Right now there's another thread on here regarding Diablo 1, and it reminded me of something I've been wanting to ask for about a year now.

Are there any "software techies" here that might help me understand the issues better?? I know there are lots of overall techies here, but it seems like getting old programs to run, and run correctly, on new systems is sort of a unique subspecialty that many top notch techies may struggle with.

It _seems_ that the issues regarding older games are actually more complicated from about the 1994 to 2002 period than pre-1994 games thanks to DOSBOX ( (memory fails me on when exactly XP came out, but that _seems_ to be some sort of turning point as far as getting games to run on new systems. My experience has been most games made for XP run okay while most games between DOS and XP are the iffy ones. But that is probably because I'm an idiot and don't know what I'm doing... thus this thread). Even if that assumption is wrong, it's that 94-02 time period that really interests me because I have soooooo many games on my shelf from that period that just won't run on my new systems. Diablo 1 is one of them. I've gotten it to start, but that's about it. It almost always crashes before doing much of anything.

What are the "secrets" to getting 16 bit windows games to run properly or is it actually more like there are no secrets for this time period and because of DOSBOX it really is actually easier to get pre-1994 games to run than it is Windows 95 or 98 games to run.

Sorry for not marking this as a question to give 5 rep points (or whatever it is for answering) for someone, but I felt there was likely no "solution" and that I would just +1 all replies.

Thank you to any and all that answer and help me understand this issue better.

9x-era games often rely on OS features and DLLs that have been removed or changed in newer versions of Windows. Video card drivers can also be an issue if the game uses hardware rendering since some games may break on newer drivers.

16-bit games are architecturally incompatible with 64-bit versions of Windows, so in those cases it's easier to use the DOS or Windows 95 version of the game, if it has one, or else run it in a virtual machine with a 32-bit version of Windows.

Diablo should run OK with the latest patch (and possibly also a DirectDraw fixer if you're getting rainbow colours).

There will always be some edge cases and non-standard software configurations that make a game not work on your system, and in those cases there's no easy solution other than narrowing down what makes your system different. Some games have unusual dependencies while others will break with certain non-standard configurations (e.g. codec packs overriding the default Windows codecs).

On Linux/MacOS I think virtually any DRM-Free game could be made to run using Wine.

Usually a virtual Win98-SP2 machine is the best solution for those problems.
I think Win7 even has software for creating something like this already on board,

Linux users can use WINE or "Virtual box" to run these games.

Yup, a Virtual Machine with Windows 98 (a bit tricky) or Windows XP 32bit should work to make games run. They have a bit problems with games that ned 3d acceleration and sometimes it takes a bit of finetuning. I play Missionforce Cyberstorm in a WinXP VM every now and then without real problems, just the VM takes quite some resources and on slow machines ith few ram it will get problems.
Edit: btw I use Virtual Box

Warcraft 2 couldn't even work on XP for me in the past.. (luckly I've played it on a previous Windows version)
I wish there were a WinBox too! (instead of using a full image on a VM)

Wasn't the original Warcraft 2 a DOS game? So naturally you'd need DOSBox in Windows XP (or Vista/7/8/8.1) for it to run, as XP doesn't really run DOS games. I presume it should work great then.

Warcraft 2 Battle.Net Edition (which is a Windows port of Warcraft 2, made in 2000) worked great for me in Windows 7. It had the "rainbow color" problem like so many other Win9x games in Windows 7, but it was easy to fix.

My WinXP 32bit can handle most old Windows games, that's one of the reason why I didn't change to Win7 but made an additional shiny Linux partition for non game related stuff instead before the support ended.

The original Warcraft 2 had a Dos and Windows95 port on the disc, just like with Fallout, Dungeon Keeper and most other games from this era.

I've tried running both Windows 98SE and Windows XP in VMWare Player in order to run older Windows games, and I must say my findings so far weren't very good. There were quite big issues with practically all games I tried. I think I had the most success with running Gorky 17 (GOG version) on a virtualized XP machine, but even there it would run without 3D acceleration.

I'll have to check WINE option more, it sounds encouraging. But then I don't have Linux running yet on my newer PC... Ok, but for some reason Mobygames mentions only DOS and Macintosh versions.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/warcraft-ii-tides-of-darkness

I'm wondering if the "Windows version" in some cases meant just the Windows installer adding a launcher and shortcut in Windows, which would in turn run the DOS version (as Win9x were able to run DOS games anyway)? I know Fallout and Dungeon Keeper (Gold) had proper Win9x versions, though.

Yeah a virtual machine, probably with Win98 is the only way to be REALLY sure but there's some obvious things that people haven't mentioned yet (maybe because they're so obvious)

- Enabling and messing around with the windows compatibility settings in the shortcut especially 'Run in Win98 mode' and 'Run as administrator'
- nGLiDE for games that had native 3D FX card support (I had success with Klingon Honor Guard and Messiah with that one)
- Game specific community patches - I've been using some VERY useful fan-made patches for Crimson Skies recently!

I've also been finding that some Adobe processes that installed with CS6 have been getting in the way of Shadowgrounds and Enter The Matrix running recently, I've heard some similar things about Logitec drivers too so you might want to run msconfig and try a 'Diagnostic Startup' to see if your game works on a bare-bones versions of your OS (then you'd have to narrow down which process was causing you grief, I guess)

Hope some of that helps!

I don't know about Warcraft II but there are definitely some games claiming Windows 95 support while actually running under DOS. Some DOS games merely make Program Manager shortcuts; others use Windows installers, and a few even have Windows launchers or config tools (e.g. The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard).

I had (have) the Battle.Net Edition. I tried everything back then, even the compatibility tricks.
Maybe there's a patch now?
Starcraft 1 worked fine, instead, I think.

When Blizzard put Blackthorn up on their site it was understood it would be the first of a series of freeware or very cheap classic re-releases, it's been a while now and nothing else has appeared though...

Odd that Blizzard doesn't want to sell its old games. Isn't making it compatible and taking support responsibility off of the publishers what GOG specializes in? They're either planning something or being dummies. Though I've heard some companies don't like the "We'll tell you the monthly sales and not give you exact figures" thing GOG does and a couple of other policies so there could be that too.

But yeah Mr. Old, it's an emulation thing mostly unless you can remake it in a compatible framework. For example a new or rewritten engine. But only fans would do something like that and if they haven't now then I don't expect them to. ^^

Blizzard are absolute control freaks - none of their titles are on Steam or anywhere else besides Battle.net and retail media!
*edit* must mean they have quite a lot of autonomy within the Activision group too - which I guess is good for them...