Installers written for W7 - on W10?

Hi all :)

I am thinking of building a 64-bit W10 machine; I currently use 64-bit W7.

I remember going from W98 to XP, it was impossible to install many (all?) w98 apps in XP, until the sw dev came out with a new installer compatible with XP. Same with XP to Vista.


I have some apps that have installers that were written for W7, and I was wondering if I am going to have an issue with installing these in W10. I am sure that nobody can say for sure for everything, but as a general rule - do apps that have the ability to install in W7 successfully install in W10?


Thanks in advance.

'98 and XP had quite different parentage. '98 was the last iteration of DOS/Windows systems, while XP was a development of Windows NT, as are Win7 and now Win10.

Generally I've had no problems installing older software, I run several that date back to 2000. Where problems do occur, they can often be solved by running the installer and/or the software in Compatibility mode, which can go back as far as Win95 if necessary.

Where you may have problems is with really old software where the app is 16/32 bit, but the installer is only 16 bit - it can't run on a 64 bit system (but then you would have had the same problem with your 64 bit Win7).

Many well written applications designed for Windows 95 will install and run with no problems on 64 bit Windows 10, no compatibility settings necessary. Many well written 16 bit Windows programs will run on 32 bit Windows 10. The problem was the many were not well written. For technical reasons 16 bit applications cannot run on 64 bit Windows, any version. Most applications written for Windows 7, or XP for that matter, will run on Windows 10 with no issues. That is a good thing because there is a huge amount of software out there that will never be updated. Most software that is labeled as being compatible with Windows 10 was only tested with Windows 10, usually no changes being necessary to achieve compatibility, Of course there are exceptions.

Games are often a problem as a great many of them do not qualify as "well written". Many bend or break long established rules in order to get the last bit of performance. Game developers for the most part have little interest in their software being compatible with any OS beyond the current. Lack of compatibility is often seen as a plus, forcing the owner to update to the latest version of the game. Of course there are exceptions.

Good history lesson. I forgot about WinME, I skipped that one as I also skipped Vista.

Berton said:

For purchasing I did too but I've had some I rehabbed as the hardware worked but the implementation of it such as drivers and other software left a lot to be desired. Win98SE was the one that really got us started in Internet Connection Sharing and support for USB 2.0 drivers. Wife and I used it on 2 computers and the Dial-up Modem in mine, she wasn't too happy with the speed when I was downloading larger files on a 56Kbps connection.

I remember those days. My first exposure to a windows environment was Windows 2.x. I wrote a lot of software for DOS back in the 80's, but I needed to provide windows support for a software product that we were marketing. I had looked at Win 1.x - real junk, then heard MS was coming out with 2.x. First introduction into dll's should I say "was eye opening". When Win 3.1 came out, that's when we made a deal with MS to incorporate our product into MS Word. That was about the time the word processing wars were getting hot and we were the only software developer that had the technology to convert word processing files from one word processor to another with minimal loss of document functionality.

Thanks guys :)

I am happy to say that I have not run into problems installing any apps - even old ones that are "W7 only". It appears as tho W10 handles things very similarly to W7.


Cheers.