Tech Questions & Answers Archives - Page 221 of 221

Question from Darren S.: I have several old DOS-based games that I bought at a yard sale and I’d love to be able to play some of them on my Windows 7 laptop. Will they run on that computer? If not, is it possible to install DOS in a dual-boot configuration and run them that way?

Rick’s Answer: Darren, it is possible to run some DOS games under Windows 7 (as well as XP, Vista and Windows 8), but due to major differences in the way DOS and Windows handle memory and I/O you’ll need to run them within a DOS emulator.

There are several DOS emulators for Windows available, but I would recommend trying one called DOSBox first. DOSBox has been around for a long time and they seem to have a lot of the kinks in the emulation process worked out. [Read more…]

Question from Kim: Everything was working fine until this morning, but now every time I click on a file it tries to open in Notepad. I can’t open anything! Please help??? My computer has Windows 7 if that matters. Thanks!!

Rick’s answer: It sounds like your file associations have gotten messed up Kim. Your PC’s Windows installation associates virtually all common file types with a specific application that it uses to open that file by default whenever you click on it.

For example, files with the .doc extension are usually opened with Microsoft Word while .xls files typically open in Excel. There are literally dozens of other file types with different extensions, and Windows looks at the extension to decide which program it should use to open that file by default. [Read more…]

Q&A: Can I run old DOS games on my Windows 7 PC?

Q&A: Why is everything I click on trying to open in Notepad?