[Chugster]

Having some issues with some older games and was thinking of running a dual (or more) boot system so I can run older OS'. But I am not sure what will work with Win 10, I know I can do Win 7 but can i do XP or 98?

[timverbesselt]

Have you tried compatibility mode that windows also includes in his service for those games?

Otherwise maybe win would, I think that will work and it’s one of the more “recent” versions of the old ones.
It also depends on what game and how old the game is, then maybe win7 is also possible but I was never so happy with that os

[darthnovawave]

Have you tried compatibility mode that windows also includes in his service for those games?

Otherwise maybe win would, I think that will work and it’s one of the more “recent” versions of the old ones.
It also depends on what game and how old the game is, then maybe win7 is also possible but I was never so happy with that os

Compatibility mode might work, but a lot of older games won't run on newer versions of Windows because of substantial design changes over time in the background. Some games look for a DOS base framework that stopped being the Windows norm with XP, and some older games may have DRM solutions that were around at the time but since became defunct. For the DOS-based stuff you might be able to get away with a DOS emulator like DOSBox in your current Windows environment. You might be able to create another Windows boot partition and run an older copy of Windows (or again just run an emulator of it), but depending on the specific game that may or may not work (and may create driver headaches for your modern hardware). If you have a spare license for the old OS, it might be worth a try. Without a license key, it might be cheaper and less of a headache just to see if Steam, GOG, or a similar retailer already has a Windows 10-compatible port of the game(s) in question.

[Pedigo]

Having some issues with some older games and was thinking of running a dual (or more) boot system so I can run older OS'. But I am not sure what will work with Win 10, I know I can do Win 7 but can i do XP or 98?

Expanding on what Darthnowave is saying, I don't know if I'd bother dual-booting with an older Windows version. But what I've done successfully in the past to play old Win95 games is run a virtual machine. Honestly, it'll probably be less frustrating and won't cost you anything else. Virtualbox is free and works great. Plus you can run multiple operating systems there without screwing with your boot partitions. And if you decide to get rid of an old OS, you won't be stuck. You can just delete it, reinstall, etc.

[Jestersmith]

Having some issues with some older games and was thinking of running a dual (or more) boot system so I can run older OS'. But I am not sure what will work with Win 10, I know I can do Win 7 but can i do XP or 98?

Yes is the answer but the main issue i had when playing old games was the new hardware issue this is why i built a retro build P4 Prescott 3.06 with an old AGP GPU and the best version of windows i found to cause less issues driver wise was windows ME also

[Taku]

Yes is the answer but the main issue i had when playing old games was the new hardware issue this is why I built a retro build P4 Prescott 3.06 with an old AGP GPU and the best version of windows i found to cause less issues driver wise was windows ME also

I would have gone with 98SE. Me was never completely stable. If you can't or don't want to run XP, then 98 is your jam.

As for running older programs on modern hardware? A lot of the issues are going to come down to speed. The older games won't run at the ridiculous speeds that modern hardware runs at.

You can always use a generic driver for sound or video. You can slow down the hardware. But some games just will never work on a newer rig. I had to give up quite a few of my older games when I moved to WIN10. Search the deeper, darker corners of the Interwebz for ports or sandboxes. It's entirely possible that someone has already done the work for you, and you just have to do what they did.