I need help with Windows 95 from the windows gurus.

I bought a game that I used to play as a kid. It's an old classic, Janes ATF Gold. On a CD-Rom it says "Win 95 CD." I bought a Windows 95 on Amazon, new disk, never opened with original seal. I installed it on Virtual Box without much trouble. However the game will not install on Windows 95. I get an error "This is not a Win32 application."
Any ideas why a Windows 95 game does not work on Windows 95?!

 

Are you sure the game CD is in good condition? That sounds like the kind of error you get with a corrupt file or an incomplete download.

 

Did you update Windows 95 through Windows Update and also update Directx? It could also just be an issue with Virutal Box and trying to get an old game running on an emulated Windows (with iffy emulated Windows 95 "drivers"). You could also try Windows 98, or even Windows XP 32bit under Virtual Box, might work with less hassle that way.

 

Game installs but crashes in Windows XP under compatibility mode. I would love to get it to work on XP but Direct X found on the CD-ROM will not install under compatibility mode.

 

According to wiki it's a DOS game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane's_Combat_Simulations

Did you try to run it under DOS in Windows 95?