There's absolutely no way to get this installed and running in Windows 11, is there?

Not by itself no. Win 11 is a 64bit OS. You're going to need to setup a virtual desktop with something like VMWare Wordstation Player and Virtual Box. (I prefer VMWare)

Once you have the virtual client installed you can then install your flavor of windows. For my setup I did Windows XP Pro SP3. I found an ISO file here.

Key's can be found here.

Installation instructions:

Windows XP Professional - Installation in VMware
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rw6iApeBE

Some other instructions (no video)
https://www.tutorialsfreak.com/nmap-tutorial/windows-xp-installation-on-vmware

There was also the old Windows XP mode that was put out years ago for Vista and Windows 7. It's pretty much forgotten about however you may still be able to use it. I've heard of folks putting on Windows 10 however I'm not sure if it will run on Windows 11.

Some info about Windows XP Mode virtual machine an be found here.

Last but not least Gil, if you have an old computer handy that's still in working order, you can use that for VGAP. XP, ME, 98, etc. They'll all do the trick. Also if you have a Windows 10 installation that's 32bit instead of 64bit you can probably use that to. It will probably take a little tweaking as NTVDM will probably need to be added.

I have a couple of old laptops hanging around, I'll give that a try first.  With all respect and gratitude to BM for the great job he did dragging winplan into the enforced 64 bit era (damn you, Microsoft!) the enlarged map on the ship etc. screens makes the text too tiny for my old eyes, even with glasses.  

Posted by: @gilgamesh

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I have a couple of old laptops hanging around, I'll give that a try first.  With all respect and gratitude to BM for the great job he did dragging winplan into the enforced 64 bit era (damn you, Microsoft!) the enlarged map on the ship etc. screens makes the text too tiny for my old eyes, even with glasses.  

Maybe a bigger screen will help. If you have an HDMI out on your computer/video card you can plug it into a TV.

Once you installed my Winplan32 version, just run the old Winplan exe from the same folder and it should work. (I think). It's the missing references that is mostly the issue. 

There is also the original upgraded Winplan32 version that is the same as the old Winplan only for running in 64bit. 

@bitmask Thanks!  Tim's Winplan will not launch.  Where can I find the original 64 bit upgrade, please?

And trying another possibility, I pulled out an old Windows 7 machine, and it starts, but won't boot.  

Got a repair or installation disk that came with it? Seems like it's missing the hard drive or CD-DVD ROM.

@havok If I did have one, it was a long time ago.  This may need a trip to the local PC repair shop.

@gilgamesh Try this exe that I found on my backups
https://vgap.innernet.co.za/wp-content/uploads/winplan3.5.84.zip

@bitmask I'll play around with it but at first glance, it looks GREAT - thank you!!!

@bitmask I'm loving using this original version, thank you!  The only thing I'm noticing is that the planet build buttons don't seem to map and properly.  Scrolling through the planets, the build panel will sometimes disappear, and buying 10 factories might result in selling 10 supplies instead.  It may just be incentive to get my randmax.ini working properly again - it's definitely my favourite version so far.

Tried running BitMask's 3.6.63 that was in my archive folder and got a missing spin32.ocx file error. According to my saved notes 3.6.63 has the missing OCX files needed. Installing for the first time on Windows 10 added them to my C:\Windows\SysWOW64 directory. Later when moving around in Winplan32's UI, I got an error that MSSTDFMT.DLL was missing. Found that also in my archive along with an instructions.txt.

Search for the MSSTDFMT.DLL on your computer; in this case, it was found in the directory “C:Windows\SysWOW64”

1) login as the user.
2) Run “cmd” as Administrator.
3) In the “cmd” window from the directory “C:\Windows\SysWOW64” run “regsvr32 /u msstdfmt.dll” (if you do not run this first it does not work)
4) Then run “regsvr32 msstdfmt.dll”

I had to move my saved MSSTDFMT.DLL to the SysWOW64 directory. Moved over my VPWORKS folders and it looks like Blitzkrieg!, No Frills 130, and Power Game 3 were the last games I played. Echoview still works on Windows 10 with no fuss. Tried to recreate the "buying factories, selling supplies instead" and couldn't on 3.6.63.

Thanks for the feedback Andor. That selling supplies instead of buying factories is a bug in the first Winplan32 release that still look like the original Winplan. So if you want to play original Winplan on Windows 10 you have to keep that in mind.

Not all the OCX files are part of the latest Windows releases anymore, which is why you have to add them now.

I was busy a few months ago with a Winplan version that removed many of the troublesome dependencies by swopping the old OCX from VB5 with newer controlls that are still installed with Windows 10/11, but I'm not really sure if it is worth the effort and if anybody still play with Winplan. Glad to hear some people are testing it out.