Windows XP Support

I'm more concerned with new features and tech than I am security. Why do I want people off xp? So my job is easier and I can use flex for web layouts instead of messing with floats and grids and tables and other nonsense.

 

//facepalm.
Firefox. It still runs on WinXP.

People really should understand that software does not rot. Program is not a car and is not a race horse. It is eternal.
The closest real-world analogy is story in the book. Not the book itself, but the story. Book is hardware. Text is software. As long as hardware lives (and book's pages do not crumble to dust), software can work (and the text is readable).

 

Software may not rot but good luck getting hardware capable of running it. My dad and I have older games we enjoyed from the early days of Windows 98 SE. I can't remember the last time I had such a degree of trouble getting anything to boot it.

Closest I've come to getting it working on hardware was a Dell Dimension Pentium 4 computer. It booted but the hardware was having conflicts and Windows 98 SE was unable to rearrange all of the resources for the devices.

I've tried the latest Virtual Box but it complained about lacking drivers for that OS. Haven't got around to VMware yet.

 

Good analogy. Just like very few people can read and write in hieroglyphics, there is tonnes of software out there that cannot be maintained due to a lack of familiarity with ancient languages.

On one site I worked at we only forced an upgrade once the last person who knew how to programme the thing retired.

 

That is true.

Except that (AFAIK) Windows XP is not written using one of those languages.

 

Since almost nobody has access to the source then it may as well be...

The language that the OS is written in isn't really relevant, only the language of the custom software being run on it is, and then only if it has to be actively maintained.

 

True. I'm referring to old software in general. XP is difficult to develop for and maintain because many of the skills have been lost.

Writing software to run on Windows XP is harder today then on a modern OS.

 

Two years ago they released source for some of the really early MS-DOS versions. Give them half a century.

http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsoft-ms-dos-early-source-code/

 

We're talking about game engines here.
Initialize window, fire up graphic/sound api, and you're done.
Or use a framework that abstracts away the OS and work on top of that.

It is unwise to develop exclusively for window platform. You'd want cross-platform code that compiles for several platforms at once, without changes.

 

Got ya. We were actually talking about two different things.

 

If you were talking about "in general..."

For non-gaming software support on winxp:

User-level software (text editors, image editors and such): Same drill: grab cross-platform framework, than look for a compiler that can build it for WinXP. Pray that said compiler won't restrict you out of features you like in your language. (C++11/14 stuff, for example)

System-level platform-specific software (services, antivirus software, etc): Major pain in the a**. Huge differences in underlying api are possible, and it might be difficult to abstract those away.

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Windows 95/98 had notoriously bad support in all virtual machines few years ago (when I last tried that).

First, it makes sense to check if those are available on GOG.

If they aren't...
If those older games are really important to you, you could write proxy dlls for them that would redirect old-style system calls to new system calls. Someone might've actually done that. There were replacement drivers for Glide and other things.

That kind of thing won't work if the games are 16bit windows executables.

If they're dos executables, then DosBox should do the trick in most cases.

 

I always forget about GOG. The Journeyman Project series is on there. Weird ones like Obsidian aren't though.

Or Windows 3.x as that seems to work flawlessly under DOSBox.

 

Does 95 work as well? It wasn't until later when Microsoft finally killed Dos and replaced it with Windows. Under 95 there were still a bunch of games that required you to 'exit to dos' to play.

 

Yes, but there were problems with CD support if I recall correctly.

 

Win95 introduced 32bit exes, IIRC, those won't run under dosbox. 16bit games and dos mode games should work.

Dos support was killed off partially in win98 (IIRC that one featured dos emulator that could actually emulate graphics in the window. Slowly) and completley in WinXP.

 

Doesn't really help my perception of people on xp who still use ie

Sure it does, that's why it constantly needs updates. The rot is in the form of viruses, malware, exploits, etc. The oxidation causing the rust, the moisture / dryness causing the rot... is people.

Unless you're writing malware :3

@Ryiah you like firefox, right? Do you know of any css tricks that might cause severe performance issues on xp? I want to contribute to the suffering of xp machines.

 

Err, no. While over time new vulnerabilities may be discovered, software will always function in the way it was initially designed. Also see "isolated system" example from earlier.

 

- until you catch one of the viruses and need an update. For example, windows. I had a virus on xp back in the day. I can assure you that software was no longer functioning the way it was initially designed to, as the browsers could not reach any websites and a few folder directories erased themselves or became locked.

Things in an isolated system wouldn't rot then

 

That's an external entity affecting the software, not the fault of the software itself or a sign of the software deteriorating. I think what @neginfinity is trying to say is that the software itself doesn't just spontaneously lose durability because a few decades have passed. A windows 98 computer with base components installed will run Command and Conquer just as well as it would have in 1998, assuming the tech hasn't been damaged or whatnot. (Gah, I just freaking wish I had that in a corner somewhere)

Also, harking back to the "isolated system" example he gave, you would have to de-isolate the system in order to get a virus.

So that's something to think about .

 

Isn't that also true for the rot metaphor?

Would wood rot in a vacuum if a few decades past?

I am definitely making good use of my work break to try to pick apart random analogies made on the internet.

 

Once upon a time when it was still a young browser. These days I keep both Chrome and Firefox, as some sites are better under one than the other, but I'm not particularly fond of either of them.

 

No. Unless I'm mistaken (yea, and I usually am by the way) the rot metaphor states that software, in and of itself (that is without being tampered with in any way by user/virus) will not deteriorate or lose functionality. From a logic standpoint, that seems pretty sound to me. Though admittedly, I don't know operating system code very well at all. So I'm not an authority on this. Just a bewildered guest looking for the booze.

As far as I know, the specific bacteria/fungi required to decompose wood cannot survive in space. I don't know very far though. So don't ask me.

 

Have you considered making your own if neither pleases you?

This is kind of where I was getting at. I don't really know what's being said anymore, but I think saying software in an isolated system won't change is kind of pointless because what doesn't remind unchanged if it's isolated to the point that software is?

We already agreed viruses (which affect the OS) are excluded from the "isolated" software. So if the software is isolated from things affecting the OS, then it basically exists in a vacuum. And what in a vacuum without stimuli won't remain unchanged (besides living things, unstable elements, etc)?

I understand what's trying to be said, but some bits of me can't resist pointing this out.

That makes 18 of us.

 

Making my own Linux distribution would be less effort.

 

No, it has a USER that can interact with it. To infect a machine, you need network access or a way to plug an autoplay device into it. Remove that, and it is impossible to infect it and "vulnerabilities" no longer matter.

Keep in mind that it is entirely possible to run even winxp without antivirus software while never catching a virus. Basically, just apply same practices that are used on linux systems and put it behind a router with hardware firewall.

I don't think so.

 

This. I rarely bother with anti-virus on my machines because I simply don't visit or download anything untrustworthy.

For the extremely rare situations I need something analyzed I can pass it to VirusTotal.

 

Also...
IT is also possible to move documents/temp/appdata outside of drive C:, make a backup of drive C: (disk image), so even in case of trouble you'll be able to restore system to clean state in matter of minutes.

Frankly, I think people just keep repeating each other without understanding a thing. "Oh, it is vulnerable and bad and old!".... without ever saying which vulnerabilities they're talking about.

 

Can you please elaborate further on this? What makes Win10 so good for developers, exactly?

 

There are even software solutions, like Deep Freeze, that exist to automate the process for you. I've seriously thought about picking up a copy for the computer my niece and nephews like to use. Somehow they keep breaking the OS in weird ways.

Same reason that a console is generally easier to develop for than a PC. Between being the last release of Windows and forcing updates on the consumer a developer will no longer need to support potentially dozens of Windows variations.

 

(Edit: Beaten!)

My guess is that it's not so much the operating system itself as a combination of Microsoft's policy of forced updates their stated goal of this being the final major version - it will get incremental updates rather than major product refreshes.

While it'll take a while to get there, this means that we're moving towards just having one current version of Windows. In comparison, right now if we want to support "Windows" as software developers we generally need to support:
- Win 10
- Win 8.1
- Win 8
- Win 7
- Win Vista (maybe)
- Win XP (maybe)
- The various server variants of Windows (maybe)
- The various "service pack" or update levels that those versions of Windows all have

There are of course potential downsides to Microsoft's overall plan, but getting everyone onto a common version definitely has its plusses.

 

Sound good as developer, but as power user the forced updates is exactly the reason I don't plan to move to Win10 anytime soon. I might upgrade when there's a way to stop or control the forced updates. EDIT: apparently, there's already a method to control Windows 10 updates manually, as in previous Windows versions.

I see many troubles with forced updates:

• Using my bandwidth at their own criteria (I could live with this though).
• Rendering my computer useless for too much time regularly while installing updates (show stopper. I must be able to use my computer every time I sit in front of it).
• Shamelessly displaying annoying upgrade notifications if the user wants to re-schedule the updates.
• Adding / removing / modifying features anytime, without warning. What if MS decides to remove the Start menu again? Or you might get used to work with some tool or feature in some way, then it suddenly changes without warning, forcing you to learn it again wasting precious time, and it might even don't work as good as before.

And some speculations I can foresee in the mid-term future:

• Forcing you to watch video ads when logging in, or putting them in your desktop and/or start menu (you all know this will happen, as happens now in consoles)
• Introducing any new paradigm of using Windows whenever they get bored with the current one (as happened with Win8), forcing everyone to change their way of using Windows, no matter they want / like it or not.

Not to mention potential issues with upgrades that might crash the computer or even cause BSOD. Yes, unlikely, but it has already happened and will happen again.

This might be ok for home users, as with consoles, but to me as developer / power user is a major loss of control on my computer and a potential productivity issue to my work.

I don't think so. All you need for supporting any Windows is using a good development tool such as Unity, select "Windows" as target, and leave Unity devs take care of the details. Same with Mac OSX, Android (!), Linux (!! distros, versions, releases...)... That's a key feature we pay Unity for.

 

In my opinion "Latest and Greatest APIs" are likely to require new hardware as well, so there's no real advantage until people upgrade their hardware. A typical case I can think of is the graphic APIs. I think it's unlikely that a new API brings some spectacular new feature that couldn't be possible before with previous API in the same hardware.

 

Removing the agents that can cause change will prevent change? You don't say!

We agree.

A lot of us don't even want to use windows, we just need the software exclusive to it :/ I would have jumped ship already, but I NEED pdanet.

 

@Tautvydas Zilys, thank you very much for your thoughts on this. I'm still making an opinion on Win10. Just a couple of comments:

Time will tell. The same was also unthinkable on consoles some years ago. Now the XBox forcefully shows dedicated tiles to advertising (not to mention the extensive content announcements, which are also ads). Would you bet that ad tiles or content announcements won't be forcefully pushed to your start menu at least, at some point in the future? I wouldn't.

... very infrequently. Only when I change the graphics board, or some game I want to play with friends complains.
Last time I upgraded "just because there's a new WHQL version" the driver started crashing occasionally (1-2 times per week). The computer had never crashed for more than one year before the upgrade. Since then... "if works, don't touch it".

Also, there is an important difference: I choose if, when, and which graphic drivers to install. There's no choice when the updates are forced. If the update crashes, I can't do my work! Imagine that happening in the middle of an urgent project. This is a no-go to me.

 

Since windows 8 looked so much like the xbox desktop, I certainly wouldn't be surprised. "You can't fix stupid" -Ron White

As for the forced updates thing... hasn't happened to me yet. I read all over the internet how it was a possibility, but I guess it was a rumor / they decided against it.

 

Sneaky ninja updates

I think they happen when ever I shutdown/startup then, because I've used my computer for 20 hours strides so far and wasn't interrupted. I walk away when ever I shutdown/startup, so it seems likely it happens then if I haven't seen it.

 

You can do that for free with linux live cd (that has read/write ntfs support) and ntfsclone. Won't be automatic, of course, but that's pretty much dumping contents of /dev/hda into bz2/gz/7z archive.

 

http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-silently-uses-your-bandwidth-to-send-updates-to-others/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-churning-through-bandwidth-blowing-data-caps/

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3039...0-pushes-ads-at-you-and-how-to-stop-them.html

 

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Sigh.

They really want to mess up their OS and sink the company.

All I ever needed was a bare bones system that doesn't get in my face (think Win2k UI with Win7+ set of system librariess). Yet those guys seems to be trying to do exact opposite..

 

Well, look at it this way. We're just a few steps away from living the movie, "Idiocracy". Thick borders of banners around every window until the actual thing you're trying to do is on a window no bigger than an Iphone.

"Don't bother me man, I'm baitin!"

 

I'm concerned for the future. A lot of stupid things are happening, but people are just buying into it and letting it get worse. At least they ruffled a few feathers with the ads and data usage.

Haha I was just thinking of that. Maybe voting trump into office would jump start the transition.

 

I agree it's not all rainbows and unicorns. As I said, there are downsides. As someone who's done even just small scale support/QA for multiple versions of OSes before I really like that MS are trying to minimise that aspect of developing on their platform.

Two things. First of all, I won't claim that my software works on a system it hasn't been tested on. Indeed it will usually work, but its the unusual cases that bite you in the backside.

Secondly, we don't always get to work in tools like Unity where much of this work is done for us and, even when we do, we often find ourselves extending those tools, integrating them with 3rd party stuff, or generally doing stuff that isn't often done with them.

 

Someone mentioned win10? man 1 month of using that junk last year was enough. Went back to Win7 much better, its a shame Steven Sinofsky left .. no surprises as to why, looking at metro start interface abomination -not his work.. he understood coherent interfaces/features/options and helped fix Win7 into becoming less of crap pile compared to Vista. I guess with Google/Apple stellar jobs of creating rubbish mobile marketplaces with dumb interfaces and piss poor options plus hassling users into accepting bullshit policies if you want anything to work. MS other moron departments just had to dive into doing the same (xblock/ phone divisions), user customization, power features, options be damned.. stupid bugs, piss poor options, metro square crap tablet design ..pathetically hopeless. And using Win10 is like agreeing to give the keys and control of your OS to a company that has total disregard for its users or privacy and seemingly incompetent at doing just about anything right, perhaps its a safe feeling being plugged into the borg of 'security' updates..like Intel little surprise for skylake overclockers oh what's that you bought a cpu from us and our partners at MS helped us screw you.. get what you pay for and use blindly I guess.. I'm surprised MS can still barely get it right for developers tbh.

Win7 really is the new WinXp now. Can only hope a Linux distro's gets it act together in the next few years and industry moves to using Vulkan gfx api as standard. Because windows as desktop OS has and is being turned into complete spyware infested dumbed down designed slop for people who don't mind subpar UX/UI, not sure how anyone could say they are productive on that.. even Explorer shell and file manager is still a joke and they break more shell extensions every update.. complete incompetence when they can't provide anything better themselves.. It's clear sign to me power users need to look elsewhere, most the userbase for winslop10 is totally fine with whatever turd MS has for them.. no wonder it was a free update more money in data collection and adware imma right Unity. Autoupdates be damned for me though, I'll decide when I update and what I choose to have for updates.. dumbed down control apps meant to appease users who want to select updates that look they've been designed by a clueless interns maybe MS idea of good enough, but it sure isn't mine and hassling fools to accept constant badgering to get your way is one fine way of telling professional users you only cater to the lowest common dolt.

 

He was around during the time of WIndows 8. Are you sure he isn't the one to blame for Metro in the first place?

 

I finally had my work interrupted! I started up my computer and then windows told me it needed to restart again for updates and my only option was "ok" and the updates took almost an hour to install.

 

Ok thanks for the support guys.

So where can I get free version of the Version that supports XP (Version 5.2 according to @Ryiah ). Is it available in official download site? If not how can I get it?

EDIT: Ok nvm. Found the Archive! xD

 

I've had something like that twice since starting with the Win 10 tech preview, at least one of which was during the preview. Neither of them took anywhere near an hour.

Still, I definitely agree that not giving you at least an "install this later" option is a bit... rude. It's not uncommon to want to reboot a computer during work*, or to boot a computer to do something quickly, and this really interferes with both of those cases. Most updates that I see getting installed at least happen when the computer is shutting down, rather than when it's booting, but in the case of a mid-day reboot that's not really any better.

It'd be nice, not to mention polite, if there was a short window where we could choose when to install the update. A week would be ideal (then we could have our work PCs start installing updates when we leave for the weekend), or even 48 hours would be nice so we could at least pick a time for ourselves.


* Actually these days it is pretty rare. Mostly for me it's when using a dual-boot Mac/Win machine and switching OSes.