MSDos Applications slow in XP

Hi Everyone! I have a program that runs on ms-dos it work fine with the windows98 OS but since i upgraded my pc to xp then evertime i run the application it is so so slow and it took a long time, probably a minute, for the software to run.
Is it that xp is not supporting ms-dos base applications? or there are softwares that i need to download to atleast increase the processing.or there are special commands ? Help!!!

Thanks!!!!!!!

There are quite a few things you can do. First of all find the shortcut that launches the program, right-click and select "Properties". Let the Tabbed Dialog that pops up be your friend.

1. First of all, try out the Compatibility options on the Compatibility Tab. This Tab allows you to run your program under different compatibility modes. Select Windows 98 mode and try it out. You can also try playing with the 256 colour option.

2. If no improvement is observed, go to the "Misc" Tab and make sure the Background "Always suspend" Checkbox is NOT checked. The downside to this is that the DOS program will hog your PC which it is in focus or not.

3. You could also play with the options on the "Memory" Tab although programs will not run at all if the memory settings are not correct.

Strongly agree to DaLight .... u have to check for the compatibility tab to check whether u are running the program on the right base which is required