xp games on windows 7

Well, it depends on the game. Most of them will work just fine. The only one that hasn't worked fine for me has been the good old Game of Life (Hasbro Interactive, from the Windows 9x era). Which games are you concerned about?

Sims and diner dash? Just things like that really

You shouldn't have troubles running an XP or Vista games on Win 7.

And yes, it will overwrite your Vista if you do a clean install though you can do an upgrade that carries things over from Vista to Win7. Always do a back up first anyway.

I've only come across a few games that worked in both XP and Vista that don't seem to want to work in 7. Namely the Splinter Cell series (which actually p***** me off a bit). I loved those games but I can't run them under 7.

are we talking win7 32 bit here or 64 bit?

Either, or. It really doesn't matter anymore. Games don't care whether they run under a 32 or 64 bit environment...

what about older games (from about 10 years ago) - will they still run on win7 ok (32 bit and 64 bit), if they currently run on xp ok?

Wrong (ish). Its the Installers that have the problem. i used to have an XPx64 based PC and a couple of games just wouldn't install.

Example - Two Worlds (Epic Edition), works on XP or Vista but not 64bit of either edition. This is also a funny case, because the game installs correctly but WILL NOT load.

Windows 7 Professional is the "cheapest" version to include XP Mode and for that price (£220) you could dual boot XP and Vista. So why waste your money?

I had read about the functionality to run xp within win7 (with certain versions of win7 and if the cpu supports this). However it was said that this functionality was intended more for business applications and not for games (so that games wouldn't run properly in the xp mode of win7).

So for the purpose of running older games it does seem unsafe to install 64 bit version of win7

Not necessarily that ti is unsafe, just that the older the title the more likely it may not want to play well with a 64 bit OS.

The best thing to do is search Google for people who have had problems running the games you play under a 64 bit OS. If your games don't seem to have many complaints then upgrade away.

Thanks for the help  

The games work fine; its the copy protection thats messed up.

You can buy Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory directly from Ubisofts website, which offers a D2D version free of the copy protection for $9.99. Worked fine on my Vista 64.  

thats one of my reasons for wanting to delay my use of win7, so that a lot more user data can be collected on which older games do run on 32 and 64 bit win7 and which don't.

Finally, someone else with a voice of reason!

I'm not gunna just jump on the Windows 7 bandwagon because everyone else is either.

But hopefully old games will start to be archived and made available online for use on any OS.

Unless those old games are your main reason for using a computer, going to Win 7 is still a valid idea.

And to check your games, try Googling your game title and "Windows 7" and see what you get. Chances are good that someone has already tried to run it and wrote about it.

most of my xp games are working on 7 like bf2 bf1942 css cod4 and yes it will erase vista from the laptop unless u run a dual boot setup

Alas, much XP software will either not install or not run on Win7. Some venders admit this and tell me they have no intention of fixing this. Some venders simply do not respond to my inquiries. I know I cannot install StarCraft on Win7. Icon Library will install but will not run. GOG.COM offers "good old games" at low prices but refuses to test any of there games on Win7. (Or maybe they just won't release their test results!)

i have nancy drew games they will not play on my windows 7

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