For everyone's technical reference and enlightenment, it seems that at least SOME Windows XP machines are able to run Fallout 1 without problems. I just got a new (to me at least) IBM Thinkpad laptop computer, and I put Fallout 2 on it (Favorite game to play on travel!) On a whim, since I haven't played it as much, I put Fallout 1 on it... Well I expected the little message about how Fallout Cannot run Under this Kernel operating system.. etc. But instead I got an install screen, and it installed. I patched it, set the system to 95 compatability and made no other changes, and it loads up and runs fine!
The Thinkpad is a 900 MhZ Celeron with 384 MB of RAM, 8MB of graphics, and Windows XP SP2 with all relevant updates from IBM and Microsoft... I don't know but I'd guess it has to do with SP2 or some similar update. I tried to install it on a friend's Dell desktop that hadn't seen update or internet in years, and it gave me the message. Manual install off the disk yielded a game that crashed even after patching and compatability mode, no matter what we did.
The Thinkpad is a 900 MhZ Celeron with 384 MB of RAM, 8MB of graphics, and Windows XP SP2 with all relevant updates from IBM and Microsoft... I don't know but I'd guess it has to do with SP2 or some similar update. I tried to install it on a friend's Dell desktop that hadn't seen update or internet in years, and it gave me the message. Manual install off the disk yielded a game that crashed even after patching and compatability mode, no matter what we did.