I have an old game called Discover the World 2 from Entrex Software that I used to play in elementary school that ran on Windows 3.1 (i think) and 95, but now it won't run on Windows 7 since it can't handle the 64-bit OS. Does anyone know how you can get old Windows applications like this one running? Something like dosbox for windows games perhaps?

have you tried compatibility mode?

I believe Windows 3.1 and 95 can be made to run under DOSbox (of course you'll need the installation disc(s), and you'll probably need to fiddle around quite a bit with the settings). I would recommend trying a "real" virtual machine though, like Virtual PC, , or [url=http://www.virtualbox.org/]VirtualBox, they too require a Windows license, but they should run almost anything that would run on a real PC.

I did try the 95 compatibility mode, but it still gives me an error saying this executable is not compatible with 64-bit windows. This game uses quicktime for videos so that could cause problems, but I will try one of the virtual machines to see if I can get it running. Thanks for the suggestions and if anyone else has ideas please post them!

I'd recommend Virtual PC too. It's a good way to run games that don't require 3D graphics cards.

Yeah, I know those issues. I had used a 64-Beta version before and most games didn't worked. I am glad I have a 32-Version of Win7 now.

Won't help as Vista/Windows 7 can't handle 16-bit installers (MS dropped support on 16-bit apps in Vista).
Either Virtual PC running an old OS (like XP or Win98) is your best bet as even if you aquire the game 'elsewhere' the game it self may be 16-bit application (as you mentioned win 3.11) and thus will not work.

Note that Virtual PC is not fully compatible with many titles because it runs in 16-bit color only; games that require switching to 256 colors will not work. I would recommend VirtualBox for such cases. Virtual PC has the advantage of a seamless window for each program, however, so for those games that do work it's a really great way to play them in a near-native manner.

Only if using Virtual PC for Windows 7 since that uses RDP for rendering. Supposedly if not using the integration components then you can change color depth (I can't verify since I hate the POS that VPC has become).
Also you can use Virtual PC 2007 (and it's recommended to do so if using 9x as a guest) just fine on Windows 7.
In fact VPC is currently the best VM for running 9x guests, second place would be Vmware. VirtualBox would be dead last as far as running 9x guests.
Vista/7 32bit can run 16bit apps\installers just fine. There are some issues with NTVDM in Vista/7 being less compatible with some 16bit DOS/Windows games but those are very rare.
ALL 64bit OS's released by Microsoft do not support 16bit (well there is a slight excemption to that case with some common 16bit installers but even that may be gone with Windows 7 now...haven't checked), so this isn't a recent thing.

I caved in and upgraded my Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional. After setting up XP mode I was able to copy the files over, install the old version of quicktime, and now the old Entrex games run just fine! I think it will be worth it in the long run, since I have a lot of old 16-bit games.

As far as I'm aware, xp mode has no direct x/open gl support so if any games require it then it probably will not work.

Fortunately, games that need DirectX or OpenGL will usually run natively quite happily.
VirtualBox has some level of DirectX support now, but while some titles will run it is very much a preliminary implementation.

It's a hamster in someone's hand.

Could you elaborate? I was thinking about setting up 9x on VirtualBox since I already use it, but now I'm not sure...