shown below in image 4.

• Let’s try the recommended settings options as shown by the arrow key and let the system itself figure out the standard settings required for this program to run. If you take the other route, the 2^nd one in the list, it might be too demanding, as in that case, you have to face a short interview conducted by the system, and answer the questions appropriately. That’s why I recommend, better to let the system use its own intelligence and figure out what configuration changes should be made for this program.

• After you have chosen recommended settings, at this stage the system has already changed the settings for this particular program to its suitable compatibility mode. You will be asked to run the program now as shown in image 5 below.

• Go ahead and hit the “Start the program” button as shown by the arrow and see if you get lucky with this one. More often than not, it will make the program work again.
• If by any chance, it doesn’t work, go ahead and try the 2^nd option in image 4, as that’s the only option you are left with now. However, in this case you will need to answer the questions correctly the system is going to ask you during this process.

After doing all this, if your program still doesn’t work, you would be better off replacing this old program with a newer version. This could happen occasionally, if this program is a very old 16-bit program that the latest operating systems can’t figure out how to simulate a suitable environment for it to run. If this program was working with your previous version of the windows operating system, you may also consider going back to your old operating system, but that wouldn’t make lot of sense as today or tomorrow you will have to follow the trend or roadmap rather, and upgrade your PC to a new operating system anyway – to keep yourself in sync with this vast advancements in Information Technology.