having problems installing some software, some searching on the new has turned up that "many setup programs are 16-bit programs" and that i may be missing a 16-bit KnownDLL it then advises to go looking in the registry, i've tried but am a little worried about changing anything because otherwise the computer runs fine, it just won't setup the 1 program no matter how many different ways i try any pointers on a good way to sort this out?, when i get home tonight i will try booting in safe mode and see if it's some kind of conflicting driver preventing the setup eric e lost and out of depth but having a reasonable amount of fun exploring the dark corners of my computer

Many old programs are incompatible with Windows XP, but I run a few on mine. Did you try adjusting the Compatibility mode for the program ? You should click on .exe files for the 16-bit program and adjust it to Win 95 perhaps. If you need a particular .dll file, you may try installing it in the Windows folder; search for where other .dll files are stored. Some are in the Windows/system32 folder for example. Some programs need something from a Visual Basic Runtime library. You can get this from www.tucows.com -- be aware, I'm not sure if the library files would conflict with XP files. As a last resort, you may have to create a dual boot, with Win 98 installed on another drive or partition, to get your program to run.

your name is staring to pop up everywhere Chris, you look like a real helpful guy, thanks for the time the program i want to setup is the adobe premier 6 trial, not an older program at all, part of the reason i'm confused by all this, anyway the implication is that the setup.exe file for premier 6 is a 16-bit program ... however no one else seems to have been having similar problems setting premier 6 up on their computers:o( so i guess it must be something pretty rare, meaning tricky to find...

I use 16 bit programs every day and have not had problems with any of them. Included are Adobe Acrobat 4.05, Adobe Photoshop 6, and Adobe Photoshop Elements. When you find the "setup.exe" or similar program, right click it with the mouse. A window will pop up with three tabs. One of them is "compatability". When you select that tab, there are other small check boxes and windows and one of them lets you set the compatability mode for Windows 95, Windows 98, etc.

I should have mentioned that although I have all those 16 bit programs running, it was not necessary to set the compatablity mode for any of them. I hope it helps yours run but there could be something else causing them not to run. Most of my programs are 16 bit and I am even running some old DOS programs (dbase III etc.) that run just fine. I did not have to set the compatability mode for those either.

If the compatibility thing won't work for you, the problem could be a 16-bit dll file. It is possible to port a 16-bit dll file as a 32-bit dll file. You can find the information on how to do it in the microsoft knowledge base at: http://support.microsoft.com

Look what he wrote... he doesnt have problems with 16-bit programs it's install files that and when trying to install it says "Cant run 16-bit windows-program" I am facing the same right now... usually I just reinstall windows... but this time... I just reinstalled windows xp!!!! Dont wanna do that again :(