Old games and 64 bit compatibility

**Hosakawa Tito** · 01-24-2010, 15:29

I have this old game from 1997, Civil War Generals 2, that I can't play anymore because it isn't compatible with my new system that has 64 bit Windows OS. I'd be willing to buy a cheap laptop that has a 32 bit OS to play it. I gave a quick looked on Newegg & Amazon and the only laptops I found with 32 bit OS didn't have CD rom drives. Any suggestions?

**Crandaeolon** · 01-24-2010, 17:25

Try running it through DOSBox on your new system?

Otherwise, there are some tricks to get around the lack of an optical drive... most hassle-free option is to get an external USB drive for around 50-60 squid. Another option is to create an image file of the CD, transfer it to the laptop and then mount it on a virtual drive with Daemon Tools, Alcohol, PowerISO or something similar.

**Furunculus** · 01-24-2010, 18:56

Originally Posted by Hosakawa Tito

I have this old game from 1997, Civil War Generals 2, that I can't play anymore because it isn't compatible with my new system that has 64 bit Windows OS. I'd be willing to buy a cheap laptop that has a 32 bit OS to play it. I gave a quick looked on Newegg & Amazon and the only laptops I found with 32 bit OS didn't have CD rom drives. Any suggestions?

hah, i bought my lenovo netbook for the same reason, to play MTW:VI, but i recieved the version with a screen res of only 1024x576, slightly to small in the vertical for the minimum MTW res of 800x600.

still, it runs opensuse these days so a happy ending was achieved.

could dual boot your laptop with XP.

**CrossLOPER** · 01-24-2010, 19:06

If DOSBox works, stay with that. Otherwise, download windows virtual machine and install XP. I have no idea how well the "xp mode" works as I used an older VM version and installed XP on that to run MS Office 2003. Worked great. Didn't set aside enough HD space, so its usefulness was limited.

**Furunculus** · 01-24-2010, 19:12

virtualised XP environments cannot to my knowledge make DirectX hardware calls, so no use for games, though with a DOS based game that may not be a problem.

**CrossLOPER** · 01-24-2010, 23:13

I'll see if I can make Starcraft work in an VM.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 01-24-2010, 23:15

Originally Posted by Furunculus

hah, i bought my lenovo netbook for the same reason, to play MTW:VI, but i recieved the version with a screen res of only 1024x576, slightly to small in the vertical for the minimum MTW res of 800x600.

still, it runs opensuse these days so a happy ending was achieved.

could dual boot your laptop with XP.

Here's a lenovo from newegg that might fit the bill. I've never had a laptop & don't know much about them. Thoughts anyone?

**Furunculus** · 01-25-2010, 15:51

it'll be an ok laptop, but whether it'll do what you want..............

**Husar** · 01-25-2010, 19:12

Is that a 16bit game or why does it not run on a 64bit OS?
You wouldn't want to find out that it doesn't run on 32bit Windows 7 either after buying a new laptop, would you?

**Hosakawa Tito** · 01-26-2010, 00:00

I ran this game on my last system that I just replaced last year, which was a 32 bit windows xp os. The new one I have is a 64 bit with a vista hp os. When installing this old game I get a pop-up message stating that this program is incompatible with a 64 bit system.

it'll be an ok laptop, but whether it'll do what you want..............

My thoughts exactly. I know just enough about this stuff to royally screw things up, which is why I'm hesitant to try and dual boot with xp.