Can you play Alphabet Blocks in Windows 7?

[JDHJANUS]

Hey guys! So my Windows XP computer has crashed and my son and I want to play Alphabet Blocks and some of the other non-DOS Sierra edutainment games on our laptop, which only has Windows 7. When I try to play those games, however, I get the following error message:

"The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need an x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher."

Is there any way to get around this? There are obviously installers for later Sierra games that seemed to come out after these games, but I don't know how I could get some of these games running.

Any help that you could provide would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Talk to you later!

JDHJANUS
Josh

[Collector]

Not natively. You will need to use and emulator or VM. If you have Pro, you can use XP Mode. Otherwise, you can install Wim3x in DOSBox or 9x in a VM.

[JDHJANUS]

I only have the Home edition. Can you direct me to where I can either set up a virtual machine or Windows in DOSBox, please? Are either challenging to do, and will either affect the way the computer runs? Thanks for your help, Collector!!!

[Collector]

Setting up Win3x in DOSBox is not too hard, but you need to track down a copy of 3x. I found 3.11 at a Goodwill store. eBay would be an obvious choice. You can use the official guide on VOGONS to install it. - http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=9405

I also have a guide based on Dominus's official guide on SHP with a few enhancements, but I have not kept it updated. - http://sierrahelp.com/Utilities/Emulato ... stall.html

Either guide has links to the additional drivers required. Once you have Windows installed, you just install the game in 3x.


To setup a VM you need to install one of the VM programs, create a virtual machine with virtual hard drive in it and then install an old copy of Windows in it, then drivers, then the game. A VM is clumsier than DOSBox as you have to deal with a virtual hard drive instead of just a folder on the host PC. To set up access to the host system's file system, you need to set up networking between host and client machines. You might have substandard sound as well with the crappy SB emulation. Wikipedia has a list of VMs, some of then free and others not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... l_machines

[JDHJANUS]

Hmmm...I'll see what I can do about installing Windows in DOSBox. The problem I have is that the laptop doesn't have a floppy drive, but I'll see what I can do. Thanks for your help!!!

[Collector]

There are always USB floppy drives that you can get cheap. They are a good idea that have on hand, anyway, if you are an old game collector with games on floppy. Whenever a get a new floppy game the first thing I do is to copy the disks to hard drive for archival reasons. Data on floppies is too... fragile.