Win7 and old apps

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I was on the phone with Microsoft technical support yesterday regarding a problem (unrelated to this post), and he told me that installing an old application on Win7 that is not compatible with Win7 will not only fail to work, but it could actually do harm to Win7 and cause other problems. For example, I have old versions of Elements and Quicken that I thought I’d install on my new Win7 machine just to see if they will work, but now I wonder if that’s a bad idea. I have no idea if the tech support guy knew what he was talking about. I got transferred all over the place, and I don’t think any of the tech people knew how to fix my issue. I therefore don’t want to take him at his word. Does anybody know something about that?

Many thanks,
Jeanne

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Certainly incompatibility, especially some products from Adobe, but never harm in any direct way but maybe in that components get installed that don’e uninstall completely and sort of cause “bitrot” after an accumulation of many incompatible programs. If uninstall doesn’t remove all of the program, perhaps look for a specific removal tool on the company’s website and try another uninstaller like Revo. http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

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If you Image your hard drive after getting it set up the way you want it, then if one of these old programs does not work, and screws up your OS then in about 15 minutes you would be back where you started. Find detailed discussions of Imaging in the Security and Backup forum.

You may be able to run the older programs in a XP virtual environment, such as XP Mode or VMWare. You can find discussions on these in the Win 7 forum.

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That’s a good question and there may be some truth to the response MS tech support gave you.
I can’t comment on Quicken, as I don’t use it, or any other Office suit for that matter.

I do have applications that are not related to MS that work well in Windows 7, and 64 bit at that.
Some of these apps date back to the late Windows 98, early XP era. I have not detected any aberration
in the os as a whole.

The best practice would be to keep your programs as up to date and compatible as possible. There is also a host
of security issues as well to deal with in any applications that are “older versions”.

There may very well be security issues with installing out dated or older versions of programs in a new
operating systems. You could easily undue efforts made to make a new os more secure by installing such programs.
No easy answer in many cases.

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Win7 should handle just about anything you throw at it. The older programs I have that will not work on Win7 I put on my XP Virtual drive and they work fine.

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Ted is right.
I always image before any kind of installation and it has saved me a lot of grief on numerous occasions…

It’s worth taking the time..

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FWIW:
I mentioned back in late October or early November after I got Win7 32, that I installed Microsoft Games that I had, had circa Win 3.1 or ’95. I now have it on Win7 32 and it runs as good now as it did then. Tried to install it on a friends XP net book though and that was a no go. Not enough colors!

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I am running Quicken 2006 without a problem.

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When Windows was released to consumers, I checked to see if Microsoft Money 2005 Deluxe was compatible. It was not at that time, so I decided to keep it on XP. I noticed that there were some application compatibility fix updates that came in through Windows Update, and after checking with MS, found that Money was no longer on the avoid list. I installed it on Win 7 32 and 64 bit without any issues at all. Runs great!

I also run Unreal Tournament 2004 on Win7 64 bit and it is smooth sailing.

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Gerald, you mentioned an “avoid” list. Is this something available online? If so, do you have a link?

Many thanks,
Jeanne

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Gerald is probably referring to the Windows 7 Compatibility list here:
Windows 7 Compatibility List

Jerry

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Jeanne, Jerry hit it with the link about the Compatibility List. My mention of avoid list was merely a poor choice of words.

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Thanks, guys! This link will certainly help.

Jeanne

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I am running many old programs without any problems. Like StarCraft (that’s from ’98!). It tended to hang the machine and the colors are off but I found a forum post that gave a fix and that fix works just fine. Another example is Adobe Audition 1.5 which gets compatibility warnings during installation, and turns off Aero when I run it. Other than that it will not recognize any sound input devices, it still works just fine (if I do need to record sound then I use Audacity). I’d update my Audition but the latest version doesn’t recognize the soundcard at all and so refuses to run, or at least it didn’t the last time I checked. And the Adobe forums were filed with whining about how MS changed the way sound drivers work. Yet Audacity, a free product, works with the sound cards just fine. I guess Adobe doesn’t want my money!)

So I think the tech was just trying to scare you into buying updated software.

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