@Hastur the only problem i see with the dosbox suggestion is that the dosbox developers explicitly stated that non-gaming applications are unsupported (something along the line why the community should provide free support for discontinued commercial software). this is why i requested OP to provide the software to see if it is working properly.

For programs that are supported by DOSBox, I am yet to hear one that perform worse than VirtualBox. Just compare the installer size, dosbox<10MB, virtualbox+win98>600MB. Which one will run more efficiently?