Does vista and 7 support older games

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dccmadams

[H]ard|Gawd
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I am sticking with xp because I am concerned about older games I play. Diablo 2, Age of Empires 2, Counter Stike Source. Can I go 64 bit Vista/7 and play these games without issues?
 
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I had some issues installing AOE3, but after getting it installed it runs fine. Need to install in compatibility mode.

The source games work fine as well. I haven't tried Diablo 2.
 
I have Vista x64 and am almost finished with Act V of Diablo 2. You do have to run it in compatibility mode Win 98/ME and have the desktop composition (Aero) disabled though. I don't know if it's the game that requires it or the Glide wrapper I'm using, either way, it runs just fine with those settings. I often alt-tab out to check stuff online and it has never crashed.
 
I had some graphics issues with AOE2, and the Star Wars clone of it about two years ago, but Vista had only been out for a few months at that point. I haven't tried since then, and it is very possible with driver and OS updates that they are fixed.
 
bigdogchris said:
I have Vista x64 and am almost finished with Act V of Diablo 2. You do have to run it in compatibility mode Win 98/ME and have the desktop composition (Aero) disabled though. I don't know if it's the game that requires it or the Glide wrapper I'm using, either way, it runs just fine with those settings. I often alt-tab out to check stuff online and it has never crashed.
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Odd I'm replaying through Diablo 2 on Vista HP x64 and don't have to run it in any comaptability mode, it just works. The difference may be that I'm running it off a digital download from when I signed up for the new battle-net account manager.
 
Generally, older software runs just fine.

Anything that doesn't work is probably going to be old enough that you can run it in a virtual machine.
 
Unknown-One said:
Generally, older software runs just fine.

Anything that doesn't work is probably going to be old enough that you can run it in a virtual machine.
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agreed. "most" run ok, but when it doesn't just run win98/XP in a virtual machine :)
 
Kangg said:
Odd I'm replaying through Diablo 2 on Vista HP x64 and don't have to run it in any comaptability mode, it just works. The difference may be that I'm running it off a digital download from when I signed up for the new battle-net account manager.
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Well it's probably the Glide wrapper then since it's not actually supported in Vista.
 
Diablo works fine on Windows 7 but if you're thinking about using Hero editor. Forget about it.
 
I have run Carmageddon 2 under Vista - don't worry about older games. :D
 
I absolutely loved Carmageddon.. makes me want to dig out my TDR discs and play it some. Not sure if I'd be able to handle the graphics though.
 
Don't know myself, but heard that morrowind runs better with windows 7.

Is compatibility mode the same as XP mode for windows 7?
 
No, compatibility mode is the same as it is for Vista. It tells the program it is running on an older version of the OS and removes some of the security restrictions.
 
darkpaw said:
No, compatibility mode is the same as it is for Vista. It tells the program it is running on an older version of the OS and removes some of the security restrictions.
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I think there is some emulation of sorts involved also. Some programs may be coded to work on a certain kernel or require a resource that was available in 98, for example, that simply doesn't exist in Vista or 7, or even in XP. The compatibility mode can emulate that missing resource to create an environment that the program is familiar with. I don't know the details but it's not just as simple as saying "I'm Windows 98", unless you have the guts to back it up.
 
Only game I've tried that doesn't work under Vista/7 is Republic Commando, probably partially due to my running x64. Still, I'm going to try VirtualBoxing it and running from there (five gazillion spare OS licenses FTW).
 
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