How to get old XP programs to run smoothly on Surface Pro 3?

Have you tried running the programs in the built-in virtual machine, AKA Hyper-V?
http://everythingsurface.org/how-to-set-up-a-virtual-machine-with-your-surface-pro

Get him to upgrade those programs for newer versions that are supported, or replace them with alternatives that work under newer OS's. There's no point being nostalgic and keeping everything that is outdated.

100questions,  just a thought
what type of programs? Graphics intensive?
 It could also be possible that your Surface Pro 3? SSD is struggling?
Is this a 32 bit or x64 bit ?
How much storage is on your SSD?
windows 8 or windows 8.1
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-au/products/surface-pro-3
Graphics play a big part of smooth usage.
Graphics (integrated)Intel
SSD.<<  may need defragging?
As this surface pro should have the Trim enabled automatically, but possibly it is running maintenance. Optimizing the SSD... Trim etc.
You can force Windows 8 (and Windows 8.1) to evaluate your disks to see if you have an SSD by simply running the WINSAT (Windows System assessment) Tool.
http://www.urtech.ca/2013/12/solved-how-to-run-winsat-in-windows-8-1/
Defragging an SSD on windows 8
http://www.urtech.ca/2013/12/solved-windows-8-and-defraging-ssds/

Surface 3 is likely not fast enough to handle the load.
Windows 8 like windows 7 tends to run most XP programs without any issue. The ones with the issue, using XP Mode in windows 7 works pretty good.. If not perfect. But the Surface, is really just a glorified tablet, which isn't quite strong enough to run most PC based applications.

Keep in mind a surface pro 3 that is an I7 with 8GB DDR3 should run this no problem in compatibility mode.. Where as a Surface Pro 3 with the I3 processor and 4GB DDR3 will struggle..

You get what you pay for..
Ultimately, if you are intending to use this software across the board, upgrade the software, however, if you using this software on one persons tablet, you could optionally use better hardware. (If you are using the bargain version)

It is no performance problem, no indication yet, at least. We are talking about programs with incompatibilities.
Virtualize an instance of xp and you'll do just fine. Or abandon these old softwares.

The problem with virtualization is that you'll need an extra License for the virtual OS, and that would only be a another workaround. Replacing that software is much more future oriented.

Rindi, McKnife, There are certain pieces of software that do not upgrade, at my office we run a few that were DOS based that were/are not currently made for anything other then dos, as a result, there is no upgrade available. So sometimes you have to just work with what you have available. That being the case, i have been able to get them to run natively with a little work in windows 7 without the need for Dosbox or any other virtualization software. It took a bit of fiddling but, does work. Now mind you we also have software that was native to win2k that i needed to get to work in windows 8.1 but it didn' because the system i had available was not as strong as the 2k system. You ask how that is, and that's a fair question, but the OS size, and system availability caused the newer system to be slower then the older 2k desktop. Moving the same software to a PC running 8.1 proved that it was the hardware.

So while i agree, if there is an upgraded software, i would suggest the person here go that route, but, if there is no available upgrade to software, the best suggestion is to make sure the issue is not the hardware.. and work with what you have. It might take some finagling to get it to work, but with some time and patients it is possible..

But the main Question is, do you really still need that old software which doesn't have an upgrade? OS's older than XP have been unsupported for very long already, and for XP it was known since a couple of years that support would end at the beginning of this year, so there was plenty of time to look for a replacement application that runs natively on new OS's, rather than having to fiddle around with the old stuff to maybe get it working somehow on the new OS.

100questions, if that was solution please accept your own comment as solution.http:#a40477679
Well Done
regards Merete

it helped.