DOS and GEM compatibility

[Alan]

I'm very attached to some old DOS apps. They run quite well in DOS
boxes under Win98, but Win2k having only a DOS emulation, I'm chicken
about upgrading to WIN2k (which I'd like to do as I'm rather tired of
instabilities in Win98).

Most important to me is the (very old -- 1989) DOS/GEM version 3 of
Ventura. This runs in a full-screen graphic mode, can't be windowed
(at least in Win98). Occasionally I also run apps in DOS text mode,
such as Word 6, but I expect these would heve fewer problems, and at
least there are alternatives to these.

Does anyone know if these will run under Win2k?
Is there a software compatibility list? (Not from MS -- they would
just say "unsupported", I'm sure.)

 

[jankin]

I'm very attached to some old DOS apps. They run quite well in DOS
boxes under Win98, but Win2k having only a DOS emulation, I'm chicken
about upgrading to WIN2k (which I'd like to do as I'm rather tired of
instabilities in Win98)...

If you maintain a FAT16 partition somewhere on your hard drive, and boot
from a DOS floppy, then you can run them from the dos prompt with the
rest of the win2K machine being essentially hidden. The other
alternative is to run a multiboot system with and old DOS (say 3.22) on
FAT16, and win2K on NTFS. That way, the DOS cannot messup the more
delicate win2K.