5 ms·
One of the central reasons for Windows's success is backwards compatibility. 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications still work in Windows 10. There are countless teams
by marcoperaza 9y ago
One of the central reasons for Windows's success is backwards compatibility. 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications still work in Windows 10. There are countless teams at Microsoft whose sole purpose is to verify backwards compatibility with almost every piece of software that more than a handful of people are running.
Public API contracts are NEVER intentionally broken.
- TylerE 9y ago> 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications still work in Windows 10 No they don't, unless you're somehow running Windows 10 on a 32 bit machine. Been bitten a few times by programs bundled using ancient 16-bit InstallShield. It _does not_ work on Windows 10.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago“Somehow”? 32-bit Windows still exists.
- TylerE 9y agoIntel hasn't sold a 32bit chip in over 10 years.
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoYes, but machines with 64-bit CPUs are still being sold with 32-bit OSes for various reasons.
- saurik 9y agoOne reason being "to run my old 32-bit software".
- marcoperaza 9y agoYou are mistaken. 32 bit software runs flawlessly on 64 bit Windows.
- saurik 9y agoOh, sorry: I meant 16-bit software (which does not run flawlessly on 64-bit Windows but does run on 32-bit Window).
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoI assume you mean that it does not run at all. 64-bit Windows lacks NTVDM.
- userbinator 9y agoThese are still in production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Quark They're essentially a 486 core with some Pentium instructions added.
- catdog 9y agoWhile technically correct sth. like the Quark is probably not what he meant but some earlier models of the Atom lineup (<= 10y, 2008 onwards) are 32bit chips. There are chips released as late as 2011 [1] which lack 64 bit support. [1] http://ark.intel.com/products/55663/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z670-512K-Cache-1_50-GHz http://ark.intel.com/products/55663/Intel-Atom-Processor-Z67...
- mappu 9y agoNot only does it still exist, devices running 32-bit Windows 10 are still actively sold. I purchased one in 2016 (Intel compute stick) and another in 2017 (Ollee D1016W). Both have 64-bit capable Atom CPUs, but were deliberately shipped with a 32-bit userland (presumably to save on disk space).
- TazeTSchnitzel 9y agoYep. I bought a brand new Windows tablet, what, a year ago? It runs 32-bit Windows.
- voltagex_ 9y agoThe interesting thing about those (Z series Atom, right?) is they're 64 bit capable, but have a 32 bit UEFI environment.
- smt88 9y agoThat's a hardware issue, not a "Windows breaking the public API contract" issue. It's not really relevant to what GP was saying.
- blibble 9y agothat's not true, virtual 8086 mode is gone but you can still execute 16-bit programs fine Windows 10 running in 32-bit on 64-bit processors manages this without issue, so it can't be the hardware the real reason is they couldn't be bothered to work around some of the technical issues: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384249.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa384249.aspx
- xg15 9y agoI think the idea was to put the correctly-spelled version there in addition to the original one, the latter staying part of the public API.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago^ this, and later on removing it from the header files so nobody can accidentally use it (e.g. reading old documentation), but existing software can still call it.
- xxs 9y agoNo one talks of breaking existing functions/API calls. Deprecation is not the same as removal.
- hota_mazi 9y agoThe article makes it clear that the problem with renaming was not that it would break backward compatibility (because it was still a private API when this was considered) but that it would be painful to coordinate all the teams to make the change simultaneously.