i hear that 16-bit support is completely gone in windows xp 64-bit. is that true?

you probably are wondering why i would even want 16-bit support in windows 64.... well, sometimes i like to program utilities and other stuff in QuickBasic 4.5

don't laugh too hard, QB can still be useful(albiet slow as $%^#$^)

i guess i might end up having to install xp 32-bit as a guest OS inside VMware on windows 64 to do that stuff.

would it be possible to import xp32's NTVDM subset into xp64?? anybody tried this?

No - the actual underlying Windows structure has no support built in for 16bit code. There are specific Installshield and Acme installers that will work (they're upgraded to 32bit installers on the fly, thus allowing them to run in WOW64), but otherwise no. The NTVDM relies on certain system .dll's and .sys files to work, and those files either no longer exist, or have no support for 16bit calls in their 64bit iterations.

You'd have to copy the whole 16bit subsystem of Windows XP over, and there's no guarantee that it would work then, either.

that's what I figured the case would be. bah. oh well, i can always dual-boot or just run xp32 in a VM

What you heard is correct, Win x64 CANNOT run 16bit apps.

You'll have to run a VM (Virtual Machine ala VMWare or Virtual PC) in order to run 16bit, I'm surprised MS didn't provide a native VM with Win x64 to do 16bit. Unfortunately if it wasn't a priority now, it will never be, so I highly doubt MS will even add a native VM to Win x64 for 16bit.

If you are talking about DOS based, then DosBox would be a great way to go, and technically you could run Win 3.11 inside DosBox too (I've never tried it). DosBox will allow you to mount NTFS drives too and make them work for your DOS apps.

I only use DosBox to play my old Sierra and Apogee games on XP.

Really? They've been trying to phase out usage of 16-bit code since Windows 95 - 10 years ago. And even with this push, it'll still be the successor to Windows Vista that will be entirely 64bit (Vista will still come with a 32bit version, that will run 16bit apps to the best of my knowledge).


At this time, it's highly unlikely that 16bit code will ever run in a 64bit Windows version. 16bit code running on a 64bit processor makes the OS less stable, so it was a good time to finally remove the option to do something they've been trying to stop for 10 years - execution of 16bit code and drivers.

yes, vista runs 16-bit code. i'm using windows vista right now, actually. full support for command line and 16-bit applications.

But it's still beta. I have no doubts it will retain the 16bit subsystem in the 32bit version, but I won't say for sure until RTM code ships .

Microsoft is attempting to gradually fade out 16-bit support, so I'd suggest using a more updated program.