Today I got one of my favorite Windows 95 programs to run on Windows 10. Kind of. It's actually a Windows XP VM running on Windows 10.
After several tries at using compatibility settings, I sat down today to see if I could get there with a virtual machine instead.
From a How-To Geek's guide I thought my problem was a 64-bit OS trying to run a 16-bit program. So I first downloaded a 32-bit version of Windows 10. But when I got an error that rebooting didn't solve, I tried something else. (I don't know if the ISO I got was meant for VirtualBox.)
An Online Tech Tips page I visited linked to Help Desk Geek's instructions for using an XP VM, which is the solution I used.
I did have a few other issues to resolve:
- Was using keyboard to navigate forms -- and I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling taskbar popups! 🤓 (Couldn't see what I was selecting!) -- because I had trouble moving my cursor when in XP... until I read this answer about changing my VM pointing device
- Wasn't reading from my CD drive until I went into VirtualBox's Settings -> Storage and made it so an Optical Drive was pointing to my E: drive. (At first I thought it was because XP thought the drive was D:, like in this thread, but that wasn't it.)
And voila!
The program I'm running is DesignWare's myHouse Classic Edition, for laying out blueprints/floorplans and then rendering them in 3D. Need to read up on the docs because I don't remember how to make a second room! (Although I could also use the occasion to try out some tiny house designs... 🤔)
Looking forward to walking down memory lane as I use XP some more!
