7th March 2010, 6:23 PM
Your problem is not Vista. It is 64-bit Windows. Many older games use 16-bit installers, even though the games are 32-bit. 64-bit Windows will not run 16-bit applications. Thus, don't bother playing lots of older games on it.
That is, I have 32-bit Vista, and have been running it since the day I got this computer almost three years ago, and it plays the vast majority of my older Windows games with minimal problems. A few do have issues, a couple even don't work, but most play. In the case of Jedi Knight, the game works, with only one error -- when you start up the game the screen is black. The game is actually there, but you can't see anything. This also happens when you're ingame and pause to the menu -- the screen goes black. You fix this by, if I remember right, alt-tabbing out and then back into the game... presto, you can see.
So yeah, your problem is 64-bit, not Vista. You'd have no more luck on 64-bit XP.
I'm not sure if there are workarounds... there might be something, but as I don't have 64-bit Windows, I've never tried to look it up really...
That is, I have 32-bit Vista, and have been running it since the day I got this computer almost three years ago, and it plays the vast majority of my older Windows games with minimal problems. A few do have issues, a couple even don't work, but most play. In the case of Jedi Knight, the game works, with only one error -- when you start up the game the screen is black. The game is actually there, but you can't see anything. This also happens when you're ingame and pause to the menu -- the screen goes black. You fix this by, if I remember right, alt-tabbing out and then back into the game... presto, you can see.
So yeah, your problem is 64-bit, not Vista. You'd have no more luck on 64-bit XP.
I'm not sure if there are workarounds... there might be something, but as I don't have 64-bit Windows, I've never tried to look it up really...