Regrettably, modern versions of Windows are no longer reliant on DOS and do not support it. As a result, many of the games released during this period were written for DOS. Until Windows XP, the Microsoft Windows operating system was built on top of MS-DOS. Enabling these options may help to increase your chances of playing that old favorite.

Under “Settings,” you can even tweak the screen resolution and tell Windows to operate with a reduced color pallet. Under the option that reads “Compatibility Mode,” you’ll see a drop-down box that allows you to select the version of Windows the game was designed for. After you let Windows do its thing, you may be able to run your game.Īlternatively, you can opt for the manual route. Opting for “Run compatibility troubleshooter” will prompt Windows to automatically diagnose any issues that are preventing you from running your game. This is because the executable (.exe) that installs the files necessary to run a game are blocked from being installed on your computer.Īt this point you have two options. Unfortunately, this can prevent your retro games from installing on your modern PC. It does this by preventing the automatic installation of files from unknown or unverified sources. One unintentional side effect of this is that these security features can prevent you from running your old games.įor instance, UAC (User Account Control) helps to mitigate malware from wreaking havoc on your system. Modern operating systems like Windows 10 have various security features that weren’t available in older operating systems. Simply plug the drive into your PC, let it install its drivers, then insert the game you want to install!Įven after that step, however, there’s still some more work to do. These usually cost around $30 and are usually DVD-RW (so you can burn and rip discs if you’re still into that kind of thing!). If your PC doesn’t have an external CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drive, but you have old disc-based games you want to play, then you should be able to get them running by buying a USB plug-and-play DVD drive.

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