Datasheet

104
PART I
■
INSTALLATION, CONFIGURATION, AND CUSTOMIZATION
These settings are found in your video card’s management applet or on a
special tab in the Display Properties dialog box. Deselect these options and
you will gain some additional cycles without drastically reducing image quality.
Running old DOS or Windows applications
With Windows 2000, Microsoft removed the support for older DOS and 16-
bit Windows applications that was in Windows 9x and Windows Me. This
code, though well-written, allowed applications and device drivers to write
directly to hardware, causing hard locks, system-level crashes, and the infa-
mous “blue screen of death.” Removing this code drastically reduced the
number of crashes, but also made backwards compatibility trickier, especially
for custom software that relied on legacy applications or gamers with several
years of older games they wanted to play.
However, with Windows 2000 and Windows XP, Microsoft included
Compatibility Mode, a set of software services and database collection of
application information that provides limited DOS emulation for these
older applications. For example, some Windows 16-bit applications query
Windows to find out what version it is, and the application will not run if the
answer is not recognized. Compatibility mode provides the necessary infor-
mation to the application, allowing it to run. Compatibility mode also
includes re-creating registry structures and other OS-specific variables found
in Windows 9x, which differed in significant ways from the structure cur-
rently used by Windows XP.
Compatibility mode isn’t an instant cure-all. There are numerous appli-
cations that should not be run using compatibility mode. These include ones
that interact directly with hardware, such as older antivirus software, disk
defragmentation programs, registry editors, and rescue utilities like Norton
Utilities. If you try to run an application that directly manages hardware or
the operating system using compatibility mode, you stand an excellent
chance of corrupting your system and making it unbootable.
The easiest way to configure compatibility mode is by using a wizard.
1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, and then click Program
Compatibility Wizard. Click Next. The Program Compatibility Wizard
appears. Click Next.
2. The Program Compatibility Wizard offers you a choice of how to locate
your program: choosing from a list, running a program on CD, or man-
ually browsing to a location. If you select the first option, the wizard
searches the Program Files and Windows folders for applications that
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