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dnath
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The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:00 am

Hello all, I installed a program from microcat to help me look at car parts. When I try to Launch it on my windows 7 32 Bit PC it gives me the error message in the Topic heading
Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode. How can I fix this? Thank you.
 
P5-133XL
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:56 am

You need to know what operating system (OS) the program was written for (Win95?) and then run it in an appropriate compatibility mode (rt. click on its shortcut and pick properties then choose the compatibility tab then click the run this program in compatibility mode and choose the appropriate OS in the drop-down box.
Put those spare CPU/GPU cycles to good use - Folding@Home
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dnath
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 11:26 am

Hi, That did not work.
 
UberGerbil
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:16 pm

"Win16" is going all the way back to the Windows 3.x days. I don't think you can run something that old in Win7 (even 32bit) directly; you may need a DOSbox-like environment for it. Maybe somebody around here who still runs very old games can help; if I ever knew how to do this I've forgotten.
 
dnath
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:33 pm

Cheers I figured as much and will not be able to setup that up on my colleagues computer, he would be lost every time he went to use it. So This will not be a viable solution. thanks for all the help guys.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:13 pm

It's not Win7-32, as I've got some old 16-bit timewasters (the original MS Tetris for one, from '92) on a laptop running Win7-32 and they run fine natively. Try them on a 64-bit box and of course they go nowhere.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
UberGerbil
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:34 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
It's not Win7-32, as I've got some old 16-bit timewasters (the original MS Tetris for one, from '92) on a laptop running Win7-32 and they run fine natively. Try them on a 64-bit box and of course they go nowhere.
A little googling on the error message suggests problems with the environment variables (path not pointing to the right directory for the Windows On Windows files) but that's all for XP or older, so I'm not sure if Windows 7 changes anything. It would make sense, though, because Win 7 doesn't care about environment variables but old apps will, so it's possible for them to be messed up with no symptoms other than ancient software not running correctly. Win7 still keeps Win.ini and System.ini around, and there's no reason for that except supporting very old apps, so I wouldn't entirely give up. But if it's a problem like bad environment variables, getting it straightened out could be a tricky unless you find a step-by-step guide or somebody who still remembers the details of that crap.
 
bhtooefr
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 1:54 pm

Anything else in the error? Screenshot, ideally. Is it referencing DOSX?

In any case, I'd recommend finding some other program if you can, because once you go to 64-bit, you'll be stuck running this in a VM.

What exactly is the program, and what cars are you looking up parts for?
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dnath
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Re: The Win16 Subsystem was unable to enter Protected Mode

Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:08 pm

Did the google thing did not work. I think I am pretty much stuck. Thanks for the help though guys. Car parts to Land Rover vehicles.

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