Vista (64) running old games?

so i bought a new computer that has vista 64 bit on it and after a frustrating round of trying to get the dang os to even recognize the drive disks for my moniter, printer, router, etc., i began wondering about my old games, which ran perfectly fine in XP. i had to manually go through the cd's just to get my drivers on, some of which i had to go online to do anyways because vista wouldnt even read the disk. now i know my games wont be recognized either, so is there some kind of workaround from microsoft that will help this issue so that i can run them? some of the company's of the games no longer even exist so drivers from them will be non-existant.

so i bought a new computer that has vista 64 bit on it and after a frustrating round of trying to get the dang os to even recognize the drive disks for my moniter, printer, router, etc., i began wondering about my old games, which ran perfectly fine in XP. i had to manually go through the cd's just to get my drivers on, some of which i had to go online to do anyways because vista wouldnt even read the disk. now i know my games wont be recognized either, so is there some kind of workaround from microsoft that will help this issue so that i can run them? some of the company's of the games no longer even exist so drivers from them will be non-existant.

lonewolf_kai

oh, havent tried any of them yet. i was just wondering since i had such a big problem trying to install my drivers from cd/dvd, most of which were for xp systems. i was just wondering if microsoft has come up with a solution yet. i couldnt find anything specific on the official website. some of my games is Baldur's gate2 + expansion, another is mechwarrior 4 +, an anthology of the old Quest for Glory games that came out around ME time, maybe even windows 98. i'm also wanting to play Star wars: KOTOR + 2, but dont want to waste the money buying it if it wont even play in vista.lonewolf_kai

Now, as to the games in question.

Many of the games you list are old (some around 10 years old). The Quest for Glory games, which I'm sure are DOS games, can be considered ancient. Your safest bet in this case would be to prepare an emulation system--or better yet, if your CPU can support it, a virtualizer. If your system supports Virtualization Technology (any Core 2 should have the capability), may I recommend innotek VirtualBox, which is free for personal use? With it, you can dedicate some memory and hard drive space (and your old OS) to create a system within a system--one that has its limitations but should be more than capable of handling anything up to Baldur's Gate. If virtualization is not an option, then perhaps DOSBOX can provide a means to emulate a DOS system and at least let you enjoy Quest for Glory.

As for KOTOR, that's tricky. It's probably recent enough that even Virtualization will be slow as molasses but it isn't supported in Vista. It's a known issue around KOTOR boards, but solutions are few, far between, and far from universal.

I have had about the same amount of problems with my Vista machine as my XP machine, both few and far between. What problems are you having exactly?

As far as drivers, I never use the disc's included, it is usually better to download the latest version from the manufacturers website. Also make sure you are downloading the proper driver for you operating system.

oh i used dosbox for the quest for glory anthology for xp, so im familiar with that. the game would play on xp, but it was so super fast, it was unplayable.lonewolf_kai

Let vista get the drivers online.....DON'T force xp drivers in it.....I have vista 64 and its a whole different ball game....Its a very good operating system....You just have to learn it and yes most of the older games will play on it....a few won't but who care.....get some new games. You will enjoy it....JackLKing

You know that does kinda suck....Vista has been out for a while and too many manufactures are not keeping up

You know that does kinda suck....Vista has been out for a while and too many manufactures are not keeping up