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The funny part is, that is not the purpose at all any more. It was probably only for a handful of years that this trick was needed to "trick" programs which tho
by ploxiln 9y ago
The funny part is, that is not the purpose at all any more. It was probably only for a handful of years that this trick was needed to "trick" programs which thought they were saving a normal file and forcing the correct extension to actually use a printer or serial port. No one has used a printer or serial port by File -> Save As to "lpt.txt" in decades!
Now it's just because some code hidden away under 10s of layers a millions of lines in some obscure line-of-business applications is accidentally dependent on this quirk and "it works now" and no one will ever fix it.
- kevin_thibedeau 9y agoThis isn't an issue for contemporary human facing UIs. Somewhere there is guaranteed to be a crusty POS system still in use that is sending receipt data to LPT.TXT or AUX.TXT.
- flukus 9y agoThey could remove it in a new version of windows, that crusty POS system is going to be doing a lot of testing before they upgrade the version of windows it's running on. Even more likely is that they'll never upgrade from whatever ancient version they're using so it won't affect anyone. I think they just keep it because it feeds into the backwards compatibility myth that MS has built up.
- colejohnson66 9y agoOr they could just create a registry flag that enables the backwards compatible behavior. Then all default installs don't have the "bug", while those that need it can enable it.
- captainmuon 9y agoThey could probably make the new behavior opt-in in the application manifest. Without a manifest, you'll see pre-XP common controls, and GetVersion will return an old version, so every modern application has it anyway.
- dfox 9y agoI would not be that surprised if even in this year's version of some niche CADs the most sane way to print the drawing in correct scale on DesignJet is to export the document as 'PRN.HPG' or something similar.