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They probably can't remove it as long as they have Win32. Real Windows programs sometimes do things like fopen("con") or CreateFile("nul", ...) for the same rea
by rossy 8y ago
They probably can't remove it as long as they have Win32. Real Windows programs sometimes do things like fopen("con") or CreateFile("nul", ...) for the same reason a program might open /dev/null or /dev/tty on Linux. I guess you could ask why Microsoft didn't remove this feature when they created Win32, or why they still allow forms like "C:\dir\nul.txt".
- mcv 8y agoBut even so, why hasn't Win32 supported \dev\con since forever? Then programs could use that and the old stupid way could be phased out.
- mishac 8y agoYou'd have to modify and recompile the old programs, which may not be possible.
- mcv 8y agoNo you don't. Run them in compatibility mode. You often need to do that anyway. A _lot_ changed between PC-DOS 1 and Windows 10. It's ridiculous that this didn't.
- ygra 8y agoCompatibility mode applies to processes, though, which raises a problem with batch files (or scripts) that use those things, as you'd then have to make cmd always run in compatibility mode (or Python, or Perl, etc.).
- mcv 8y agoI don't think Python and Perl existed back then. You do have a point with batch files. Well, maybe some sort of compatibility mode should exist for them too.
- anticensor 8y agoThey could have moved those into NFPS root.