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0 pointscommandar8y ago0 comments

It's hard enough to get enterprise customers to stay current when they do provide legacy support. Fighting with IE version compatibility, for example, is still a daily, very real issue for enterprise size organizations.

Blame the customers. Microsoft never would have captured the marketshare they have if they didn't cater to them.

0 comments

DaiPlusPlus8y ago

Microsoft does deserve some blame for deciding to support backwards-compatibility in-situ instead of introducing proper API versioning, packaging, isolation, and other proven techniques. Win32 wasn't versioned for processes until Windows 7 (using app.manifest) even though the need for such as system was blatantly obvious during the Windows 2000 days.

commandarOP8y ago

Sure, that's valid.

But most of the real nightmare scenarios I've heard related to backwards compatibility have more to do with third-parties doing things they were never supposed to do.

Things like hitting private, undocumented APIs. Or checking the Windows version with a "9x" wildcard, giving us the jump from W8 to W10 over a decade later.

Microsoft has made their own mistakes, but supporting the mistakes of third parties has been absolutely vital to them keeping their core customer base.

DaiPlusPlus8y ago

All of those scenarios you describe can be solved with appropriate application sandboxing and shimming.

I don't personally believe the "Windows 9" story - if a program is old enough to feel the need to check for Windows 95/98 then it should already be fine to run under Windows' own app-compat layer which spoofs the Windows version string anyway. I believe it's marketing-based out of fear consumers would see "MacOS 10 vs Windows 9" (like how it was PlayStation 3 vs Xbox 2 - hence "Xbox 360").

3 more replies

ClassyJacket8y ago

" Or checking the Windows version with a "9x" wildcard, giving us the jump from W8 to W10 over a decade later."

This is just a rumor made up on reddit. It's completely false. Windows returns its version number as a series of integers. And even if it was a string, they could've just called it "Windows Nine".

1 more reply

tremon8y ago

Things like hitting private, undocumented APIs

That's entirely Microsoft's fault too: they made internal APIs accessible to applications, and did not provide comprehensive documentation on the full features of their public API.

The latter means that application developers were forced to just guess what a function could do. And since no API performs proper input validation, undocumented usage became the norm.

1 more reply

UnoriginalGuy8y ago

> Microsoft does deserve some blame for deciding to support backwards-compatibility in-situ instead of introducing proper API versioning, packaging, isolation, and other proven techniques.

They did, in Windows 8. It is called Metro/Modern/UWP. Everyone hates it.

tjalfi8y ago

My employer has an application that requires IE5 compatibility mode. We are a version behind and will be upgrading it this year. The sad thing is that the new version uses Silverlight.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

DaiPlusPlus8y ago

commandarOP8y ago

Sure, that's valid.

But most of the real nightmare scenarios I've heard related to backwards compatibility have more to do with third-parties doing things they were never supposed to do.

Things like hitting private, undocumented APIs. Or checking the Windows version with a "9x" wildcard, giving us the jump from W8 to W10 over a decade later.

Microsoft has made their own mistakes, but supporting the mistakes of third parties has been absolutely vital to them keeping their core customer base.

DaiPlusPlus8y ago

All of those scenarios you describe can be solved with appropriate application sandboxing and shimming.

3 more replies

ClassyJacket8y ago

" Or checking the Windows version with a "9x" wildcard, giving us the jump from W8 to W10 over a decade later."

This is just a rumor made up on reddit. It's completely false. Windows returns its version number as a series of integers. And even if it was a string, they could've just called it "Windows Nine".

1 more reply

tremon8y ago

Things like hitting private, undocumented APIs

That's entirely Microsoft's fault too: they made internal APIs accessible to applications, and did not provide comprehensive documentation on the full features of their public API.

The latter means that application developers were forced to just guess what a function could do. And since no API performs proper input validation, undocumented usage became the norm.

1 more reply

UnoriginalGuy8y ago

> Microsoft does deserve some blame for deciding to support backwards-compatibility in-situ instead of introducing proper API versioning, packaging, isolation, and other proven techniques.

They did, in Windows 8. It is called Metro/Modern/UWP. Everyone hates it.

tjalfi8y ago

My employer has an application that requires IE5 compatibility mode. We are a version behind and will be upgrading it this year. The sad thing is that the new version uses Silverlight.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse