Running old games on Windows 10
What are my options for running old games on Win 10?
I have original discs for C&C Red Alert 2/Yuri's Revenge, Warcraft 2 + expansion, Diablo 2 + expansion, Fallout 1, and Fallout 2. I tried installing RA2 setting the Setup.exe to compatibility mode for Win XP and then Win 98 but literally nothing happened, the disc didn't even spin up (the disc and the drive are both fine though).
DOSBox seems to support War2 and Fallout 1, but the others seem a bit too new -- any similar options? I really would rather not have to buy all these games again on Steam or GOG or whatever.
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Forget it...
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I have used Virtualbox a lot myself, working in IT I keep a good library of legacy operating systems handy, though. Without a handy compatible OS it's useless, but with one it can do some amazing things with less fiddling than DOSbox.
D3 Steam #TeamTangent STO
I thought about trying a VM with Virtualbox or VMWare, but I don't have any legit copies of the old OSes on hand so tracking down Win7 was gonna be my last resort.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
If you want to get crazy, run a free Linux distro. Wine for Windows games, DOSemu for DOS (DOSbox is on Linux, too, but it's basically the same as Windows. DOSemu has it's own quirks and compatibility that makes it worth a shot when the other fails). I haven't gamed on Wine in years, but I remember it being slightly less painful than getting DOS stuff running.
Now, there does come a point when you're nesting environments inside other environments when, "How much is a new copy on GOG something?" becomes a relevant question. Admittedly I've offered a solution here that could well end with you running a game in DOSbox on Wine on a Linux virtual machine from a Windows 7 dual boot to play a game just for you to remember ten minutes in why you stopped playing in the first place.
Flipside is most old games and fanpatchs take up less space than your average chrome browser add on nowadays