Hero999

Windows in general is crap, but the reason why XP won't run some old 16-bit programs is because unlike Windows 9x it isn't DOS based, it's based on NT which is much better than DOS.

Windows XP will run some, but not all old 16-bit stuff using an emulator called NTVDM which isn't 100% DOS compatalbe hence not everything will run.

What can you do about this?

Upgrade your software

Try DOSBox , another emulator, it's more compatable than NTVDM but much slower and you can install Windows 3.1 under it.

Dual boot, create a FAT32 partition using you favourite partitioning tool and install Windows ME on it or you could experiment with, MS-DOS, FreeDOS, OpenDOS or DR-DOS - I prefer the latter.

You could also go for Linux which might offer you equivalents for you old favourite software and there's WINE (a Windows emulator), DOSEmu and DOSBox which might beable to run some of your old software.

By the way having said this, I'm assuming you're using XP 32-bit not 64-bit which doesn't run any 16-bit software at all because it's technically very difficult to run 16-bit stuff and 64 -bit stuff aty the same time (or so I've been told).

__________________
I also post at the following sites:
http://www.stop-microsoft.org http://www.heated-debates.com
Screen name: Aloone_Jonez