Whilst setting up a new laptop with Windows 7 x64 recently, I was asked if I could get some old 16bit programs running. One of these was an educational piece of software called “Multimedia Motion II” by Cambridge Science Media. This is a windows program that has worked on all previous versions of windows up to windows XP. However, Windows 7 x64 no longer supports 16bit Windows programs, and instead throws the error about being an “Unsupported 16-bit application”
The free DOSBox has proved excellent in the past for running old 16-bit games like the settlers and championship manager 2, however Multimedia Motion II requires windows, not just DOS.
Somewhere I have an old copy of Windows 3.11 on floppy disks, but setting it up under DOS box seemed rather tedious, so I did some googling to see if someone had done the hard work for me, and found a post on digiex by LordDaMan. (Update — the link is now broken — you’ll have to do it the long winded way with original install disks — there is a guide on Vogons which will probably be helpful)
All I had to do was customise the config file to add an autoexec entry which mapped a drive and then started windows 3.11. I then mapped another drive as a CD drive to the location of the multimedia motion ii files, ran the installer (which created a program group), and then ran the app successfully
“I've been on this hunt a few times myself. I still have my Aluminus ultra in black (only 5 5.25…”