Okay listen: I am less than tech-savvy, but I tried so many step-intensive things on my dinky PC, to no avail.

I use Windows10 home (yes, I know, bear with me!) and am just trying to boot games I already OWN!!! No dice. Now I just sit here, arms crossed, and seethe “I hate u, computer.”

Yes, I’ve enabled the IIS and tried to use the option to allow program to run 32-bit. No dice.

I’ve tried compatibility mode. Absolutely nothing (Windows, you useless-ass shitwad).

I struggled through DOSBOX as a non-tech person, managed to do the Windows 3.1 thing, tried to boot my files through there, got as far as the install screen!!! Stuck at 0% probably forever. So it was a failure.

Tried running old game files from some people who are smarter than me that emulate the D:\ drive instead of the physical disks. Zilch.

FrikkiN AHHHHH!!!

I JUST WANNA RELIVE MY NOSTALGIA AND SHOW MY KID ALL MY OLD AND SHITTY GAMES I USED TO PLAY AS A KID!!!

Could anyone give a solution that won’t have me downloading and installing 6 trillion new programs? Any helpful links a non-tech person could understand?

Swear to god, I’ll Cashapp 5$ to the first person to give a solution I can reasonably follow & that works.

Also you will have my adoration forever. Thanks.

  • mudeth
    2·
    6 months ago

    $5 to this person OP.

    Linux isn’t going to help, and why the hell would you want to buy or pirate (and run the risk of malware) something you already own.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
      2·
      6 months ago

      Going to have to disagree on the second bit. Nearly every game that was released on XP or earlier has run better for me with WINE or DosBox in Linux than Windows. Proton and Lutris/Heroic have only made it better. I have the Might and Magic collection and Mass Effect Remastered on my deck and both run flawlessly with little setup.

      • mudeth
        2·
        6 months ago

        Are you seriously suggesting that a game meant to run on Windows 98 runs better on wine than it does on Windows 98?

        • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
          4·
          6 months ago

          Indeed. Linux, with WINE is known to outperform Windows, sometimes by a wide margin, for older games for some time. Win98 hasn’t seen any development in about two decades. Meanwhile, people who enjoy old software have been continually improving WINE, allowing modern hardware and OS advances to be leveraged and unpatched low-level issues to be fixed. Linux is very much a better Win98 than Win98.

          Things have improved a lot since the 90s.