Extend the life of your legacy apps
But you have a better alternative: the Application Compatibility Tool. The Application Compatibility Tool, a utility included with Windows 2000, is designed to run legacy applications in a Windows 2000 environment without relying on virtual machines. It overcomes some of the most common issues that prevent an application from running under Windows 2000.
Installing the Application Compatibility Tool
Although the Application Compatibility Tool is included with Windows 2000, it isn´t installed by default. Instead, the tool is included in the Windows 2000 Support Tools. You can install the Windows 2000 Support Tools by inserting your Windows 2000 CD, navigating to the \Support\Tools directory, and running the Setup.exe program. Once you´ve installed the Windows 2000 Support Tools, you can find the Application Compatibility Tool in the \Program Files\Support Tools folder. You can run the Application Compatibility Tool in either GUI mode or in command-line mode.
GUI mode
You can run the Application Compatibility Tool by entering the Apcompat.exe command at the Run prompt. When you do, Windows will load the utility´s GUI. You can use the Application Compatibility Tool to force legacy applications to run in Windows 2000.
Using the Application Compatibility Tool is pretty simple. You first begin by specifying the path and filename of the application that you need to run. You can use the Browse button to make locating the application easier. Once you´ve specified the application, you must specify the operating system the application needs to think it´s running in. Some applications won´t run under Windows 2000 because they check to make sure that a specific version of Windows is running. This is especially true for a lot of applications designed to run under Windows 95. When Windows 95 was released, many developers included checks to make sure that the application was being run under Windows 95, as opposed to Windows 3.x. Many of these checks never anticipated future versions of Windows, and therefore, if any operating system other than Windows 95 is detected, the application won´t run. You can use the Application Compatibility Tool to fix the problem by specifying the operating system that the application is looking for.
Check box definitions
After the operating system section, there are four check boxes that you can use to correct common compatibility problems.
Disable Heap Manager On Windows 2000. One of the biggest problems with running older applications in Windows 2000 is that Windows 2000 uses memory differently than previous versions of Windows. Because of this, it´s possible to receive memory-related errors when running an application that you never saw under the old operating system. If you see these types of errors, you should select the Disable Heap Manager On Windows 2000 check box. Disabling the heap manager usually gets rid of these errors. Unfortunately, it also means that Windows won´t use memory as efficiently, so using this switch may result in a slight drop in overall system performance.
Use Pre Windows 2000 Temp Path. Lots of applications still rely on temporary files. The problem is that many older applications either hard code C:\Temp as the temporary files´ location, or they impose a limit to the number of characters that can be used in the path to the temp directory. If you encounter such a problem, you can easily fix it by selecting the Use Pre Windows 2000 Temp Path check box. This check box tells the Application Compatibility Tool to trick the application into thinking that all temp files should be placed in C:\Temp. If C:\Temp doesn´t exist on your system, then the utility will create it for you.
Correct Disk Space Detection For 2 GB+ Drives. There was a time, many moons ago, when a hard disk partition couldn´t exceed 2GB in size. Thus an older application that checks the amount of free disk space often lacks the necessary code for disks with over 2GB of space. When an application encounters a situation like this, the free disk space is often calculated incorrectly, and a PC with 70GB of free disk space might appear insufficient to the application. Checking the Correct Disk Space For 2GB+ Drives check box fixes this problem and allows your older application to interact with today´s jumbo hard drives.
Make The Above Check Box Settings Permanent. If you find that specific settings within the Application Compatibility Tool allow a legacy application to run, then you probably don´t want to have to use the Application Compatibility Tool every time you use the application. Instead, you can use the tool to “fix” the application. To do so, simply select the required options and then select the Make The Above Check Box Settings Permanent check box. All of the other options that you´ve chosen will be written to the system registry. When you run the legacy application, all of the necessary compatibility tweaks will be automatically set, and you won´t have to open the Application Compatibility Tool. The tool will run in thebackground, completely out of sight.
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