Troubleshooting XP Programs on Vista: Compatibility Tips

[sysreset]

I would like to post a solution I found to a common problem, and invite comments from people who know of even better modifications.

I have had major problems getting certain programs that run fine on XP to run on Vista. I have found that if before installing the program on a Vista machine you right-click on the executable installer file, go into properties, click the "compatibility" tab, and set compatilbily mode to "XP-SP2" and privilege level to "administrator", and THEN run the installer file, and then do the same thing for ALL of the executable (.exe) files that are created by the installer BEFORE running them that this frequently solves the problem.

The key point I wanted to make was to do this to the installer AND to the executable files BEFORE running them. If you accidently run the files first, this procedure will not always work.

 

[sam207]

Is this something new? I have been doing these things from many years for running some windows 95 mobile related programs in my XP.

 

[kdv]

I would like to post a solution I found to a common problem, and invite comments from people who know of even better modifications.

I have had major problems getting certain programs that run fine on XP to run on Vista. I have found that if before installing the program on a Vista machine you right-click on the executable installer file, go into properties, click the "compatibility" tab, and set compatilbily mode to "XP-SP2" and privilege level to "administrator", and THEN run the installer file, and then do the same thing for ALL of the executable (.exe) files that are created by the installer BEFORE running them that this frequently solves the problem.

The key point I wanted to make was to do this to the installer AND to the executable files BEFORE running them. If you accidently run the files first, this procedure will not always work.

Thanks for posting this. I was not aware of that trick and I juts bought a laptop with Vista installed.