4 ms·

Because a large portion of Windows' target market is people who are technically unsophisticated, and who will blame Microsoft if an application misbehaves after

Because a large portion of Windows' target market is people who are technically unsophisticated, and who will blame Microsoft if an application misbehaves after a Windows upgrade (regardless of whether the application vendor is actually at fault), Microsoft goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure backwards compatibility, even to the point of adding dummy code that allows [poorly-written programs that abuse features in Windows X] to still work in Windows X + 1, even when those features aren't there anymore. - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030828-00/?p=42753 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030828-00/?p=42... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050118-00/?p=36673 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20050118-00/?p=36... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051026-44/?p=33613 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20051026-44/?p=33... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060109-27/?p=32723 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060109-27/?p=32... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060110-17/?p=32703 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20060110-17/?p=32... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070723-00/?p=25903 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070723-00/?p=25... - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20200526-00/?p=103794 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20200526-00/?p=10...

thunderbong 6y ago
Sometimes I wonder where the world of computers would have been if it had not been for Microsoft doing all this stuff! This is seriously next level of customer support, which we hardly get to appreciate, let alone know about.
taneq 6y ago
Notice that only one of those articles is set later than 2007, and that the one later article is about telling the customer to buck up and deal with the broken backwards compatibility. They had an incredible focus on backwards compatibility. That no longer seems to be the case.
- smileybarry 6y ago
  They still do. I have Win95 games that were broken in WinXP but started working in Win7 x64, or ones that broke in Win7 x64 and started working again in Win10.
  - worble 6y ago
    I'm having the opposite experience, I tried playing an old DirectX 9 game the other day and it was unplayable in Windows. It did at least boot and menus worked fine, but for some reason for another the framerate in-game was so low it was unplayable. A few days later I tried it on my linux machine with Wine and it was perfect (thank god for DXVK).
    - garaetjjte 6y ago
      dgVoodoo is great for old DirectX games: http://dege.freeweb.hu/ http://dege.freeweb.hu/
  - 48bb-9a7e-dc4f2 6y ago
    "Works for me (TM)" Windows Desktop Evangelism playbook hasn't changed since 2000.
  - merb 6y ago
    thats not true, plenty of games needed win 10 support. like blizzard games (diablo (2), warcraft (3), etc.) and many others even age of empires 1/2 needed to support windows 10 via patches and did not work out of the box.
    - smileybarry 6y ago
      It definitely varies by game, but that's always been the case. One of the games I mentioned was broken by XP but fixed by Windows 7.
- ethbr0 6y ago
  The Windows 2000 / ME debacle appeared to be the breaking point when Microsoft realized they needed to adopt a more Apple-like approach to evolving the platform. Perfect backwards compatibility means a perfect inability to fix any mistakes of the past. With UAC and WDM -> WDF, they finally established an intent to deprecate older (and insecure / poorly-designed) functionality. That said, imho, the user-mode / UI/X compatibility is an absolute !*&$ show with respect to predictability. Especially in the "utility program -> app" transition, wherein the latter still aren't feature-complete. Whoever PMs over those teams should be fired.
  - taneq 6y ago
    By curious coincidence, Windows just threw me this: https://i.imgur.com/iUWoHOw.png https://i.imgur.com/iUWoHOw.png It's disabled the VirtualBox install that I've been running for a year or so with no issues, on the basis that it's "old software". This certainly shows the true face of the new Microsoft.

thunderbong 6y ago

Sometimes I wonder where the world of computers would have been if it had not been for Microsoft doing all this stuff! This is seriously next level of customer support, which we hardly get to appreciate, let alone know about.

taneq 6y ago

Notice that only one of those articles is set later than 2007, and that the one later article is about telling the customer to buck up and deal with the broken backwards compatibility. They had an incredible focus on backwards compatibility. That no longer seems to be the case.

smileybarry 6y ago
They still do. I have Win95 games that were broken in WinXP but started working in Win7 x64, or ones that broke in Win7 x64 and started working again in Win10.
- worble 6y ago
  I'm having the opposite experience, I tried playing an old DirectX 9 game the other day and it was unplayable in Windows. It did at least boot and menus worked fine, but for some reason for another the framerate in-game was so low it was unplayable. A few days later I tried it on my linux machine with Wine and it was perfect (thank god for DXVK).
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    dgVoodoo is great for old DirectX games: http://dege.freeweb.hu/ http://dege.freeweb.hu/
- 48bb-9a7e-dc4f2 6y ago
  "Works for me (TM)" Windows Desktop Evangelism playbook hasn't changed since 2000.
- merb 6y ago
  thats not true, plenty of games needed win 10 support. like blizzard games (diablo (2), warcraft (3), etc.) and many others even age of empires 1/2 needed to support windows 10 via patches and did not work out of the box.
  - smileybarry 6y ago
    It definitely varies by game, but that's always been the case. One of the games I mentioned was broken by XP but fixed by Windows 7.
ethbr0 6y ago
The Windows 2000 / ME debacle appeared to be the breaking point when Microsoft realized they needed to adopt a more Apple-like approach to evolving the platform. Perfect backwards compatibility means a perfect inability to fix any mistakes of the past. With UAC and WDM -> WDF, they finally established an intent to deprecate older (and insecure / poorly-designed) functionality. That said, imho, the user-mode / UI/X compatibility is an absolute !*&$ show with respect to predictability. Especially in the "utility program -> app" transition, wherein the latter still aren't feature-complete. Whoever PMs over those teams should be fired.
- taneq 6y ago
  By curious coincidence, Windows just threw me this: https://i.imgur.com/iUWoHOw.png https://i.imgur.com/iUWoHOw.png It's disabled the VirtualBox install that I've been running for a year or so with no issues, on the basis that it's "old software". This certainly shows the true face of the new Microsoft.