Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Those very few people who have a need to run 16-bit software can still run 32-bit versions of Windows 7 or 8, or can run a 32-bit VM under 64-bit Windows. There comes a point at which it's impractical to continue supporting a feature which only a tiny number of people use. It's 20 years since the first 32-bit version of Windows (Windows 95) appeared; you can't go on supporting ancient software forever.
Word 97 runs absolutely fine under 64-bit Windows 10. Word 6, released in 1993, was the first 32-bit version of Word.
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Which led me to the following choice. If I had to run a 3rd party VM to run old software, instead of having one embedded by Microsoft, (which had been provided by Microsoft, invisibly, since Win 95), why should I keep upgrading with Microsoft? A VM is the same under any operating system. Why should I have to keep paying to upgrade (this decision was before Win 10), and trying to work around the latest "feature cuts" (because they weren't worth supporting), "phone home" (required Authorization) OSes, and no guarantee that any software I bought for the Microsoft OS would still be able to run with the next gen of OS? I got fed up and cut the Gordian Knot. . .and went to Linux as my main OS.
Drawbacks? Sure. But as I have pointed out, there were drawbacks with staying. I run XP under VirtualBox, and Win 7 as well (separate virtual machines). The only software that didn't work under the VMs were SIGIL 1.9, and a Hex Editor (I don't expect a Hex Editor to run under a VM, anyways).
I run Windows software that dates back to Win 3.0, an Atari 800 emulator that lets me run software from the early '80s and DOSBOX, which lets me run games from before Windows. (I could run an old Apple II or Mac 68000 emulator, but I never dipped into the Apple world).
And I can run my current version of Linux forever (or at least as long as I can get an x86 instruction set chip), or upgrade if
I choose to.