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I'm on a 64-bit built computer, recently upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 x64.

A not-so-tech-savy frend of mine uses a very old program called "Corel PrintHouse Magic", and has years of work saved in this program's format. On Windows XP, and Windows 8, we were able to run the program nicely with the Windows 95 Compatability mode.

However, upon upgrading to Windows 10, the program no longer works. Specifically:

  • When I try to open a file in the program, it endlessly shows the blue "in progress" circle, until manually terminated in Task Manager.
  • The same thing happens if I try to click exit in the corner.

Other aspects of the program seem to work fine, such as creating and saving new files.

The behavior is the exact same when I run the program without compatability mode, or in Windows 95 compat, or Win98 or WinXP.

I'm wondering:

  • What are likely suspects for things that have changed from Win8 to Win10 that would cause a Windows 95 era program to stop working?
  • What can I do to try to diagnose the problem? (This is hard since there's no error message displayed).
  • What are my options, other than compatibility mode, for trying to fix this?

Disclaimer: I've crossposted this on r/techsupport

Joey Eremondi
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2 Answers2

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Off the top of my head, rightclick on the executable, and run it in compatibility troubleshooter. That might help diagnose it if it hangs, and you kill it.

Alternately run it on a VM. Its going to be an annoyance finding a legitimate copy of windows 95/98SE (and I doubt it would do seamless mode/unity or other useful things), but you might be able to get away with running the program in a VM with an newer older version of windows.

Unfortunately windows 8.1 dosen't have XP mode, so its up to you to get a licence for some older copy of windows, and maybe run it in a VM host that has some flavour of seamless mode.

So for testing purposes, grab a copy of vmware player (its free), grab a copy of the VM for the windows version you want to test off modern.ie, install corel printhouse on it and try it. The VM should work for ~3 months and/or you can replace it with a proper install once you know it works. You'll then want to create a shortcut to create a shortcut to launch the program. Getting printers and shared folders working should also be possible.

Journeyman Geek
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If running this software is your only requirement, you could boot into 'Hiren's Boot CD' and choose 'Mini Windows XP' and then run it...

undo
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