A Windows 10 or Windows 11 upgrade shouldn't be the thing that breaks your business. But for many Australian businesses running 32-bit legacy applications, an OS upgrade or hardware refresh has created exactly that crisis.

The 32-bit problem

Windows 10 still runs most 32-bit applications. Windows 11 continues to support many of them. But compatibility problems are real and getting worse:

• Drivers for old hardware (label printers, weighing scales, card readers, dongles) no longer exist for modern Windows
• Applications that relied on specific system DLLs that have changed or been removed
• Software that requires administrative privileges in ways that Windows security policies now block
• Applications compiled for Windows XP or earlier that use APIs that have been removed
• Hardware dongles and license servers that don’t work on modern hardware

The deeper problem: the applications that are “just working” today are accumulating risk with every OS update.

What I do

• Compatibility analysis — why the application is failing and whether it can be fixed
• Isolation options — virtualisation, compatibility layers, terminal server approaches
• Application documentation for use in a modernization or replacement project
• Modernization options — recompile, rewrite, replace
• Risk assessment — how long the current situation can be sustained

Common situations

The immediate crisis. A new computer arrived and the software won’t install. Or a Windows Update broke something overnight. The business needs a fix now, or a bridge while a longer-term solution is found.

The planned migration. The business knows it needs to modernize before Windows drops support entirely. The question is how, and what it involves.

What I need

• The application (installed or installation media)
• A description of what it does and what error or failure is occurring
• The version of Windows it was last known to work on

---