Alex Ionescu, one of the lead developers behind the ReactOS project, has published a detailed article on the XP/Vista application compatibility system. "For the last few days, I've been intimately becoming aquainted with a piece of technology in Windows XP and Vista that rarely gets the attention it deserves. It has raised my esteem and admiration towards Microsoft ten fold, and I feel it would be wise to share it, publicize it, and then of course, find (positive) ways to exploit it to turn it into a powerful backend for various purposes."
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Member since:2005-07-06
"Windows 95 finally brought the era of application specific behaviour of the OS: To get Sim City work under '95, it had to be allowed to re-use previously free'd memory."
And if SimCity hadn't worked under Windows 95, people like you would be accusing Microsoft of breaking applications on purpose to get a competitive advantage.
What is the more clever and foresighted solution?
Backwards compatibility, even if implemented as an ugly hack, is the single biggest reason why Windows is so dominant today.
Member since:2006-01-16
No I wouldn't have had. And I guess it would've been patched, too.
The more clever and foresighted solution is to have a versioned API with indication wich version breaks previous versions. Old versions can live side-by-side to new ones.
You're right that backwards-compatibility is one of the key factors for Window's success. It's just these times are over. MS should have taken the opportunity to break with all the old stuff with Vista, but now, things are still getting worse and worse.
Member since:2007-04-29
> What is the more clever and foresighted solution?
patching the app! why the hell would you make a change like that to the os when you can also ship a directory called "patches for old apps" with your install-cd? it's not rocket science, you patch the app, not the os for wierd bugs.
Member since:
2006-01-16
Sorry, but I'm not impressed. This is nothing more than a bad substitution for a more clever and foresighted solution of the problem.
Microsoft did this already under DOS, with the infamous "setver" command. They originated the need of setver themselves, using undocumented OS hooks in their own applications to gain advantage from competition.
Windows 95 finally brought the era of application specific behaviour of the OS: To get Sim City work under '95, it had to be allowed to re-use previously free'd memory.
They had this mess all the time and apparantly never learnd from it..