Older Software don't run on Windows 7 Home Premium?

I run on my desktop, Windows XP pro, and the main software I run is Autocad 98 LT, Autocad 14 and Microsoft 2000 office. I bough a new TOSHIBA C655 Satellite Laptop with Windows 7 Home Pre, with 3G memory and Intel Celeron CPU, now my older software won't run or load? I heard that my best bet is to purchase Windows 7 32 bit vesion, reformat and install the 32 bit version? I'm geting to old and I'm on a fixed income, so I need to make the right descision on what to do? Can anyone help.
Thank You

Hi gman - Welcome to w7forums

You may need to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional an use XP Mode. XP Mode is a Virtual Machine with Windows XP SP3 running within Windows 7. This allows for a greater backwards compatibility than using compatibility mode with your applications. Downgrading to Windows 32-bit probably will not help as much as one would think.

I think you may be in "a bit of a pickle". According to the Microsoft compatibility center 32-bit W7 will not help.

Even AutoCad LT 2009 (Version 17) is not compatible with W7 32 or 64bit - the recommendation is to update to Autocad LT 2010 (Version 18). I'm afraid the same is true of Office, they recommend 2003 or better.

You could upgrade to W7 Professional and use the Virtual PC - XP mode as suggested and your autocad MAY work but I fear it may be extremely slow. I hope your laptop has 4 GB of memory as such applications are memory intensive on top of the extra memory needed to support the virtual environment. Since Autocad LT 2011 runs about US$800 it may be much cheaper to upgrade to Professional and even add memory but I would suggest trying your software on someone else's machine who has Professional and Virtual PC - XP mode to verify it does install and function satisfactory before committing to that solution. The anytime upgrade from home premium to professional runs about US$80 at amazon.com. If you bought more memory it would depend on if you have an extra slot or had to replace all that was in the unit and what type was needed.

As for office, if you cannot afford to upgrade, it would likely work in the Virtual XP if you go that route, but I would suggest you consider Open Office as a free alternative. Please see the recommended freeware section for Open Office as well as some information regarding Virtual PC - XP mode.