Compatibility with old games

[DragonClaw01]

I have a game, a game I loved as a kid. Found it in the mall yesterday. 3D Ultra Minigolf . Minimum specs 486-66 MHz, 8MB RAM, 2X CD-ROM, Windows compatible sound card, SVGA.

Yes, I understand my specs definitely cover that. But WHY can't I play it?

How do I run in compatibility mode TO install it? (My Pandora's Box game was already installed before it started acting funky, so that was an option), but I can't run the installer. My drive reads the disk and brings up the menu (Install, readme, exit, etc), but I can't see an option to run in compatibility mode before it's actually installed.

 

[Herc08]

Go to the DVD Drive, and right click the drive to open in new window. Then look for a setup.exe. Right click that and select properties. Go to Compatibility tab. Click on Run compatibility troubleshooter and let Windows decide for you.

 

[10tacle]

If the above compatibility solution does not work, check to see if the game has a source port version to run on newer operating systems. There are many old favorites like Quake II that have them out there. It used to be that up to Windows XP you could play old Win95 games just fine. Starting with Vista and continuing through Win10, that capability disappeared of Win 95/98 games without making modifications. 64-bit versions of Windows starting with Vista stopped supporting 16-bit programs.

Another option is to use Window 10's virtual machine program and make an old Win95 build on your PC with an old copy of Win95 laying around if you have one. That's a lot more involved however and requires some intermediate to advanced Windows skills. This headache is one reason I still keep an old Pentium III Win98 SE retro gaming rig around (offline gaming only).

Good luck!