You want to know if all your favorite games are still going to run
under Windows XP. Remember what happened when we tried to run games on
our Windows 2000 machines? Sometimes we were a little disappointed.
Windows 2000 was made more for corporate applications than "Quake," but
true techno-geeks know they don't have to sacrifice death matches for a
robust business environment -- at least not anymore.
Windows XP has shown an impressive track record of game compatibility.
Some of the standard games, such as "Tiger Woods Golf," "NHL 2001,"
"Max Payne," and "Unreal" on our Windows XP Professional machine were
specifically slated for Windows 95 and 98, and were shown not to work
in Windows 2000. The installation in XP was as smooth as silk. The
games ran quickly and beautifully -- not a problem in sight (except for
my bad chip shot -- Tiger was hanging his head in shame).
Some less-sophisticated programs may not run as smoothly, older
applications such as the Atari 2600 Classic Game Collection, did not
appreciate the Windows XP environment. In this case you can use the
Application Compatibility Wizard, found in the accessories menu. XP
includes integrated compatibility layers to mimic older versions of
Windows, so if your program does not work in Windows XP, the
compatibility wizard will walk you through the process of getting even
your favorite DOS games up and running. Atari Classic Game Collection
run very well in the Windows 95 environment, at 256 colors and 640x480
screen resolution. So setting XP to always run Atari application in
this environment, and everything was smooth sailing after that.
One final tip about compatibility: Don't run the compatibility wizard
if your program appears to be running well in the normal environment,
as the wizard will give you an error message. In general, XP has great
program compatibility, so you can upgrade your operating system without
giving up all your old favorites.