Announcement

ArcView 3.x is not supported on Windows Vista
See:  http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleshow&d=31074

ArcView 3.x is not supported on Windows Vista and ESRI does not plan to offer any patches to allow it to be supported.

HOWEVER, several people have reported that ArcView 3.x does run on Windows Vista.  There are 2 general problems that I am aware of:

1) ArcView 3.x cannot be "certified" for Windows Vista.  The reason is that the development software used to create ArcView 3.x is obsolete and has not, nor will it ever be, updated to Vista.  Therefore ESRI cannot update ArcView 3.x without rewriting it completely from scratch.

2) The help files do not run on Windows Vista because they require an obsolete version of the help file display program called "WinHlp32.exe".  This program is not included with Windows Vista (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917607).  HOWEVER, you can download this program for free from Microsoft and install it yourself (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=82148).

THEREFORE, it appears that with a little tweaking, ArcView 3.x will still run under Windows Vista.  It just will not be "certified".

Windows 7

Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate include an option for a Virtual version of Windows XP (called XP Mode).  If your computer hardware can support virtual operating systems, then you can install and run ArcView 3.x just fine in XP mode.