I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.


--
craigr

---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
which) but that may not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
which) but that may not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that video
was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes. On
VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found myself
unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox to be
my favorite amongst the few I have tried.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" wrote in message
...
---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM. (I
don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying around
on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having another
machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM, ports, and such
to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget which) but that may
not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that video
was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes. On
VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found myself
unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox to be
my favorite amongst the few I have tried.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" wrote in message
...
---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM. (I
don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying around
on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having another
machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM, ports, and such
to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget which) but that may
not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

Absolutely, Chris. There are several other out there too. I only
mentioned MS VPC as a 'generic' answer to the OP. Your solution is
probably a better one if the old application needs more video RAM.
MSVPC doesn't support DirectX or OpenGL either (I think). Does VirtualBox?

Questor

---
There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that
video was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes.
On VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found
myself unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox
to be my favorite amongst the few I have tried.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" wrote in message
...
---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
which) but that may not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

Absolutely, Chris. There are several other out there too. I only
mentioned MS VPC as a 'generic' answer to the OP. Your solution is
probably a better one if the old application needs more video RAM.
MSVPC doesn't support DirectX or OpenGL either (I think). Does VirtualBox?

Questor

---
There is also VirtualBox from Sun. I noticed that you mentioned that
video was restricted on the Microsoft Virtual PC to 4 or 8 megabytes.
On VirtualBox you can have 128 megabytes of video memory. I have found
myself unable to run Solaris on Microsoft Virtual PC but it runs fine on
VirtualBox. I'm using Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I have found VirtualBox
to be my favorite amongst the few I have tried.

Regards
Chris Saunders

"Questor" wrote in message
...
---
I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.



Sounds like your older software would be a candidate for a Virtual
Machine. It's free - just check the Microsoft site for it. Once
installed you can put whatever operating system you may have lying
around on it (or what the software really wants). It's like having
another machine inside your physical machine. You can assign RAM,
ports, and such to it. The video emulated is only 4 or 8 MB (I forget
which) but that may not be important depending on your software.

I have seven virtual machines on my Vista machine all running various
flavors of Windows and Linux.

Questor

you might try running in in compatibility mode for xp.
right click the exe file, select properties and then the compatibility tab and select xp.





"craigr" wrote in message ...

I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.


--
craigr

you might try running in in compatibility mode for xp.
right click the exe file, select properties and then the compatibility tab and select xp.





"craigr" wrote in message ...

I'm on a HP, running 64 bit Vista. 2.1GHz Dual Core, 4GB DDR2 SDRAM.
(I don't really speak "computer" very well)

I am trying to run some 10 year old software. It installed fine, but
when I try to run it the program first does a check to make sure I have
enough available RAM. When it checks my Free RAM it says I have -130MB
of Free RAM and the program won't even try to start.

Now - I understand from reading these forums that VISTA ties up all
available RAM. Is there a way to tell VISTA to keep some 80MB or so
free so that my software will start?

Thanks.


--
craigr

The compatibility mode fix worked fine. I'm sure the others would too,
but I'm not very computer savvy so I'll go for the easy fix.

Thanks everyone!


--
craigr