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Question re: Windows 64bit install and 32 bit emulation..or something...

sadielynn

sadielynn

Android Enthusiast
Hello there, thanks for dropping by!

So, basically, I have Windows 8 64 bit. I want to install an old game, namely You Don't Know Jack vol.3. HOWEVER, while the game itself will play on 64bit windows, the installer will NOT. I read a 'simple solution' elsewhere, which was 'install it on a 32 bit system and then paste the folders/files into your x86 folder'. Which I'm sure would work, but I'm fresh out of spare 32bit-having pc's. Logic and Google tell me that there are (probably?) emulators that could do the job, but I am totally clueless about such things. I've tried googling, but I'm really not even sure what i'm looking for. Can someone please point me in the right direction (or tell me its not possible, if thats the case)?

*I don't know if emulators is considered a bad word around here or not, but im not talking about emulators in the "i want to play ps3 games i illegally downloaded" sense, I'm talking about the "i want to install a game that was made in 1997 and I don't think it knows what 64 is" sense.
 
You could try right clicking and seeing if you could run the installer in compatibility mode with a previous version of Windows.
 
FYI VMware is in reality an excellent virtual machine product, and not a "Windows emulator". While the $200 or so price of VMware Workstation may be high by some people's standards, it's the standard by which all other virtualization environments are judged, and by far the most mature of them all.

I was a VMware Workstation beta tester back when that was their only product, and it was in pre-1.0 form. One of the principal people in a nonprofit venture I worked on was the lead engineer for VMware ESX, their flagship product. I know this product well, and recommend it highly. If you need a fully virtualized environment with top performance, VMware can't be beat.

IME with WOW64, it's extremely rare to have true incompatibilities with the thunking subsystem itself. Most problems are procedural, in short not knowing how to use your version of Windows, this is becoming a big problem these days as Windows gets hopelessly overcomplicated. I'd check to make sure that the installer hasn't been blocked by Windows (check for and clear the "Unblock" button on the properties sheet), use the "Compatibility" tab to set compatibility mode to the predominant version of Windows at the time the app was released (for this 1997 app that will be Windows 95), and check the "Run this program as an administrator" box in the "Privilege Level" section before running the installer. Other things like disabling visual themes may also help.
 
sadielynn said:
*I don't know if emulators is considered a bad word around here or not, but im not talking about emulators in the "i want to play ps3 games i illegally downloaded" sense, I'm talking about the "i want to install a game that was made in 1997 and I don't think it knows what 64 is" sense.
Click to expand...

Emulators themselves are not taboo around here. But what is against forum rules is copyright infringment, e.g. illegally downloaded games. As long as you legally purchased that game from 1997, you're OK.
 
I <3 Virtualbox. I used to run XP in it to connect to my scanner.

And to occasionally dabble in Linux. Virtualbox can get a little funky getting the right set of drivers (plugins?). I had some USB trouble until I found out how to manually put in the address of the USB my scanner was connected to.

The address was some nonsense thing like:
dev0/usbhostcontroller__/flying.spaghetti/monster/0000.HAPPY
Click to expand...
 
Speed Daemon said:
FYI VMware is in reality an excellent virtual machine product, and not a "Windows emulator". While the $200 or so price of VMware Workstation may be high by some people's standards, it's the standard by which all other virtualization environments are judged, and by far the most mature of them all.

I was a VMware Workstation beta tester back when that was their only product, and it was in pre-1.0 form. One of the principal people in a nonprofit venture I worked on was the lead engineer for VMware ESX, their flagship product. I know this product well, and recommend it highly. If you need a fully virtualized environment with top performance, VMware can't be beat.

IME with WOW64, it's extremely rare to have true incompatibilities with the thunking subsystem itself. Most problems are procedural, in short not knowing how to use your version of Windows, this is becoming a big problem these days as Windows gets hopelessly overcomplicated. I'd check to make sure that the installer hasn't been blocked by Windows (check for and clear the "Unblock" button on the properties sheet), use the "Compatibility" tab to set compatibility mode to the predominant version of Windows at the time the app was released (for this 1997 app that will be Windows 95), and check the "Run this program as an administrator" box in the "Privilege Level" section before running the installer. Other things like disabling visual themes may also help.
Click to expand...

I fully agree, I've been using it for over 3 years now, I have never used anything else so in light of what the op was trying to do I think that I gave him the correct information. I wasn't aware of free alternatives and obviously can't speak to their stability which is the number one concern with this kind of software.
 
jhtalisman said:
You could try right clicking and seeing if you could run the installer in compatibility mode with a previous version of Windows.
Click to expand...

Tried that already, unfortunately no go. I'm assuming here that 64bit windows 8 in compatibility mode as, say windows xp would be 64 bit windows xp. A different version of windows wouldn't effect the bits..or am I wrong here?
 
sadielynn said:
Tried that already, unfortunately no go. I'm assuming here that 64bit windows 8 in compatibility mode as, say windows xp would be 64 bit windows xp. A different version of windows wouldn't effect the bits..or am I wrong here?
Click to expand...

You don't run programs in compatibility mode to change to a 32 bit version but to try to emulate a prior version of windows, 32 bit programs don't usually have a problem running on 64 bit architecture unless they depend on drivers or are low level utility programs, which usually have 64 bit versions, it's the lack of 64 bit drivers that's the biggest problem. :rolleyes:
OB
 
I've seen this behavior before. Based on the age of the game, it's totally possible that the installer is a 16bit program while the game is true 32bit. There have been cases where 64bit processors/OS reject 16bit binaries as not valid.
 
I agree, I thought that we were discussing 32/64 bit, Christ, I had numerous 16 bit applications that wouldn't work on a 32 bit machine, forget 64. :eek::rolleyes:
OB
 
sadielynn said:
Tried that already, unfortunately no go. I'm assuming here that 64bit windows 8 in compatibility mode as, say windows xp would be 64 bit windows xp. A different version of windows wouldn't effect the bits..or am I wrong here?
Click to expand...
Yes, you're wrong about that. Although the kernel, device drivers and the primary Windows API is running as AMD64 software, Windows has a thunking subsystem that maps the 32-bit system calls to the 64-bit Windows host. It's called Windows on Windows (WOW64 in this case). WOW64 operates transparently to the user.

Because there has been relatively little development effort to produce 64-bit Windows applications, compared to when the Win32 API was emerging, most of the programs that you're running right now are 32-bit programs. Although WOW64 makes a reasonable effort to run Win32 programs directly on Windows 7/8, it's worth noting that these versions also promote the more costly and complex option of running Windows XP in a virtual session as part of the top-end Windows editions. You're in a pay-for world here--you're expected to pay up. If you can't, why are you running Windows?

Although it's not likely that a 3rd party will develop a WOW64 replacement, there are quite a few vendors that offer full-blown hardware emulation software that may or may not be able to run 32-bit Windows on a 64-bit Windows host. The best option is to use a product that uses a hypervisor to boot all Windows versions equally. This is not a trivial undertaking.

Since we're talking about a campy old game here, why not just use an old PC to run your vintage game collection?
 
Joelgp83 said:
I've seen this behavior before. Based on the age of the game, it's totally possible that the installer is a 16bit program while the game is true 32bit. There have been cases where 64bit processors/OS reject 16bit binaries as not valid.
Click to expand...
It's worth noting that DOS and Windows use "magic numbers" to tell the difference between a DOS/Win16 and Win32 executable and a Win32 vs. Win64 executable. DOS and Win16 executables have a magic of "MZ", in honor of Mark Zbikowski, who developed the DOS .EXE executable (as opposed to the simpler .COM executables). Since then, Microsoft has used "NE" ("new executable") and "PE" ("portable executable"), with the PE being the hallmark of Win32 executables.

When the need for a new magic number for 64-bit executables emerged, Microsoft got lazy and went back to "MZ" as the magic number for 64-bit portable executables. If you're installing an old 32-bit Windows software product on 64-bit Windows, the WOW64 subsystem should trap and reject the now invalid MZ executable, but that doesn't mean that you'll see that happen; the installer program is in control of that. Needless to say, the 64-bit Windows execution environment will not load or execute 16-bit or 32-bit Windows executables, or COFF executables for other operating systems for that matter. :)
 
sadielynn said:
This sounds like exactly what I need, thank you! I will check this out.

Edit:yeeeahh....this isn't gonna be an 'install it and run it and boom its ready" kinda thing, is it?
Click to expand...

Install VirtualBox. Click the button to create a new VM, assign system memory to the system (at least 2 GB, preferably 4 if you can spare it). Assign a static drive size (minimum 20 GB, preferably 40) I use the VHD format for mine. Once the "machine" is created, I believe it will utilize the DVD drive for installing the OS. Start the VM and install the OS as normal.

I suggest installing the VB Guest Additions to allow for sharing folders to the guest OS from the host OS.

This can be a VERY useful page to scan Oracle VM VirtualBox
 
And you *DO* need a minimum of 8GB RAM, the fastest your Motherboard will support to make virtualization worthwhile.
 
Re VMWare: I thought the VM 'player' was free-to-use - i.e. you can get someone to build a VM on their licensed machine, take a copy and run it legally on your box ..

Could easily be wrong: it's a few years since I was involvement in setting up VMs ..

I can confirm that VMWare is pretty good and a complete piece of pish to use.
 
Yes, the player is free tu use, but what's wrong with VirtualBox, it can play (and I think the latest versions can create) VMWare VM's as well as it's own format VM's
 
If you're running Pro or Enterprise, what about using the built-in Virtual Machine (Hyper-V)? I did a quick Google and came across this page. I'm at work and didn't have a chance to thoroughly read it though..
 
Mayhem said:
If you're running Pro or Enterprise, what about using the built-in Virtual Machine (Hyper-V)? I did a quick Google and came across this page. I'm at work and didn't have a chance to thoroughly read it though..
Click to expand...

If the processor doesn't support hardware virtualization, Hyper-V won't help as it requires it
 
Mayhem said:
If you're running Pro or Enterprise, what about using the built-in Virtual Machine (Hyper-V)? I did a quick Google and came across this page. I'm at work and didn't have a chance to thoroughly read it though..
Click to expand...

The Enterprise version of windows?

Great, now I'm getting an image of Picard facepalming because Windows blue-screened the Enterprise's computers again..... :(
 
Since we seem to have gone to the topic of Hyper-V, is it possible for the host and the virtual machine(s) to have an internet connection at the same time? Using the "external" switch type causes the host to lose its connection

Edit: Removing VirtualBox fixed the issue
 
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