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I didn't know about WoW64 mode. I remember when trying to install an old windows program I had to install a bunch of 32-bit translation library for audio and st
by sbinnee 9mo ago
I didn't know about WoW64 mode. I remember when trying to install an old windows program I had to install a bunch of 32-bit translation library for audio and stuff. This WoW64 means that I can just simply use 64-bit arch. This is fabulous.
WoW64: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WoW64
- TMWNN 9mo agoIs the MacOS equivalent what was deprecated in Catalina, ending compatibility with 32-bit applications?
- kcb 9mo agoCrossover maintained compatibility with 32-bit windows applications even after Catalina. > https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2019/12/10/celebrating-the-difficult-the-release-of-crossover-19 https://www.codeweavers.com/blog/jwhite/2019/12/10/celebrati... Which is kind of funny because yet again windows was a better application in terms of longevity than MacOS native.
- wat10000 9mo agoIt's a bit different. WOW64 is a compatibility layer that intercepts calls into system libraries from 32-bit apps and translates them into calls to 64-bit libraries. macOS shipped both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of all system libraries, no translation involved.
- mr-ron 9mo agoSeems like also 16bit apps????
- throwaway2046 9mo agoYes, as of Wine 10.16 (the version number is a lucky coincidence!) 16-bit Windows applications can run on 64-bit Linux without any special libraries.
- wat10000 9mo agoApparently the real WOW64 doesn’t, but WINE’s version of it does. Wow indeed.
- TMWNN 9mo agoSo Microsoft continues to support something that is presumably harder to maintain than Apple just continuing to ship existing 32-bit libraries?
- wat10000 9mo agoI’m not very familiar with the Windows side, but it sounds harder to create but easier to maintain. Once the 32->64 translation shims are implemented, you’re done. They’ll keep working. If you’re not adding new 32-bit APIs then there’s no more work to be done. Maintaining a parallel set of libraries means each change has to work on both targets.
- yshui 9mo agoIt's a bit different. WoW64 is the technology used to run 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. Wine has support WoW64 for a long time. The difference is the "old" wine WoW64 mode required 32-bit libraries on the host side, whereas this "new" WoW64 mode doesn't.
- MarsIronPI 9mo agoI remember I was using Gentoo when I first tried WoW64. I tried it because I didn't feel like compiling all those 32bit libraries. And it turned out that Wine's WoW64 mode worked just fine. It was really handy.