How to execute 16-bit installer on 64-bit Win7?

I posted some information on the Infragistics forums for designer widgets that may help you for this. You can view the post with the following link:
http://forums.infragistics.com/forums/p/52530/320151.aspx#320151

Note that the registry keys would be different for the different product and you may need to install on a 32 bit machine to see what keys you need.

You can't run 16-bit applications (or components) on 64-bit versions of Windows. That emulation layer no longer exists. The 64-bit versions already have to provide a compatibility layer for 32-bit applications.

Support for 16-bit had to be dropped eventually, even in a culture where backwards-compatibility is of sacred import. The transition to 64-bit seemed like as good a time as any. It's hard to imagine anyone out there in the wild that is still using 16-bit applications and seeking to upgrade to 64-bit OSes.

What would be the best way to get round this problem?

If the component itself is 16-bit, then using a virtual machine running a 32-bit version of Windows is your only real choice. Oracle's VirtualBox is free, and a perennial favorite.

If only the installer is 16-bit (and it installs a 32-bit component), then you might be able to use a program like 7-Zip to extract the contents of the installer and install them manually. Let's just say this "solution" is high-risk and you should have few, if any, expectations.

It's high time to upgrade away from 16-bit stuff, like Turbo C++ and Sheridan controls. I've yet to come across anything that the Sheridan controls can do that the built-in controls can't do and haven't been able to do since Windows 95.

It took me months of googling to find a solution for this issue. You don't need to install a virtual environment running a 32-bit version of Windows to run a program with a 16-bit installer on 64-bit Windows. If the program itself is 32-bit, and just the installer is 16-bit, here's your answer.

There are ways to modify a 16-bit installation program to make it 32-bit so it will install on 64-bit Windows 7. I found the solution on this site:

http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=10988

In my case, the installation program was InstallShield 5.X. The issue was that the setup.exe program used by InstallShield 5.X is 16-bit. First I extracted the installation program contents (changed the extension from .exe to .zip, opened it and extracted). I then replaced the original 16-bit setup.exe, located in the disk1 folder, with InstallShield's 32-bit version of setup.exe (download this file from the site referenced in the above link). Then I just ran the new 32-bit setup.exe in disk1 to start the installation and my program installed and runs perfectly on 64-bit Windows.

You can also repackage this modified installation, so it can be distributed as an installation program, using a free program like Inno Setup 5.