Application requires SP2, doesn't work on SP3. How to trick it?

[Max]

I have a (poorly written) application that requires SP2. For some reason it
says that on a SP3 machine.

Is there an "appilication compatibilty mode" method to force a program to
run in SP2 compatibilty?

Thank you,
Max

 

[bud]

I have a (poorly written) application that requires SP2. For some reason it
says that on a SP3 machine.

Is there an "appilication compatibilty mode" method to force a program to
run in SP2 compatibilty?

Thank you,
Max

Right click on the exe file for the application and click properties and
then the compatibility tab. Try running it on one of the choices in there.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have a (poorly written) application that requires SP2. For some reason it
says that on a SP3 machine.

Is there an "appilication compatibilty mode" method to force a program to
run in SP2 compatibilty?

Thank you,
Max

I remember this problem from Windows 95 days.

Compatibility settings may not help. These mostly change the "major
version" report - ie Win95, 98, 2000. The application is probably doing
the OS minor-version check incorrectly - it's looking for "equal to" rather
than "equal to or greater than" for the service pack level (this is the
"minor version").

I can't find it at the moment, but I recall that there was a utility for a
previous version of Windows that could change the way it reported the
service pack level. This hasn't been needed for, perhaps 13 years, since
developers got smarter about OS checks and fixed their libraries.

The problem is, of course, that using this kind of utilty could break other
apps that rely on an OS version.

The best choice is to get the application developer to fix the OS version
check. Otherwise, if you *have* to use that app, you may have to roll
back to SP2 till you find a real solution.

HTH
-pk