11 ms·

I'm no Windows fan, but this is not an accurate portrayal (d'oh!). Microsoft has historically put a huge amount of effort in (backwards) compatibility. Here's

I'm no Windows fan, but this is not an accurate portrayal (d'oh!). Microsoft has historically put a huge amount of effort in (backwards) compatibility. Here's a famous example: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/windows-95-went-the-extra-mile-to-ensure-compatibility-of-simcity-other-games https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/10/windows-95-went-the-.... Related (sub) discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13450160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13450160. It's possible that they changed strategy recently, but there is a very long history of extraordinary (backwards) compatibility.

gerdesj 4y ago
Linux will shortly remove support for DECNet. That's deprecating something responsibly. Your SimCity example was an easy win and yet more wankery. They have not put a huge amount of work in compatibility. MS have done just enough always and only enough. That is precisely what a large commercial business would do and they did.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  I'm saying this as someone who does not care about Windows (or Microsoft) at all, and hasn't been using Windows besides maybe in a vm once a year for at least a decade now: To say they have done "just enough always and only enough" is massively underselling it to a level where it's basically wrong. Everyone who has been following Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing blog for some time knows the massive, quite impressive, and at times even "unreasonable" seeming work to keep things compatible. Especially, but not exclusively, in the Windows 95 days. Quite possibly that has changed in the last few years or even decade (I wouldn't know), but at least the claim that they never put a huge amount of work into compatibility is just not true. Here is just one of many articles that outlines some insanity that Windows did for compatibility, stuff where other OSes (including Linux, at least outside of the kernel) would have rightfully said that this software needs to be fixed instead: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160404-00/?p=93261 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160404-00/?p=93... - I found this one randomly after a cursory search, there were other articles that may prove the point even more. Raymond Chen did also state that the more things shifted to be "online", the more reasonable it became to let vendors fix issues with patches (often with MS's guidance) instead of doing insane tricks in the OS, but still: Credit where credit is due.
  - anyfoo 4y ago
    Moreover (replying to myself here), compatibility was explicitly stated as a goal. Keeping existing software running got people to upgrade to the new OS (at a time where almost every major OS version had to be bought), and to not abandon the OS line for another incompatible one. Back when there was no "web" as a unifying platform. So yes, of course that was based on business and likely no other reason. People after all will certainly argue that at lot of the cruft makes things worse, not better; it took a long time to get rid of most of MS-DOS for one thing, and I bet there's still mountains of other ancient remnants that get in the way. But to say that MS has not put "a huge amount of work [into] compatibility" is just distorting history. For better or for worse, compatibility seemed to have been one of the core principles for quite some time.
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    Even Apple, who is notorious for not caring about backwards compatibility, does these kinds of backwards compatibility fixes in the OS https://worthdoingbadly.com/appkitcompat/ https://worthdoingbadly.com/appkitcompat/ But the lengths to which Microsoft has historically gone to for backwards compatibility have been legendary - if decades-old internal corporate apps for which the source was lost 10 years ago don't work on the latest Windows, they don't get all that sweet upgrade license revenue. It's their bread and butter.
tmccrary55 4y ago
historically You're not wrong but we're in a whole new game these days.
- sandworm101 4y ago
  And the pendulum will swing back. In a few years MS may go back to its old tricks. Nothing that company does has ever been consistent from one decade to the next. For anything expected to "just work" for more than a handful of years, MS is not a reliable partner.
monocasa 4y ago
'Recently' meaning about the past 10 years or so. Windows 8 broke a lot of software for me that runs in Wine.
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  In 2016 I was asked to install some software on a WinSvr2012R2. I was forced to install it on my Win8.1 tablet first, because the 16-bit stub didn't work on x64 2012R2. After install I copied the files to the server and the software brazenly showed "XXX for Windows 95" in the Help->About. On a 2012R2 x64 server. In the year 2016. There was (and is) a lot of shit which developers did wrong (including writing directly to C:\WINDOWS). Yet if they did stick to the basics (GDI output and so on) that worked for decades. I abandoned Corel PhotoPaint 3 (with (c) 1992) only after moving to Vista in 2008.
  - BlueTemplar 4y ago
    Yeah, I have Windows 98 in a VirtualBox for those 32 bit programs using a 16 bit installer...
    - justsomehnguy 4y ago
      Hah! That's even better (and you can have snapshots and all benefits of VM), but in case you don't know - for InstallShield stubs there are replacements which allows the installer to run on WOW64 systems.
- Arainach 4y ago
  [[Citation Needed]]. Other than 16-bit software on 64-bit Windows, do you have an example?
  - monocasa 4y ago
    A lot of games, Red Alert 2 off the top of my head. Never got it running even in compatibility mode and changing the bit depth.
mark-r 4y ago
I read somewhere (probably Raymond Chen's blog) that there were different camps at Microsoft. One recognized that backwards compatibility was a very powerful feature. The other thought that there had to be a limit, infinite compatibility was too great a tax to pay forever. The camps have traded power and influence over the years. Personally I think compatibility has been a huge boon for Microsoft. If you need to throw everything away and start over, why would you stick with Windows?
leshow 4y ago
What's inaccurate about it? You don't think MS is motivated by profit?

gerdesj 4y ago

Linux will shortly remove support for DECNet. That's deprecating something responsibly. Your SimCity example was an easy win and yet more wankery. They have not put a huge amount of work in compatibility. MS have done just enough always and only enough. That is precisely what a large commercial business would do and they did.

anyfoo 4y ago
I'm saying this as someone who does not care about Windows (or Microsoft) at all, and hasn't been using Windows besides maybe in a vm once a year for at least a decade now: To say they have done "just enough always and only enough" is massively underselling it to a level where it's basically wrong. Everyone who has been following Raymond Chen's The Old New Thing blog for some time knows the massive, quite impressive, and at times even "unreasonable" seeming work to keep things compatible. Especially, but not exclusively, in the Windows 95 days. Quite possibly that has changed in the last few years or even decade (I wouldn't know), but at least the claim that they never put a huge amount of work into compatibility is just not true. Here is just one of many articles that outlines some insanity that Windows did for compatibility, stuff where other OSes (including Linux, at least outside of the kernel) would have rightfully said that this software needs to be fixed instead: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160404-00/?p=93261 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20160404-00/?p=93... - I found this one randomly after a cursory search, there were other articles that may prove the point even more. Raymond Chen did also state that the more things shifted to be "online", the more reasonable it became to let vendors fix issues with patches (often with MS's guidance) instead of doing insane tricks in the OS, but still: Credit where credit is due.
- anyfoo 4y ago
  Moreover (replying to myself here), compatibility was explicitly stated as a goal. Keeping existing software running got people to upgrade to the new OS (at a time where almost every major OS version had to be bought), and to not abandon the OS line for another incompatible one. Back when there was no "web" as a unifying platform. So yes, of course that was based on business and likely no other reason. People after all will certainly argue that at lot of the cruft makes things worse, not better; it took a long time to get rid of most of MS-DOS for one thing, and I bet there's still mountains of other ancient remnants that get in the way. But to say that MS has not put "a huge amount of work [into] compatibility" is just distorting history. For better or for worse, compatibility seemed to have been one of the core principles for quite some time.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  Even Apple, who is notorious for not caring about backwards compatibility, does these kinds of backwards compatibility fixes in the OS https://worthdoingbadly.com/appkitcompat/ https://worthdoingbadly.com/appkitcompat/ But the lengths to which Microsoft has historically gone to for backwards compatibility have been legendary - if decades-old internal corporate apps for which the source was lost 10 years ago don't work on the latest Windows, they don't get all that sweet upgrade license revenue. It's their bread and butter.

tmccrary55 4y ago

historically You're not wrong but we're in a whole new game these days.

sandworm101 4y ago
And the pendulum will swing back. In a few years MS may go back to its old tricks. Nothing that company does has ever been consistent from one decade to the next. For anything expected to "just work" for more than a handful of years, MS is not a reliable partner.

monocasa 4y ago

'Recently' meaning about the past 10 years or so. Windows 8 broke a lot of software for me that runs in Wine.

justsomehnguy 4y ago
In 2016 I was asked to install some software on a WinSvr2012R2. I was forced to install it on my Win8.1 tablet first, because the 16-bit stub didn't work on x64 2012R2. After install I copied the files to the server and the software brazenly showed "XXX for Windows 95" in the Help->About. On a 2012R2 x64 server. In the year 2016. There was (and is) a lot of shit which developers did wrong (including writing directly to C:\WINDOWS). Yet if they did stick to the basics (GDI output and so on) that worked for decades. I abandoned Corel PhotoPaint 3 (with (c) 1992) only after moving to Vista in 2008.
- BlueTemplar 4y ago
  Yeah, I have Windows 98 in a VirtualBox for those 32 bit programs using a 16 bit installer...
  - justsomehnguy 4y ago
    Hah! That's even better (and you can have snapshots and all benefits of VM), but in case you don't know - for InstallShield stubs there are replacements which allows the installer to run on WOW64 systems.
Arainach 4y ago
[[Citation Needed]]. Other than 16-bit software on 64-bit Windows, do you have an example?
- monocasa 4y ago
  A lot of games, Red Alert 2 off the top of my head. Never got it running even in compatibility mode and changing the bit depth.

mark-r 4y ago

I read somewhere (probably Raymond Chen's blog) that there were different camps at Microsoft. One recognized that backwards compatibility was a very powerful feature. The other thought that there had to be a limit, infinite compatibility was too great a tax to pay forever. The camps have traded power and influence over the years. Personally I think compatibility has been a huge boon for Microsoft. If you need to throw everything away and start over, why would you stick with Windows?

leshow 4y ago

What's inaccurate about it? You don't think MS is motivated by profit?