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Software that needs XP

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by kiltie

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One of my biggest gripes is software that insists on a certain Operating System being installed. I run multi boot systems. Some software I cannot run on 98, I have to boot to XP.

Why?

Sure, maybe it is best to have the latest and greatest, but that point is debatable, for example Vista has far too many restrictions, imho good software doesn't need any qualifications.

To insist on NT, a specific version of OS, or a .NET framework is surely outrageous?

Or are programmers being lazy, needing support?

I am impartial, love to see your opinions on this.

19 replies

by tony hopkinson

I was developing an app that ran on 95,98,NT 4,0, 2000, 2003 and XP, standalone, workgrouped, terminal services, virtualized and in a domain.
Not always without a bit of discomfort I might add :D

You have three options

You don't use all of the options available in the newer OS's. No themes for instance!, old school fisher price UI.

You cross your fingers and hope the newer OS doesn't break your app. (see above)

Works mostly but can be unusable. Had one 3rd party component that under themes had the same foreground and background colours, didn't crash, wasn't very friendly though.

You write an OS specific one and hope it's 'easy' to upgrade in line with the OS.

It usually isn't (see above).

To answer your question though, which one of the above options dramatically reduces your testing overhead?

There are two sorts of incompatibility that creep in. One is feature based like themes, the other is an interface change low privileged user under XP.

Wait for Vista, incompatibilities will increase.

by shryko

if you write the software to **require** a certain OS under it, then you only need to bother testing 1 OS under it.

I believe it wouldn't be the programmers that are responcible, but the management. they see a corner they can cut, and the foregone customers will be minimal, so, it's fine to cut it off and save money/time... it also means you can speed up the development and testing time, while maintaining a high standard...

by rkuhn040172

Too broad of a question.

Sometimes it's poor management, sometimes the programmers, sometimes technical such as a new OS's security limitations, etc.

Really depends on the product you are talking about.

by sstudley1

You have to remember that M$ does not provide patches for Win 98 anymore, end of life cycle. How can a programmer support what the OS maintainer won't support.
Then you look at the security model that the program is written to.
There was NO security protocls in Win9x till they logged into a NT domain.
So it all depends.
A VB programmer, not VB.Net, will be programming to the whole array of Windows, till they enact a security profile, after that it usually falls to NT and up.
But why would you want to support M$ Win9x and all their associated headaches still, can you not just deal with 'semi'-'modern' Win OS's.
Seems like we could let the old dogs just die off as golden memories and not have to keep they're faillings in mind still.

by tony hopkinson

millions of them out there.

They are customers, letting your customers die off is not sound business practice, unless you are an organ farmer or an undertaker :D

There's still off the shelf software that doesn't work properly under XP. Not long back people were still muttering about supporting WFG 3.11.

by wlperkins

I have never failed to purchase ANY game I desired to play. Until the last Tomb Raider came out. Every past Tomb Raider ran on the 9x kernel (and was also available for PS2). This Tomb Raider, although available for PS2, apparently won't run on 9x. I say apparently because when I read the minimum requirements on the box said XP, I simply put it back on the shelf. Although I do own XP, I don't run XP on my gaming PC.
Like the poster's dual boot system, It isn't a question of hardware. There aren't any new features on the PS2 that weren't there for the last Tomb Raider. And there aren't any features of the game that wont run on 9x. Yes, it is lazy programming to write software that simply calls all of the OS functions for every little feature of the game. But even still, there are enough common function between 9x and XP, that even a lazy programmer could write software compatible with both versions.
So the only conclusion has to be that it's an issue of profit. The management simply made the decision that the cost to compile and test for both versions was greater than the profit to be made from the extra sales. No concern for customer loyalty, not a care about brand image, no consideration even for game legacy. This Tomb Raider is clearly near the end of the franchise, if it is not the end in itself. Yet they still chose to make this the only version which wont run on 9x.
I could give a rat's ass about support from MS. I simply don't use it. Win 9x ran fine right out of the box, and nothing has changed. A little common sense, and malware is easy to avoid. But when there is an issue, I simply wipe the drive and start over. Fixes every issue I've ever come across. And now with virtualization support, I can make 9x read only, and continue using it forever. Like the poster, my only issue/limitation with using 9x is available games/apps.
BTW, I run an AMD at 2400 2GB of PC3200 300GB in PATA RAID.

by kevin w

I can't understand the "lazy programmer" comment I see thrown around a lot. If management decides that a programmer only has X hours to program something, and to do that he has to cut corners and take shortcuts that only work in XP, how does that make him lazy? Because he doesn't "do the right thing" and put in personal hours so that he can use non-OS-specific code?

I see this comment about my favorite simulation. "The programmers must be lazy not to implement feature X." Oh, really? Again, if management doesn't give them time to implement that feature on the clock, but customers want it, the programmer is supposed to donate his time to the cause?

by wlperkins

I have never failed to purchase ANY game I desired to play. Until the last Tomb Raider came out. Every past Tomb Raider ran on the 9x kernel (and was also available for PS2). This Tomb Raider, although available for PS2, apparently won't run on 9x. I say apparently because when I read the minimum requirements on the box said XP, I simply put it back on the shelf. Although I do own XP, I don't run XP on my gaming PC.
Like the poster's dual boot system, It isn't a question of hardware. There aren't any new features on the PS2 that weren't there for the last Tomb Raider. And there aren't any features of the game that wont run on 9x. Yes, it is lazy programming to write software that simply calls all of the OS functions for every little feature of the game. But even still, there are enough common function between 9x and XP, that even a lazy programmer could write software compatible with both versions.
So the only conclusion has to be that it's an issue of profit. The management simply made the decision that the cost to compile and test for both versions was greater than the profit to be made from the extra sales. No concern for customer loyalty, not a care about brand image, no consideration even for game legacy. This Tomb Raider is clearly near the end of the franchise, if it is not the end in itself. Yet they still chose to make this the only version which wont run on 9x.
I could give a rat's ass about support from MS. I simply don't use it. Win 9x ran fine right out of the box, and nothing has changed. A little common sense, and malware is easy to avoid. But when there is an issue, I simply wipe the drive and start over. Fixes every issue I've ever come across. And now with virtualization support, I can make 9x read only, and continue using it forever. Like the poster, my only issue/limitation with using 9x is available games/apps.
BTW, I run an AMD at 2400 2GB of PC3200 300GB in PATA RAID.

by gexner

You should care about your rats-ass. Once Microsoft stops support on a version of Windows, such as the 9x versions, a company would be insane to write for that version anymore. No support means NO SUPPORT. Win98 is 8 years old. In computer terms, that's ancient history. Why would anyone expect a new game to work on at best, an 8-year old computer? How far back do you want to go?

by Member 28288467

From a sysadmin point of view - when I try to get an app to work on a "older" OS the first thing I usually hear is something like "Well you know that MS stopped supporting that OS on Feb. 14th, 1926".
My reply to that is that they never supported them to begin with, so thats really not a valid argument. But I digress from the topic....

by gsquared

Software (other than the OS itself) often requires certain features of the OS, or of a runtime/framework.

For example, .NET software can't run without its appropriate framework. Programs written for Windows XP aren't designed to work with Linux.

This has to do with how the software is built.

If, for example, a piece of software is written to utilize the Windows registry, it definitely can't run on DOS. Different OSes, even different generations of the same OS (and even different distributions of Linux), have different features available to the software that will run on them. If a piece of software is designed to take advantage of a feature of Windows XP that didn't exist in Windows 98, then it won't run in Windows 98.

It's not about lazy programming. It's about what the software is built for. Sometimes it's possible to make a program run in any version of Windows - but even then, it won't work in Linux unless WINE/CrossOver/etc., can make it think it's running in Windows.

by phd_oz

In XP there is compatability mode and in a very large number of cases I have installed and run software that would not run in XP "natively" - note in some apps running in compatability mode allows a non-XP compatable printer (really did not work in xp) to function in xp under a specific app.
virtural registry ect. - good stuff.

by dogknees

For there to be no restriction on what OS a program needs to run would mean no new functions could ever be added to the OS. Or at least you would never wish to make use of them.

I doubt most people would agree that we have perfect OS's now and they will never need anything else. Never is a very long time indeed.

by zetacon4

The previous posters have proposed some good and valid points. But, let me return to your original question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see your question through the lens of software claiming to function only in Windows XP and no other version.

As a long-time user of Windows 2000 Pro, I have been very satisfied with the stability of that version (provided service pack 4 was installed). As of the date of this post, there still remain many frustrating bugs in windows XP. The list of complaints against that version is long.

I continue to be amazed how gullible software developers are now to accept MS's conspiracy to force windows users to upgrade to XP just so they can install and run the latest version of a game or application. This is my belief as to why you find more and more software marked as XP only programs.
(Yes, as a long-time programmer, I agree with the idea of frameworks and OS feature compatibility issues). But, I feel certain that these issues were planned into these developing frameworks and libraries that developers now depend on for the newest version of their software. We can all agree that MS has had a life-long philosophy of planned obsolescence in all it's products.

To back up my believe, you can see that MS has not seen the wholesale acceptance of the newer version of it's software as it had expected. Thus, they are feeling the push to do whatever it takes to force users into upgrading in order to provide greater profits for MS.

If you need further incentive to accept my idea, look no further than Vista. There has rarely been an OS from MS that will create more obsolescence than this new version. Not only in software packages, but in the hardware needed to allow the average user to experience a comfortable speed of use perception they now enjoy with a lesser set of hardware and OS. This points me to the conclusion that Linux is looking better every day. I have taken the leap into the Linux OS community and have been richly rewarded for having taken that step. In my opinion, MS continues to widen the gulf between their OS and software suites and Linux and it's packages and programs. They are forcing many long-time Windows users to take the jump from windows into Linux.

by docotis

Where I work, we used a program that worked for years on 9X. It was easy to use and updates installed without a hitch. Out of the blue comes a new "improved" version that requires W2k or XP. I managed to install it on 9X by an upgrade to IE6, wimp9 and a few other minor programs. That took care of one of our PC's. The others (XP) were alright with it, as expected. This "new" version is slower, more resource intensive and is as buggy as a spoiled fruit. This piece of software has been upgraded twice in the last month. The GUI is not at all user friendly.I don't see anything in this except change for change's sake. Maybe it's job security for the development staff. At any rate, the work load has become quite stressfull. This is not the only function I have to perform to stay employed. We have modest hardware (and a budget to match) upgrading ALL of our stuff was not in the picture. I've seen too much poorly written code to suggest any MS conspiracy, I place the problem in the hands of upper level dept heads who don't take the time to address the usability of the finished product. Our principal manufacture supplies us with documentation that uses poorly scanned images. The graphic quality is dismal. And all this from a multi-national corp. I'm making the case for lazyness. But others have made it more eloquently.

by docotis

Where I work, we used a program that worked for years on 9X. It was easy to use and updates installed without a hitch. Out of the blue comes a new "improved" version that requires W2k or XP. I managed to install it on 9X by an upgrade to IE6, wimp9 and a few other minor programs. That took care of one of our PC's. The others (XP) were alright with it, as expected. This "new" version is slower, more resource intensive and is as buggy as a spoiled fruit. This piece of software has been upgraded twice in the last month. The GUI is not at all user friendly.I don't see anything in this except change for change's sake. Maybe it's job security for the development staff. At any rate, the work load has become quite stressfull. This is not the only function I have to perform to stay employed. We have modest hardware (and a budget to match) upgrading ALL of our stuff was not in the picture. I've seen too much poorly written code to suggest any MS conspiracy, I place the problem in the hands of upper level dept heads who don't take the time to address the usability of the finished product. Our principal manufacture supplies us with documentation that uses poorly scanned images. The graphic quality is dismal. And all this from a multi-national corp. I'm making the case for lazyness. But others have made it more eloquently.

by rkuhn040172

But the same could be said about management. They are answering, ultimately, to someone else as well.

No decision is made in a vaccuum and none of us know the exact reasons behind 99% of these decisions.

Threads like this are fun to debate but probably not to factual or real.

by wlperkins

I see your point. There is very little DOS and OS2 software sitting on the shelf at Wal-Mart. Of course there is also very little MAC and Linux software there either. But anyway I am just whining. Obviously it was a financial decision for Tomb Raider. My point was that if you're still releasing PS2 builds, you could still be releasing 9x builds.
But at the risk of percussing this equine post mortem, the NT kernel is actually older than the 9x kernel. MS simply chose to end the 9x line for financial reasons, not because of it's age. It's just kinda sad to see something come to an end. Hell, I still have the beta version of Win95 laying around. And I can't even count how many households still run at least one machine on 9x. So it is truly forced obsolescence.

by zeppo9191

I know I'm a little late here, and one other post touched on this subject, but here's an idea...

Use the Windows XP Compatability utility. First, try installing the older software under XP, then use the utility on the program's startup exe. If it won't install, copy the contents of the CD to the local hard drive, then use the utility on the install exe.

To use it, right-click on the exe, then select Properties. Select the Compatability tab, then check the "Run this program..." check box and select the OS needed by the exe. (You may need to adjust the Display Settings check boxes, too.)

To answer your question, though, I think it's a laziness issue on the developer's (or project manager's) part, or it could be for budgetary reasons - it does cost more to include the extra coding and testing.

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