Trying to play OLD game in Win7

I have a really old game called "RAPTOR" that is like an old school arcade game (think mid-to-late '80s) where you fly a jet plane and destroy everything in your path. The "landscape" scrolls past vertically from top-to-bottom and the plane moves horizontally from side-to-side with a bit of vertical movement (some game images can be found here via Google Images). Anyway, the game ran fine in all Windows versions up to and including WinXP w/o any special "tweaks". I have not tried the game with Vista, but in Win7 X64 I get the error message you see attached below. I've tried running the game in Win95 mode, Win98/ME mode, WinXP mode, etc . . . Is there any way to get this game to run in Win7 X64? Do I need an MSDOS emulator?

THANKS!

(yeah - the game is R E A L L Y old, but it's also R E A L L Y fun for those of us that grew up in the dark arcades of the mid 1980's, with Apple ][+ computers with Amdek (or Amtek?) 16 color monitors on our desks with a Novation AppleCAT 1200baud modem . . . the days of "Lode Runner" and "Jumpman" and the original Ultima and Ultima][ - I played Ultima][ on my Apple for MONTHS on end )

 

Is this it? If it is, it looks worth the $6 for it...Click!

 

If you've already tried all the compatibility options and none of them work, I'm afraid you appear to be SOL.

 

Yup, that's it, but I have the original release, not the "2010" release. I know it's only six bucks, but I already own it and don't think I should be "forced" to buy it again... I really like the game, but haven't been able to play it since I installed Win7 X64. I'm running Home Premium, so I don't have the true "XP Mode" that comes with Win7 Ultimate (and I think it's included in Win7 Pro also). I'm pretty sure I can run the game using an emulator, but I have ZERO experience with emulators, and I don't want to waste the time if it won't work.... if anyone can shed some light on this, I'd REALLY appreciate it!

:cry I know! I'm hoping for something though!

 

You might try Microsofts Virtual PC, or one of the other Virtual computer programs out there. I'm not sure about Win 7 (I know Virtual PC supports XP while running under Win 7) but I know with XP I have used it to run older games. I have a virtual Win 98 and Win 2000 machines I use. With just a few exceptions I have been able to run most of my older games.

You have probably already checked online for updates and patches for the program.

 

I use D-fend Reloaded to play old dos games on XP and it works well. It is a GUI frontend for Dosbox.

Play Your Favorite DOS Games in XP, Vista, and Windows 7

 

I have re-bought a lot of my old 1980's to early 1990's games from that site. I personally think it's well worth the money to be spared the days of research and hassle to try and make the original run with emulators, windowed mode, and so on and so forth. I like tinkering with computers, but there's a limit, and I have better things to do with my time than spend an entire weekend trying to make Fallout run in Windows 7.