WINDOWS 7's SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY

Well any new operating system brings with a fresh wave of compatibility problems. And any program we install on our PC has to co-operate with Windows when it comes to storing and reading files, displaying anything on screen and receiving your commands via the keyboard and mouse, so when a new version of Windows show up the two sometimes cannot communicate properly.

     Most of us the users of Windows want to run older programs and Microsoft absolutely aware of that, so if users have a favorite program or game from yesteryear that quits, throw up an error message or will not run at all under Windows 7, there are a few tricks and tools that can help get it working.

      First we need to locate the program’s executable file. Click Start, then All Programs and find the shortcut in the list. Right click on the shortcut, select properties then the Shortcut tab and click on the Open File Location button. The highlighted file in the window that opens will be the executable file. Then, right click on it and select ‘Troubleshoot compatibility’ and Windows7’s compatibility wizard will launch. Follow the steps to see if Windows can automatically detect and fix any problems 

     If that doesn’t work, try right clicking again, select Properties, followed by ‘Compatibility tab’. Here we will find number of manual compatibility options. The tricks are to experiment with the settings until we get a satisfactory result. Now we need to put a tick in the box, under ‘Compatibility mode’ and then choose an appropriate version of Windows from the drop down menu. It’s worth trying a couple of different ones, even if we know that the program we are trying to run was originally intended for, say, Windows XP. It’s also worth ticking the bottom tick box on the Compatibility properties tab- the one that says ‘Run this program as an administrator’. If we still having problems, try some of the options listed under ‘Settings’.

NOTE: Remember Windows 7’s compatibility settings cannot always solve the problem.

     If our program still won’t work, or if it won’t even install in the first place, there is still one more thing we can try: a virtual PC. The idea behind virtualization is to create PC within a PC- a virtual copy of an older version of Windows that runs within ours ‘real’ Windows 7 computer. This method takes a little while to set up but its well worth. We can use some virtualization software, such as Virtualbox or Microsoft’s own Virtual PC 2007, both of which are free. Get it, try it and enjoy.