Btw, if you are ever in that situation again, Linux + Wine/Proton is now often the better stack to run old games than newer versions of native Windows, both in terms of backward compatibility and performance. Not always, but often.
This is a perplexing situation as Microsoft used to be the queens and kings of backward compat (due to true invested engineering effort), but even they had to let go of some things, gimp an API or two by quick-porting them to newer infra, etc. due to finite resources.
On the other hand perhaps not that surprising. Just as with projects like MAME or ScummVM or Dosbox, preservation activities are perhaps best placed in the community, the Commons, vs. a commercial business with commercial pressures of the present-day market. But then it's important the community has the legal conditions and stability to do the work, of course.
This is a perplexing situation as Microsoft used to be the queens and kings of backward compat (due to true invested engineering effort), but even they had to let go of some things, gimp an API or two by quick-porting them to newer infra, etc. due to finite resources.
On the other hand perhaps not that surprising. Just as with projects like MAME or ScummVM or Dosbox, preservation activities are perhaps best placed in the community, the Commons, vs. a commercial business with commercial pressures of the present-day market. But then it's important the community has the legal conditions and stability to do the work, of course.