On 22 Dec 2008 at 12:33, tannis zamora wrote:

> to make my XP read a 16-bit program? 


All 32-bit Windows versions have included a subsystem whose job it is 
to run 16-bit programs, and that includes XP.

It's not perfect.  16-bit Windows ran on top of DOS, and so there were 
various ways that an application could obtain direct access to the 
hardware.  MOST applications didn't do that, but any that did might find 
the virtualized hardware layer (introduced with 16-bit NT and present at 
least in its descendants, 2K, XP and Vista) doesn't quite behave as 
expected.

Basically, unless the application is a high-performance game, or deals 
with some specializd hardware, a 16-bit application *should* run on 
XP.  But nobody should have written one in ten years, now, so if it's 
useful there should be some 32-bit successor available.

David Gillett

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