>I have been worried about the old machine's Win XP not wanting to work on the new machine.
> I speak only a little German. It is the native language of my father and his family, but he is completely computer illiterate (for example, he thinks that you have to "dial" into Websites, and all of them have live human beings waiting to answer your questions), and would be unable to understand what he is trying to translate.
> When I go back to that woman's home, I am going to try to install a VM, using the advice that many of you gave to me. I was hoping that Microsoft would have issued something to support 16 bit apps, just like they still include DOS.
>
>Jerry

They do not include DOS.

They include a command shell that recognises DOS commands.