anyone know how to run 16 bit games on a 64 bit os. as i understand it, windows 32bit emulates windows 16 bit. windows 64 bit emulates windows 32 bit but not 16 bit.

i have loads of classic games, need for speed 2. operation inner space. tone rebellion and hundreds more. the oldest game i can run so far is virtua cop 2 without dosbox/scummvm.

:-)

Try running a 32 bit virtual machine. If you don't want to get another Windows license, you can try running the game in a Linux VM under wine.

(I actually got Exile: Escape From the Pit running this way.)

i didn't really want to install virtual machines but it may be the only option. :-)

does anyone know how to get operation innerspace working? i don't think it likes 32 bit os either. however, i don't think it's dos either is it? you just get that error. invalid program or something saying it's too old

run windows 9x on a laptop with a decent video card

I really wish GOG could figure out a way to do this without a VM. There were so many great mid-'90s Windows games that only had 16-bit installers. I think MissionForce: CyberStorm was one of them.

Be aware that many older Windows games are actually 32bit, but have 16bit installers. So you could play them on a 64bit OS, but not install them there. While that may not seem like a big help, it does mean that you could potentially install them on a 32bit machine (or in a VM) and then move the installed files to your 64bit machine.

Edit:
Additionally, see this thread. I have not tried the process myself, but it may be of some use to you.

Neat! I should try that.

They can, they have, and they do. GOG does not use the original game installers for anything, they make their own. The original installer for Dungeon Keeper Gold was 16bit as far as I recall, and that is certainly here.

I wonder what are the chances of GOG getting the CyberStorm series...

is there no convenient 16bit exe extractor or something? for escape from monkey island, an unofficial installer exists that works. that also brings me to another question.

is there a way of making gog games portable? witcher 2 takes almost an hour to install and is pretty dumb. if i ask support anything they just ignore me. when you uninstall the game but keep saves intact, there are all sorts of traces that need to be cleared up including using the registry to clear up the games explorer shortcut. it's annoying. :-)

I'd say not for the games designed to work on Windows as they will likely rely on registry entries. So, you would probably need to write a script to put in the registry entries and then remove them afterwards.

The DOS games should be easy.

On your first question, if you don't want a VM, you could dual boot. I'm planning on doing this when Windows 10 comes out - have one partition using Win 10 x64 and the other using Windows 7 Professional x86.

Natively running MS-DOS only makes sense if you own hardware from that era. Note that DOSBox does not just emulate the operating system but a variety of devices that were commonly used back in the day. So even if you run a legit vintage machine, that still means that it may only support games from a certain time frame but may be missing components necessary for running others or be simply too fast as many games were programmed to run at the highest speed the machines could handle at the time rather than being delta timed (the latter means that games render more images while keeping the game's speed intact). Unless you're complete retro gaming enthusiast willing to set up entire vintage machines you should stick to using DOSBox.