Reliving 16-bit in a 32-bit world...

Article Outline:
Description of the Problem
Brief Answer
Long Answer
Remedy of the Issue

Description of the Problem

Many times you will need to run an older application on a modern system. For example, a business application with financial data you need... or perhaps an old game that you're just itching to play one more time. Either way, when you try to run ApplicationExtreme 0.1 for Windows 95(tm), you receive an error along the lines of:

Application popup: 16 bit Windows Subsystem : An application has attempted to directly access the hard disk, which cannot be supported. This may cause the application to function incorrectly. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application.

Brief Answer

Basically the older app is looking for some variant of the MS-DOS (TM) autoexec.bat file to put its startup environment into..

Long Answer

I'll spare you the long answer...

Remedy of the Issue

An error like this is usually the result of an invalid entry in the NT/Windows 2000/Windows XP files which maintains compatibility with the older 16-bit applications. You can typically fix these files by restoring the files from your Windows installation CD-ROM:

1. Insert your Windows OS installation CD-ROM. (Click to close any popup windows which appear).
2. Go to a command prompt (Start -->Run, and type cmd; click on OK).
3. In your command prompt box, go to the %systemroot%\system32 folder by typing cd %systemroot%\system32.
4. Rename command.com, autoexec.nt, and config.nt files and prefix "old_" to the filenames by typing:
   • ren command.com old_command.com
   • ren autoexec.nt old_autoexec.nt
   • ren config.nt old_config.nt
5. Now, go to the \i386 folder of your Windows installation CD (perhaps: d:\i386) by typing cd d:\i386 (replace d: with whatever drive your CD-ROM is in).
6. Next we need to expand the old versions of the files with the expand command (yes, it's called that.. i'm not making this up); type the following:
   • expand command.co_ %systemroot%\system32\command.com
   • expand autoexec.nt_ %systemroot%\system32\autoexec.nt
   • expand config.nt_ %systemroot%\system32\config.nt
7. Restart your computer and try your old application again. Good luck.