Windows 10: Running 16-bit applications on Windows 10 64-bit - Proof of concept

Read more: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/...t/ba-p/1671418

:)

 

How to run a 16-bit program in Windows 10 64-bit?

*Original Title: 16 bit on windows 10

I have windows 10 64 bit and I have a program that runs on 16 bit. Need to know how to do it

 

Is it possible to run a 16-bit program on Windows 10 64-bit platform?

It's not possible to run 16bit applications on 64bit Windows. The reason give by Microsoft is

Note that 64-bit Windows does not support running 16-bit Windows-based applications. The primary reason is that handles have 32 significant bits on 64-bit Windows. Therefore, handles cannot be truncated and passed to 16-bit applications
without loss of data. Attempts to launch 16-bit applications fail with the following error:
ERROR_BAD_EXE_FORMAT.

Running 32-bit Applications - Win32 apps

Often, as appears to be the case here, only the installer is 16bit. If you can run the installer on a 32bit system, it's possible to record what files and Registry entries it produces and then transfer them to the 64bit system.

Aaron Margosis has published some Powershell scripts to do this:

The Case of the App Install Recorder

 

Does 16 bit work yet on a 64 bit windows 10 OS?

16-bit applications (installers, etc.) will not run natively under 64-bit Win10TP (or Win8.1 or Win7, etc.) As others have mentioned, you can run emulator software like Dosbox that will allow you to run 16-bit applications & installers under 64-bit Windows (my version of dosbox-svn includes a 64-bit version of dosbox.exe that's pretty cool.)

There is no "yet" to it, in reference to your question--this will not ever happen and it is by design. 32-bit versions of Windows are backwards compatible (to some extent) with 16-bit programs and applications; 64-bit versions of Windows are backwards-compatible with 32-bit programs and installers. At some point in time Microsoft will no longer be offering 32-bit versions of its OSes at all, but until then a 32-bit version of Windows is a necessity if you want to run 16-bit applications & installers...(but the preference is that you run a 64-bit OS and use emulators to run older 16-bit programs.)

Back in the 16-bit Windows era all applications were not pure 16-bit applications but often a combination of 8-bit & 16-bit code that was compatible with Windows at the time--itself a combination of 8-bit and 16-bit code. 64-bit cpus offer superior security features to 32-bit & earlier cpus, and they have more internal registers, and will support vastly greater amounts of RAM.

If you have a 64-bit cpu then I'd advise you run the 64-bit version of Windows with it and use emulators to run any 16-bit software you may be clinging to for some reason...*Wink Unless you have some kind of mission-critical 16-bit program that you absolutely and without a doubt must use on a regular basis, which will not run on any software emulator you know of, then I'd advise you migrate to 64-bit Windows ASAP.