How do I play old games on my Window's Vista?

[gavinrendar]

Would love to play my old TIE Fighter or Bioforge or Half-Life on my PC, but it seems to be a very difficult challenge. Is there an easy way to play old PC games on new PC's?

Thanks!
Zach

[Jorpho]

For DOS games, DOSBox is the only answer, especially if you're using the 64-bit version of Vista. If plain DOSBox is too complicated, try a frontend like D-Fend Reloaded. DOSBox is also suitable for old 16-bit Windows programs, if you have a copy of Windows 3.1 on hand.

If you like adventure games, try ScummVM, but it's really only intended for a very, very specific list of games and nothing else.

For Windows games, it all depends on the individual game. There's all kinds of fixes out for the most popular stuff.

If all else fails, you can install a virtual machine like VirtualBox, Virtual PC, or VMware Player, and use that to run a copy of Windows XP within Windows Vista. (You can even use it to run Windows 98, but so far there is no way to get hardware acceleration working in a virtual machine running something earlier than Windows XP.)

[Tupin]

I like using GOG for games I really enjoy. They're easy to get running, are usually pretty cheap, and are DRM free.

If you already own them, look into DOSBox or VirtualBox for DOS and Windows games respectively.

[Genesaturn]

For Vista you don't have many options. Windows 7 Pro has XP mode...but 2 ways you can accomplish this on Vista would be to look for patches...most of those games on the borderline of modern and classic will usually have a community created patch of some sort you can google search and download. I did it for a few games like Vampire the Masquerade for instance.

Another way would be to create a Windows XP Mode on your PC - http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/11060...ons-and-vista/