4 ms·

And these days, Windows is more about chasing the shiny than ensuring old applications run. I've had more luck with old Linux binaries running, myself.

by msla 4y ago

MomoXenosaga 4y ago
I disagree. Couldn't get Deadly premonition working. Windows recommended XP compatibility mode and it worked! All the 25 years of code is still in Windows 11 they just hide it with a lick of paint. If you want to play old games Microsoft is still your best bet.
- msla 4y ago
  > Couldn't get Deadly premonition working. Windows recommended XP compatibility mode and it worked! This just tells me Windows is on a level with Linux + Wine, with the compatibility mode. > All the 25 years of code is still in Windows 11 they just hide it with a lick of paint. That's not true. Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP.
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    Which is why you need a Dos Box to play DOS games.
    - tadfisher 4y ago
      That wasn't true for Windows XP, which shipped with the NT Virtual DOS Machine (ntvdm.dll). Unfortunately, this was dropped in 64-bit Windows and finally axed in Windows 10.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    You're welcome to try getting Deadly premonition working in Linux!
    - mrintegrity 4y ago
      I was about to gloat, as it's so cheap to buy, I thought it was a good opportunity to test Steam proton by selecting "enforce compatibility" which so far has worked for everything I threw at it (CIV V, hitman absolution, bunch of other obscure windows only titles). Initially happy as the install and intro ran fine, but pressing enter to skip the video exits the game immediately. Maybe that's further than you would expect, wine / proton is incredibly good nowadays, but still your point stands.
  - RajT88 4y ago
    > Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP. You mean the move to the NT platform, which made the consumer windows desktop OS finally stable. Compatibility features, while not perfect, were implemented to help try and get Win9x and DOS workloads to function normally. Some DOS apps ran fine on XP in compatibility mode, although I couldn't say what %.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    >Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP. Windows 11 is the latest member of the Windows NT family, which originates from Windows NT 3.1 which coincides with Windows 3.1. Windows NT 4.0, which coincides with Windows 95, is where things start to look more familiar to us today. Windows 2000 followed to coincide with Windows 98 and ME and is where the NT family really got consumer-aimed software working right with the integration of DirectX all the way up to DirectX 9. Windows XP which followed 2000 is really just 2000 with some more cleanup and QoL improvements. All the foundations were laid by the time of Windows 2000. So yes, "all the 25 years of code" are definitely still in Windows 11 under a lick of paint.
- jorvi 4y ago
  As the joke goes, Win32 is the Linux ABI. There are a lot of baffling decisions by Microsoft’s Windows division, but their extreme dedication towards backward compatibility is nothing short of Herculean. Sometimes I wish they’d split up Windows in an ultra-slow ‘Enterprise’ ring and a move-fast (think about the speed of macOS changes) ‘consumer’ ring, where they could drop much of the legacy cruft in trade for speedy/forced improvements. Think macOS going fully 64 bit, making the system image immutable, etc. Hell, imagine if they’d allowed the Xbox One, X and S to run Windows 11 in S mode. Instant cheap performant computer for the layperson! And with it running S mode, they’d make their money through the Microsoft Store.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
    Unfortunately for Microsoft, condumers are as wedded to legacy apps as enterprise customers are. A lot of Steam's library immediately vanishes if you lose 32-bit support for example.
  - anankaie 4y ago
    > ultra-slow ‘Enterprise’ ring and a move-fast (think about the speed of macOS changes) ‘consumer’ ring They do: Long-term Servicing Channel releases: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/ltsc-what-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/l...
moffkalast 4y ago
I wouldn't say so, for windows you can run the same built package on anything from 7 to 10 without too many issues, on linux trying to install a package that hasn't been released on the current OS version package manager repo feels like blasting your brains out. At least for Debian/Ubuntu. And the only fallback is to compile the entire thing yourself, because fuck me right? Like sure I understand that having specific packages for each version should make it reliably work, but the trade off and demand for devs to keep up is pretty huge.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  Usually tracking down old versions of libraries works, except when it doesn't of course. If the source is available, I think "just compile it" is kind of okay to be honest; it's usually not that hard, and if it is, then that's kind of a problem with that software's build system IMHO. I compiled xv from 1994 the other day on my Linux box; just has to make a tiny patch to fix an include (lots of warning, but it compiles and runs). That said, there's some room for improvement. For example pkg-config/pkgconf could automatically suggest which packages to install if "pkg-config --libs x11" fails, or some other distro-agnostic way for people to track down dependencies. If you're shipping a binary program without source (i.e. a game, for example, which tend to be closed source) you should ship the libraries or compile things statically. Some of the older Linux games on gog.com can be a bit tricky to run on modern systems due to this.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    > tracking down old versions of libraries works See that's the thing, everything on linux is designed to work by sideloading as much as possible, depending on thirty thousand packages that must be all installed to the perfect version by apt or else nothing works. A good system if you need to get a fully featured OS running on 100 MB of disk space, which tbf is linux's niche, but it's absolute horseshit to maintain. Windows on the other hand tends to have flatpak-style monolithic executables, with the odd .NET framework or cpp resdistrubutable here and there, but it's the rare exception. Things tend to actually work when they bundle their dependencies. Hell, the average Java app ships the JRE along with it because nothing works if the wrong version is installed globally. Linux just takes that problem as a fact of life and tells you to fuck off.

And these days, Windows is more about chasing the shiny than ensuring old applications run. I've had more luck with old Linux binaries running, myself.

by msla 4y ago

And these days, Windows is more about chasing the shiny than ensuring old applications run. I've had more luck with old Linux binaries running, myself.

MomoXenosaga 4y ago

I disagree. Couldn't get Deadly premonition working. Windows recommended XP compatibility mode and it worked! All the 25 years of code is still in Windows 11 they just hide it with a lick of paint. If you want to play old games Microsoft is still your best bet.

msla 4y ago
> Couldn't get Deadly premonition working. Windows recommended XP compatibility mode and it worked! This just tells me Windows is on a level with Linux + Wine, with the compatibility mode. > All the 25 years of code is still in Windows 11 they just hide it with a lick of paint. That's not true. Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP.
- ThunderSizzle 4y ago
  Which is why you need a Dos Box to play DOS games.
  - tadfisher 4y ago
    That wasn't true for Windows XP, which shipped with the NT Virtual DOS Machine (ntvdm.dll). Unfortunately, this was dropped in 64-bit Windows and finally axed in Windows 10.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  You're welcome to try getting Deadly premonition working in Linux!
  - mrintegrity 4y ago
    I was about to gloat, as it's so cheap to buy, I thought it was a good opportunity to test Steam proton by selecting "enforce compatibility" which so far has worked for everything I threw at it (CIV V, hitman absolution, bunch of other obscure windows only titles). Initially happy as the install and intro ran fine, but pressing enter to skip the video exits the game immediately. Maybe that's further than you would expect, wine / proton is incredibly good nowadays, but still your point stands.
- RajT88 4y ago
  > Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP. You mean the move to the NT platform, which made the consumer windows desktop OS finally stable. Compatibility features, while not perfect, were implemented to help try and get Win9x and DOS workloads to function normally. Some DOS apps ran fine on XP in compatibility mode, although I couldn't say what %.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  >Windows had a big, discontinuous shift when they abandoned the DOS-centric Windows codebase in the move to XP. Windows 11 is the latest member of the Windows NT family, which originates from Windows NT 3.1 which coincides with Windows 3.1. Windows NT 4.0, which coincides with Windows 95, is where things start to look more familiar to us today. Windows 2000 followed to coincide with Windows 98 and ME and is where the NT family really got consumer-aimed software working right with the integration of DirectX all the way up to DirectX 9. Windows XP which followed 2000 is really just 2000 with some more cleanup and QoL improvements. All the foundations were laid by the time of Windows 2000. So yes, "all the 25 years of code" are definitely still in Windows 11 under a lick of paint.
jorvi 4y ago
As the joke goes, Win32 is the Linux ABI. There are a lot of baffling decisions by Microsoft’s Windows division, but their extreme dedication towards backward compatibility is nothing short of Herculean. Sometimes I wish they’d split up Windows in an ultra-slow ‘Enterprise’ ring and a move-fast (think about the speed of macOS changes) ‘consumer’ ring, where they could drop much of the legacy cruft in trade for speedy/forced improvements. Think macOS going fully 64 bit, making the system image immutable, etc. Hell, imagine if they’d allowed the Xbox One, X and S to run Windows 11 in S mode. Instant cheap performant computer for the layperson! And with it running S mode, they’d make their money through the Microsoft Store.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  Unfortunately for Microsoft, condumers are as wedded to legacy apps as enterprise customers are. A lot of Steam's library immediately vanishes if you lose 32-bit support for example.
- anankaie 4y ago
  > ultra-slow ‘Enterprise’ ring and a move-fast (think about the speed of macOS changes) ‘consumer’ ring They do: Long-term Servicing Channel releases: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/ltsc-what-is-it-and-when-should-it-be-used/ba-p/293181 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-it-pro-blog/l...

moffkalast 4y ago

I wouldn't say so, for windows you can run the same built package on anything from 7 to 10 without too many issues, on linux trying to install a package that hasn't been released on the current OS version package manager repo feels like blasting your brains out. At least for Debian/Ubuntu. And the only fallback is to compile the entire thing yourself, because fuck me right? Like sure I understand that having specific packages for each version should make it reliably work, but the trade off and demand for devs to keep up is pretty huge.

Beltalowda 4y ago
Usually tracking down old versions of libraries works, except when it doesn't of course. If the source is available, I think "just compile it" is kind of okay to be honest; it's usually not that hard, and if it is, then that's kind of a problem with that software's build system IMHO. I compiled xv from 1994 the other day on my Linux box; just has to make a tiny patch to fix an include (lots of warning, but it compiles and runs). That said, there's some room for improvement. For example pkg-config/pkgconf could automatically suggest which packages to install if "pkg-config --libs x11" fails, or some other distro-agnostic way for people to track down dependencies. If you're shipping a binary program without source (i.e. a game, for example, which tend to be closed source) you should ship the libraries or compile things statically. Some of the older Linux games on gog.com can be a bit tricky to run on modern systems due to this.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  > tracking down old versions of libraries works See that's the thing, everything on linux is designed to work by sideloading as much as possible, depending on thirty thousand packages that must be all installed to the perfect version by apt or else nothing works. A good system if you need to get a fully featured OS running on 100 MB of disk space, which tbf is linux's niche, but it's absolute horseshit to maintain. Windows on the other hand tends to have flatpak-style monolithic executables, with the odd .NET framework or cpp resdistrubutable here and there, but it's the rare exception. Things tend to actually work when they bundle their dependencies. Hell, the average Java app ships the JRE along with it because nothing works if the wrong version is installed globally. Linux just takes that problem as a fact of life and tells you to fuck off.