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[Joyce S]

My siblings and I have upgraded our mother's computer as a Christmas gift to her. In place of her old (at least 7 years old) Gateway with Windows 98 to a brand, spanking new eMachine with Windows XP Media Center Edition.

My sisters and I, with Mom, shopped and purchased the PC on Tuesday and it's now set up for her. Her new flat panel screen definitely takes up much less space on her desk! I moved her files by emailing them to myself from her old machine and then detaching the files onto her new machine. And at the same time did some reorganizing so stuff wouldn't be scattered all over the 'desktop'.

The one thing I am having troubles moving for her are some of her favorite games, like Tetrix, Mahjong, and Memory. Do any of you know of sites where I can download games like this for free and for longer than a 60-minute trial? Is there such a thing? If not, do you have a favorite collection of games that you would recommend for us to acquire for our mother?

Thanks on behalf of my 81-year-old mother and her children who want to keep her 'playing' with her computer.

Joyce

[Charles King]

Hi Joyce,
Do either computers have CD or DVD burners? You can copy files from one computer to the other pretty easily this way. You can also go into the Documents folder on the old machine, and copy the games folder. This holds all of your grand ma's saved games, so any preferences she's created, or progressed made during game play will also be transfered to the new machine.

If neither computer has these functions you have a few options still. Take these programs from the old computer and put them in a 'Zip File"-- zips are compression programs that make large files smaller so they they transfered to where ever. Once this is done, email the programs to yourself, and open and download them onto the new computer.

You can also go out and buy (40 - 75 bucks) an external CD Burner. Put this new software, and hardware on the old computer, and then perform the transfer of the desired programs.   

Charles 

PS: The large computer box stores typically have a section devoted to older games--usually by the check out in a bin or stand. These CDs might have any number of games on them, and the ones yo want might be on these. Also googling these compilation's CDs might yield results from some outlet from the web and at least point you in the right direction.

[krisneri]

How cool that your mom still plays video games!

Kris

[Lance Charnes]

The problem you may be running into is that when programs (like games) install, they put more files on your computer than just the executable for the game itself. Unless you have the installation disc/files, you may not be able to recreate the installation just by copying.

Given that the games are old chestnuts, you may be able to find shareware/freeware versions of them on the web. Search for "shareware +games" and you'll get about a bazillion hits. You can also search for individual game names. When you download, you'll end up with a ZIP file or something like it; make sure you keep those around so you can reinstall if you need to later down the road.