working game list?
 

Can one play most adventure games on the newer PCs? What older games can be played on the newer PCs etc?

By now you almost always need special tools to get games from the dos era to work properly. The dos emulator DOSBox seems to work wondrously well (never tried it myself, though). I personally use VMDSound for almost all my dos game needs. The dedicated interpreter ScummVM does a significant and growing number of classic adventure games very well.

Yes, I've not yet had a DOS game I couldn't get to work using one of those (and I don't know much about computers). Stuff from the wrong brand of windows on the other hand can be a gyp.

Right now i'm going through The Monkey Island series and Gabriel Knight series using DOSbox and ScummVM.
Works like a charm :)

Actually, I found these new installers for Gabriel Knight 1+2, which actually lets you install without going through dosbox or scummvm.
Now if I could just remember where i found them...?

Those are Hendroz's installers. Just search the Hints forum for Gabriel Knight Installer (or something similar). They have been linked to many times in there (and once in a while in the Adventure forum too). :)
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@ fishcube:

When it comes to the mid 90's games, some of them work without any tweaking (if you are using XP). Others require using compatibility mode and other tweaks. It's a game by game thing.

I've used this site a few times: XP Game List: Inferno's adventures. For the tricky games, it has a step-by-step list of what you need to do.

Now if you're using Vista, then the XP list won't work. Look through the Hints forum to see if others have found solutions for the older games (and some of the newer ones too. :P).

So, I can't use any 90's games with Vista ??? not good. Since I have a Vista notebook coming soon.

There has to be a fix or something to make them work?

The majority will still work on Vista, but there are some that either don't or can be difficult to get running properly. (Still Life comes to mind as one title that some people can get to work on Vista, but a lot of people cannot)

Anyone have a list of games that do work with Vista?

VDMS is a dead project and is limited by hugely imperfect NTVDM, which is missing all together from any 64 bit versions of Windows. I'm not even sure that VDMS will work in Vista. You will also be subject to speed issues. DOSBox is to only reasonable solution for DOS (and Win 3x, now that it can be installed in DOSBox) games on modern PCs.

The difficulty is with the Win9x only games. If you can't get them to run with the usual tools, like Compatibility Mode, you are stuck with using an emulator/virtualizer, but you still need Windows 9x to install in it. Audio quality in these usually leaves a lot to be desired, compared to DOSBox's. Note that Windows 95 can be run in some developer builds of DOSBox, even though it is not officially supported.