In a large corporate environment, users can often rely on an internal technical support group for help in resolving application compatibility problems. At home or in smaller enterprise environments, users may have to perform their own application support. The Program Compatibility Wizard assists in this task.
The Program Compatibility Wizard is part of the Windows XP Help and Support Center, providing a convenient and simple tool for adjusting application compatibility settings. This wizard uses the compatibility fixes and Compatibility Modes provided by the SysMain database file. You can choose the application to modify by selecting the application from a list of applications with known problems, browsing for the application, or selecting the application in the CD-ROM drive.
Applying a compatibility mode with the Program Compatibility Wizard is as simple as choosing the operating system that runs the application correctly. There are four main options:
Microsoft Windows 95
Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5)
Microsoft Windows 98/Windows Me
Microsoft Windows 2000
You also have the option of bypassing the compatibility modes for the application. Figure 3 below shows the compatibility mode options presented in the Program Compatibility Wizard.
Figure 3. The Program Compatibility Wizard enables you to easily apply compatibility modes for an application.
Once you have selected the option you want, the Program Compatibility Wizard allows you to configure display settings to use with the application. Color depth and screen resolution are often the source of blocking problems for older applications. The fixes enabled in the wizard force the application to a screen resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, or force the color depth to 256 colors. In addition, you can also turn off the Windows XP visual themes for applications such as educational titles or games that may encounter problems with them.
In the final portion of the wizard, you can test the compatibility settings you have selected. If the application runs correctly when you test the compatibility settings, you have the option of making the settings permanent so that they will be invoked automatically every time you run the application.
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