Now how many people understand the reference in the title. I don't know if it something that is still done today, but it was a big deal when we moved from Win16 to Win32. I essentially allowed 16bit applications to run on a 32bit Windows machine.
Today I was reminded of this as I removed Windows 7 64bit from my machine because certain applications still do not work on that platform. Event through 64bit processors and even operating systems have been around for a while they still haven't achieved critical mass. This means that for a while yet we will still be playing Russian Roulette when we install Win7 64bit.
For me, I spent the afternoon rebuilding my system on 32bit Windows 7 because of one incompatibility that was risking my project. That doesn't mean that there is something wrong with the platform. It is just ahead of its time. I'm sure I'll be re-installing it soon enough.