So - How good is Windows 8.1 at running legacy programs?

And the answer is: - 

Very good..... if you could read the fine print on this PhotoStudio 5's "About" window, underlined in red in the screenshot above, you'd see it was last patented back in '94 to '99, and that's back in the days of Win-98SE - and while Windows 8.1 complains that there's something wrong with this whole thing, it still will run it well enough for me to view and edit photos. It also runs the next PhotoStudio, the 5.5 version, which is also old, but one of my long-time favorite photo editors. Windows tells me that one has a problem too, but offers to let me run it anyway, which I happily do, because it's paid for, and it works nicely not only for its main purposes, but also with my older model Canon flatbed scanner. And that also works with Windows 8.1. So when the bitchers get going about this latest Windows, I have to say "Let's give it a fair trial before we shoot it at sunrise, shall we?"