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I support a company that has a very old, mission critical, FoxPro for DOS 2.6 (FPD) application.

For variuos reasons the company didn't adapt/migrate their app, which, ironically, has been running even better under Windows XP (and 32-bit Win7) because the OS allowed new features like more reliable networking, distributed printing, email integration. Unfortunately for this company, most new machines now come with a 64-bit version of Windows 7, which is incompatible with their FPD app.

I know this time the writing is on the wall: the only long-term solution is to migrate their app. But I wonder if anyone can suggest a temporary alternative path, which doesn't involve either:

  1. downgrade 64-bit Windows to 32-bit, or

  2. run the app on a virtualized 32-bit XP

Sathyajith Bhat
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Rolando
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  • Although it is more geared for games, you might be able to get it to work with dosbox. – Pete Ashdown Dec 31 '10 at 18:25
  • I tried XP Mode. The setup for the legacy app to work well in the virtualized environment was a bit cumbersome, the VM was slow, the support would be more complex. So in the end I decided to use Win7 32-bit as long as possible, after all the 32-bit workstations with 3GB run more than fine. I appreciate your effort and I thank everyone for your kind advices. – Rolando Jan 06 '11 at 19:58

3 Answers3

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Virtualization is a little heavy for little tasks like this. The last company I worked for had a lot of legacy applications as well and they worked very well in DOSBox.

John T
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Freedos or msdos on virtualbox or some other VM might work if dosbox proves unsuitable

Journeyman Geek
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I have a legacy application, written with INFORMIX-SQL, running perfectly in pure Microsoft DOS 6.22 within Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 on Windows 7, Vista and XP machines!.. No need for DosBox, 4DOS or any other DOS-clone and no need for VMWare, Microsoft Virtual PC or other virtual machines. Plus DOS 6.22 and Virtual PC 2007 are free!

Joe R.
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