Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (
More info?)
well win32 is short for windows 32 bit application. which has a bit of history behind it to fully understand why you're getting this error.
back in the dino days of computing (10 years ago and previous) there was only 16 bit operating systems called dos and windows 3.xx. there were all these 32 bit cpu's however that could address more memory than the 16 bit os would allow. so microsoft released a stop gap measure to bring windows 3.xx 32 bit addressing and better performance for some programs on those systems that had 32 bit processors. they created a new api (application programming interface) to allow developers of software to use more than 16 bits of address space memory. basically programs could be larger now and utilize extra features of these cpus that they couldn't before. this was called Win32.
later came windows 95 which had updates and several extensions to Win32
then came win 98
and nt 4.0 which was completely different from the consumer win 95/98 and was all win32 with no win 16 other than a bare minimum to allow windows 3.xxx programs to run (some few but not a lot) and almost all dos programs would fail except the most simple as dos programs needed drivers inside the software to allow access directly to memory addresses and win nt wouldn't allow this.
then came windows 2000 which was based on win nt and not win32 but had backwards compatibility to 16 bit programs tacked on which allowed a lot more programs to run under it than win nt (still some woud not run)
then millenium which was more win 98ish with some features from win2000 tacked on
and now win xp which is windows 2000 with more compatibility thrown in and more features. there is still some older software that will not run under win xp however as it won't allow direct memory addressing which unfortuneately a lot of older win3.xx and dos games used to eek out the most performance. to microsofts credit a lot of them do run even when trying to access memory directly as the compatibility features added would fool the software into thinking it wa accessing direct memory addresses.
try compatibility modes to see if your software then runs.
a lot of installers for software need to run in compatibility mode.
create a shortcut to the install / setup exe file and then right click it and go to properties and advanced and select a compatibility mode for the intended operating system the game was meant to run under. for win3.xx use dos or win 95, you'll need to experiment between these 2 modes and best of luck
"Wannabe Gamer" wrote:
> Everytime i try to play a game on my comp it says this. Is it the game or my computer?
>
> What is win32?
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