Windows XP Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 81 Force XP-Incompatible Applications to Run

Don't throw away your old
programs that can't run under XP. Use these hacks to
force them to work.

Some older
applications, including old games and programs written specifically
for an earlier version of Windows, might not run properly or run at
all under XP. But there's a lot you can do to make
sure they run, including running an automated Compatibility Wizard
and using a little-known Microsoft tool to solve compatibility
problems.

9.3.1 Use the Compatibility Wizard

If you find a program that
won't run under XP, start with the easiest step. Run
the Compatibility Wizard: choose Start Help and Support
Fixing a Problem "Application
and software problems"
"Fix a problem"
"Getting older programs to run on
XP," then scroll down and click on Program
Compatibility Wizard.

You'll be prompted to choose the software you want
to fix and then asked a series of questions, including the operating
system for which the software was written, or on which it last ran
properly, and the screen resolutions recommended for the program.
Figure 9-2 shows the wizard in action. The wizard
then applies those settings and tries to run the program. If the
settings work, the wizard will let you specify to always run the
program using them. If they don't, try different
settings until you get it working properly.

There may be some instances in which a program won't
even install on your system. In those instances, run the
Compatibility Wizard on the installation or setup program, commonly
called Setup.exe or a similar filename. Then,
after it installs, see if it works properly. If it
doesn't, run the wizard again, this time on the
installed program.

Figure 9-2. Using the Compatibility Wizard

If you're not a fan of wizards,
there's another way to set the
program's compatibility settings. Right-click the
program's shortcut icon and choose Properties
Compatibility. You can then manually configure
compatibility settings, as shown in Figure 9-3. You
can change the same settings as you can using the wizard. You may
have to try several different settings before you find one that
works.

Figure 9-3. Setting compatibility settings directly in the Compatibility dialog box

At the bottom of the Compatibility dialog box shown in Figure 9-3, you'll notice a setting that
lets you turn off "advanced text
services." That setting is applicable if you use
speech recognition and text services, so if you use them in the
application that won't run, try turning them off for
this application to see whether it helps. If the program
doesn't use these services, don't
bother using the setting.

If the Compatibility Wizard doesn't work, try these
steps:

Check the software manufacturer's web site to see if
an update, patch, or fix is available.

Use Windows Update to see if a fix is available, by choosing Start
Control Panel Windows Update.

Update your sound card and video card drivers by checking the
manufacturer sites and downloading new drivers.

If the problem program is a game that uses DirectX, upgrade to the
newest version of DirectX by going to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/ and
clicking on the DirectX link or searching for DirectX.

9.3.2 Use the Application Compatibility Toolkit

If the wizard
doesn't work, turn to a more powerful tool, a
little-known free program, the Application Compatibility Toolkit from
Microsoft. It will automatically apply fixes to hundreds of programs
to enable them to run under XP. You can find it in the
\Support\Tools directory of the XP CD, though a
much better bet is to download it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/appcompatibility/default.mspx
because newer versions are always being made available online.

Turn off your antivirus program before installing the Application
Compatibility. The program makes many changes to numerous Registry
entries, and antivirus software often interprets those changes as a
malicious script.

After you install it, you don't have to do anything
to fix the programs; the analyzer does it for you. It
won't fix every program, though. To see if it fixed
yours, go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Windows Application
Compatibility Toolkit\Applications\Compatibility
Administrator, run Compatadmin.exe,
and go to \System Database\Applications.
You'll see a list of hundreds of programs that the
toolkit has fixed. Scroll to see whether your problem application is
on the list and, if it is, to see what fixes were applied. Figure 9-4 shows the fixes it applied to the MusicMatch
Jukebox music software.

Figure 9-4. The Application Compatibility Toolkit

9.3.3 See Also

[Hack #82]