XPost: comp.os.ms-windows.misc, alt.windows7.general, microsoft.   
   ublic.windowsxp.general   
   From: java@evij.com.invalid   
      
   On 17/11/2023 13:02, Steve Hayes wrote:   
   >   
   > Someone stole my laptop computer, and I'm beginning to be concerned   
   > that it may be irreplaceable.   
   >   
   > It was running Windows 7, 32-bit, and it seems that most, if not all,   
   > laptops sold nowadays with Windows installed are 64-bit, which means   
   > they won't run a lot of my software, and that means that they won't   
   > allow me to access a lot of the research data I have collected over   
   > the last 30 years.   
   >   
   > People have told me that it is possible to run a virtual machine on a   
   > Win 64-bit computer that will emulate a 32-bit OS, but before I spend   
   > money on a computer that might not work for me, I'd like to hear from   
   > someone who has had experience in running such things, to find out how   
   > well they work.   
   >   
   > The nearest thing I have found to that was OS/2, now more than 25   
   > years old, which had built in emulators that ran MS-Windows better   
   > than Windows, and MS-Dos better than DOS. But there the emulators were   
   > integrated, so they worked well.   
   >   
   > Do today's third-party emulators work as well as the OS/2 ones, or do   
   > they have hidden disadvantages? Is there anyone here who has had   
   > experience of using them who would be willing to answer a few   
   > questions?   
      
   I'm late into this discussion, but from a skim through just now, I don't   
   think the following has been asked:   
      
   Have you any disk-image style back-up of your previous system that was   
   stolen  -  eg an image made by Ghost, Clonezilla, etc?   
      
   If you have, using that as the source to make a working Virtual Machine   
   (VM, and I'm using the term generically rather than implying any brand)   
   should be easier than trying to re-install your original system and all   
   its software from scratch, even supposing that you actually have every   
   single installation media involved and that they all still work.   
      
   Anyone else here tried to use 20-year old floppies recently?  No, I   
   thought not, most won't even have access to a floppy drive any more!  I   
   can't remember details now, but a few months ago I was trying to create   
   a W98 boot USB stick for running imaging software, and for some obscure   
   reason now forgotten needed to perform a 'sys' command to do it, and   
   *none* of the many W98 boot floppies I had still worked!  Eventually I   
   found just one floppy disk that still worked well enough to allow an old   
   floppy boot image to be written to it, so that I could boot from it and   
   run the 'sys' command.   
      
   Home-made CDs & DVDs tend to degrade over time too.   
      
   Some of your other questions seem to have been answered, but   
   particularly I can confirm that through the VM you can access USB and   
   network hardware, etc, and areas of the host hard disk outside of the   
   VM, though you may have to alter some settings from their defaults to do   
   so.  However, I only ever used a VM to test my website on old browsers,   
   which is hardly going to test the sort of functionality that you need,   
   so I'll stop around here.   
      
   Note Paul's point though, that if you want to use the in-built Microsoft   
   VM functionality, you need to be running a Pro version of W10 or W11,   
   not a Home version.   
      
   --   
      
   Fake news kills!   
      
   I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:   
   www.macfh.co.uk   
      
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