3 ms·

Unreasonable backward compatibility is how we end up with windows vista

by tonmoy 4y ago

musicale 4y ago
Windows Vista was painful, but consider that: 1) Compatibility wise it wasn't worse than macOS Catalina or iOS 11, which both killed off 32-bit apps; actually a typical iOS release is probably worse than Vista in terms of backward compatibility 2) Vista's security improvements (such as sandboxing device drivers, requiring app permissions, etc.) were beneficial and persist to today – and were arguably the predecessor to modern app permissions systems in macOS and iOS (and Windows 10/11) 2a) Microsoft eventually largely addressed compatibility by providing an XP compatibility mode (really an XP VM); they could have/should have managed this better 3) Vista got the UI for app permissions wrong, and users hated it; I think Apple did it better but Apple is generally better at UI and also had the chance to learn from Microsoft's mistakes. At the end of the day, Vista's woes were largely from not paying enough attention to backward compatibility, combined with poor UI design. It was a rough transition, but Microsoft seems to have learned somewhat from the experience (although Windows 8 also had some UI issues.)
- scarface74 4y ago
  The tradeoff with killing 32 bit apps was that Apple could remove support for 32 bit code in ARM processors. Apple knew they were moving to 64 bit ARM processors. But should Apple have kept support for PPC support forever? 68K? Why not keep a 65C02 emulator around so I can run Oregon Trail from the 80s?
  - musicale 4y ago
    > Why not keep a 65C02 emulator around so I can run Oregon Trail from the 80s? Sounds good to me! Pretty sure Apple 2 system software and an emulator would only be a few megabytes, and it would be awesome as something you could install for free like GarageBand etc.. Apple might also be able to acquire the rights to a bunch of classic Apple 2 apps and games... Maybe we can convince Apple to do it for their 50th birthday. Or maybe a Mac emulator for the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh in 2024. ;-)
int_19h 4y ago
Windows 7 had a better backwards compatibility story than Vista, and it's arguably the best version of Windows to date, ever. So whatever the problem was with Vista, it sure wasn't back-compat.

Unreasonable backward compatibility is how we end up with windows vista

by tonmoy 4y ago

Unreasonable backward compatibility is how we end up with windows vista

Windows Vista was painful, but consider that: 1) Compatibility wise it wasn't worse than macOS Catalina or iOS 11, which both killed off 32-bit apps; actually a typical iOS release is probably worse than Vista in terms of backward compatibility 2) Vista's security improvements (such as sandboxing device drivers, requiring app permissions, etc.) were beneficial and persist to today – and were arguably the predecessor to modern app permissions systems in macOS and iOS (and Windows 10/11) 2a) Microsoft eventually largely addressed compatibility by providing an XP compatibility mode (really an XP VM); they could have/should have managed this better 3) Vista got the UI for app permissions wrong, and users hated it; I think Apple did it better but Apple is generally better at UI and also had the chance to learn from Microsoft's mistakes. At the end of the day, Vista's woes were largely from not paying enough attention to backward compatibility, combined with poor UI design. It was a rough transition, but Microsoft seems to have learned somewhat from the experience (although Windows 8 also had some UI issues.)

scarface74 4y ago
The tradeoff with killing 32 bit apps was that Apple could remove support for 32 bit code in ARM processors. Apple knew they were moving to 64 bit ARM processors. But should Apple have kept support for PPC support forever? 68K? Why not keep a 65C02 emulator around so I can run Oregon Trail from the 80s?
- musicale 4y ago
  > Why not keep a 65C02 emulator around so I can run Oregon Trail from the 80s? Sounds good to me! Pretty sure Apple 2 system software and an emulator would only be a few megabytes, and it would be awesome as something you could install for free like GarageBand etc.. Apple might also be able to acquire the rights to a bunch of classic Apple 2 apps and games... Maybe we can convince Apple to do it for their 50th birthday. Or maybe a Mac emulator for the 40th anniversary of the Macintosh in 2024. ;-)

int_19h 4y ago

Windows 7 had a better backwards compatibility story than Vista, and it's arguably the best version of Windows to date, ever. So whatever the problem was with Vista, it sure wasn't back-compat.