Trying to install a game that uses a 16bit installer on a 64bit system

Any ideas?

Which game? There is no generic fix, you may have to google for an answer.

An old game called Legoland.

16-bit .exe files are NOT supported under Win64, period. Your only option is a Virtual PC.

You *might* be able to install the game on another PC, copy the files over, and manually create the necessary registry entries; if the game is 32 bit, this could work. But other then that, your out of luck.

Oh well the game itself is 32 bit but the installer is the darn problem XP mod (virtual machine) was total crap

Don't use XP mode. It doesn't allow 3d acceleration. Instead, get either VirtualBox from Oracle/Sun or get VMPlayer. Both are free, but you will need to have a copy of XP/Win95/98/Vista to install the OS. I've used VMPlayer with a 32-bit copy of XP to run games like the first Diablo and Bladerunner with no major issues at all.

Ive tried Virtual Box too.

Dosbox only works with DOS, win95 era .exe's will not run.

If the games that old, XP mode should be sufficent; games didn't really need GPU acceleration until the late 90's..

Have you tried unpacking the install files using Universal Extractor

Eh cool but how do I use it?

Again I tried XP mode and it froze.

I'd say you're only recourse then is to dual-boot.

Download and install -- run the program on the exe file and it will unpack the files from the archive - then try installing the program using the extracted files - this should get you past the problem with the installer package ( I know it worked on the Oblivion DLC content that had the same type of installer issues due to the DRM scheme used for the downloads)

I can only get into the same game (Legoland from 1999/2000) and whenever i want to the playing part it just shows an error and i exits out of the game... I REALLY wanna play this game, so many childhood memories. If anyone can help, then please do

Wow, necrobump, toddie?

Anyway, since the topic is apparently alive again, I might as well ask:


If I were to run Windows 8 Pro, 64-bit, would it run Diablo 1 natively?
If not, why not? As far as I know, Diablo 1 is 32-bit, and 64-bit Windows operating systems are supposed to be backwards compatible with 32-bit software.

THe problem you run into is that many 16 bit games used 8 bit installation programs -- and 64 bit versions no longer support 8 bit programs -- so in many cases the game would play BUT you can not install the game (kind of a catch 22 situation) - Also many of the older games run in DOS mode which MS has stopped supporting so you need third party support (ie. Dosbox) - in order to get them installed you have to go through other steps (like running them in a virtual XP environment).

That said - I have Diablo I installed and running on my Win7 64 bit machine (it's been a long while since I installed it so do not remember exactly what was required - but it does run natively without the use of Dosbox or a virtual machine) - so it does work ( I use an iso image of the original disk mounted in Daemon when launching (since my original disk is put away for storage to avoid scratches) - If the image is not mounted the game fails to launch and tells you to insert the disk but once the image is mounted the game launches and runs fine - so I would think it is also possible to use under win 8 Pro but may take some work to get set up the first time !

almost rite.
windows 64bit doesnt handle 16 bit installers. there are no 8 bit installers windows has always been a 16bit gui based o.s since version 1.01 released in 1985.
the rest of it i have no problem with...
op all you can do to try and get the game to work is run it on a virtual 32bit o.s or a real 32bit o.s its best if you try and find an old copy of windows 98se and install it on a separate partition or drive. best you install it on an 8gig max old ide drive if you have 1 floating about. failing that then virtual machine with 32bit xp again with a 10 gig partition set aside for it.