Be Excellent To Each Other

I doubt it would.... Most enterprise machines will be at least Windows 7 now, so the step to Win 10 is not impossible.

I'm not sure I follow you.

I am saying that a hypothetical Windows 11 which did not support Win32 in any capacity would be a failure in the marketplace.

They might attempt some kind of sandboxing solution for Win32 software in the future, but support will not be removed entirely. Not in the next decade.

Obviously they can't remove functionality from older versions of Window.

Having a quick google Win32 is a 20 year old API. it might be time to drop it and replace it

Hahha what?!

I might misundersstnd. How important is win32 on a modern OS?

It's not about the OS itself, it's about the apps that run on it. If companies have applications which use the API and you remove it in a new version of Windows they need to either do a load of potentially non-trivial work to upgrade their application or just stick to the version of Windows they're currently on. And the former option is hard to sell because they're getting literally zero business benefit in exchange for a load of effort and risk.

Basically all Windows software (excluding new UWP apps, exclusively sold via the "Windows App Store") uses Win32. It is old, but supporting it is a massive part of why Windows is relevant.

See WinRT, which dropped Win32 compatibility entirely. No one bought WinRT tablets, because if you are losing access to Win32, why even buy a Windows device? Why not get an iPad or an Android tablet?

20 years of games, productivity tools, communication software, entertainment software, enterprise software and everything else that people have used Windows for for the last two decades relies on support for Win32.

Microsoft could theoretically get rid of it, but the market will reject devices/operating systems that do not at least provide a working alternative that is widely established and supported. UWP could be that, but it isn't there yet, and I'd say it's a long way off.

What Lewie said. If MS go down this road, it'll be carrot (must-have features in UWP), not stick (no more Win32 / other classic APIs.)

What's an API?

Application Program Interface.

Basically it says "this is how this software communicates with other software".

There will be plenty of stick, too. Making it inconvenient for end users to use Win32, aiming to make Win32 for new commercial software less economically viable, creating new devices that don't support Win32 (Hololens/Windows Mobile).

I'm uncertain to what extent any of these might actually succeed, but yes Microsoft will want to shift the industry and end users towards UWP, and will not kill Win32 support until they achieve this.

The analogy is the one of boiling a frog. Drop a frog in a pan of boiling water, and it will try to jump out. Place it in cool water and gradually bring it to boil, it will remain at rest until it's cooked.

Fair enough. How long till this gets implemented?

Thank you.

The industry has already shifted. Microsoft is reacting.



You're being very one-sided here. Let's talk about the other side. Botnets are almost entirely made up of poorly patched Windows machines. No-one is running botnets on iOS or Android, despite there being far more of those around. Think about why that might be.

Here's some more of that sort of thing.


This isn't true, by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

"As part of advancing science, several experiments observing the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water took place in the 19th century. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C."

It's also a flawed analogy. People aren't stupid and can project trends into the future, much as you are attempting to do here.

I can't see how they could ever do this and have one single OS. For sure in the future users who just read email, use office and web apps could work with an OS without Win32.

Little chance they could ever drop it though as so many business need Win32, I bet Windows 10 still has elements of Windows NT in it for compatibility.

MS should split the OS between Mobile and Desktop, they are obsessed with trying to take on Apple.

They have missed the boat and will never catch up with the fact that people are doing most of their personal IT stuff on mobile devices that are not MS.

They still have a huge market in enterprise that will always buy their products as its too expensive and time consuming to do anything else.

MS are still an incredible clumsy company in some respects, we bought the new Kinect for Windows, it only works with a small subset of USB3 controllers and trying to find information on what they are and how get them to work is proving really difficult.

By "industry" here I was specifically referring to Windows, not the entirety of computing. Windows developers and customers. Obviously I am aware that Android and iOS are a thing.


Yes. MS are looking at mobile computing and trying to turn Windows into that. There are clear advantages and disadvantages to open/closed systems, but there is clearly more friction involved in taking an open platform and making it more closed than there is in simply creating a closed platform.

I know the analogy is flawed but I think the image communicates my point effectively. I don't think the bulk of computer users (using any platform) make decisions based on predictions of the future actions of the organisations managing the platform.

I'm not convinced Microsoft are particularly interested in building a closed platform. They definitely are interested in decoupling themselves from 20 years of backwards compatibility - which is both their greatest liability and their greatest strength.

I'm not so sure, especially given that they are currently the sole distributor of UWP apps, and take a 30% cut on all sales.

Which is great. But there's no way on earth they'd ever go UWP only. They know full well that the size of their market share is because everything runs on Windows, and everything runs on Windows because it's the easiest thing to develop for. Moving away from that would be insanity.

Yes. That's what I've been saying.

They will only remove Win32 compatibility if and when they are able to create an alternative that is viable for the customers that make them money. Even if they are able to pull that off, it will take a long time.

I expect that in the meantime they will manage the platform in such a way that encourages/coerces/promotes UWP usage, and as the platform holder they have a wide variety of ways they can go about doing this (antitrust cases withstanding).

Ah, I disagree on that. I don't think they need to carry on with Win32 support. There's nothing whatsoever stopping them building a version of .NET that runs on Win10 machines that uses none of Win32 - but is just as easy to develop for as existing Win32 .NET is today.

I assume you mean end users and not the folks responsible for corporate IT systems

Correct.

They just get given what the corporation decides. I am guessing most most office products won't be affected.

http://www.dualshockers.com/2016/03/16/ ... -and-more/



They also note they are fixing the most glaring holes in UWP for gaming "real soon now" (vsync, SLI, etc.)

I think this means in the future Microsoft is thinking Xbox will be subsumed into Windows, and no longer the discrete platform and hardware it is today. Imagine GfWL combined with DirectX and branded as Xbox, with a couple of console-sized Surface PCs to cover off the first party hardware support -- and then also third party hardware at a range of price points a la Steam Boxes.

This feels like a change of heart. I wonder if the Xbone's lacklustre sales against the PS4 has led to a shift in the balance of power within MS and now the Windows division has the upper hand over the Xbox division, so is getting to set the strategy to suit itself.

Well that would line up with comments about them looking at incremental hardware updates, and an XBoneAnnaHalf would let them catch up on the perceived PS4 performance advantage.
https://www.vg247.com/2016/03/01/xbox-o ... -upgrades/

I don't think they have addressed all the glaring holes in UWP.

They have claimed that they plan to let you sell UWP software from places other than the Windows App Store, but it is not currently possible, and it's not clear what restrictions/barriers/limitations there will be on doing so.

If UWP means that game devs cannot sell games on Steam, I think game devs will still rely on Win32 (either in addition to or instead of UWP).

UWP isn't a replacement for Win32, the two aren't really comparable. UWP is closer to MFC or .NET - a set of wrapper classes for system APIs rather than a fundamental part of the underlying OS.

but win 32 can be phased out?

Well, technically anything can be phased out at any time. What are actually asking though?

I am just trying to get my head round the problem.

Craster seems to se it as ok, Lewie as the sky is falling in....

I suspect the choice will be:

1) write a game for UWP, distribute on Windows Store, get cross-platform APIs, game works on Xbox and Win10 with minimal fettling >> the new option
2) write a game for Win32/DirectX legacy, distribute game on Steam, write and optimise a different game for Xbox >> same as today

Whether MS can make (1) appealing to devs via carrots (eg. UWP exclusive APIs) is up for debate. Also you still need to optimise the game engine for PS4 anyway, so the efficiency savings of (1) may not be as great as they sound. This all sounds like a typical MS example of strategy-first, technology-later, where the strategy is "UWP replaces Xbox" and the technical details are being reverse engineered from that goal.

Oh, and Win32 isn't going to be deprecated, that's madness.

As a software giant, I am more inclined to agree with Craster.

An auspicious start for UWP/Windows 10 with Gears Of War Ultimate Edition.....

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... iver-on-pc

Yeah I heard it was really bad. I wish Microsoft would go Steam or Origin or something that actually works for their games. I quite enjoyed the first GOW on PC. It looked stunning too (proper DX10 job).

I'm amazed they've pushed it out of the door in this kind of state, after GFWL they really needed to make sure this thing works perfectly right from the off.

On top of that they're going up against Steam, which is very well established, and works. Ditto Origin (which I know was pretty awful in its early days but really is just fine these days).

Even uPlay which I previously detested seems pretty solid now, and it all works fine, (I'm having to use it again to play The Division).

Against that backdrop, and given that I think it's fair to say MS aren't much liked or trusted by PC gamers in this field, and given the resources MS has at its disposal - I have no idea what the hell they were thinking about with this.

Then again we have to be clear what MS want out of UWP, which is control of the store and the ecosystem and the money that comes with it, and TBH I don't think PC gamers are going to bite at all - like we're going to forget they just turned off GFWL, for example. (And even when it was turned on it was shit and clunky and only used begrudgingly, Steam/Origin's own integration systems work massively better. All I want from Windows is an operating system I can run all my other stuff on, which is why Windows 10 holds no interest for me at all.)

It's a shame because I really do welcome Microsoft back. They used to make some fine PC games back in the day (Midtown Madness, Motocross Madness and so on). Then the Xbox came along and that was that.

So it's really nice to see them back on the PC but the Windows Store thing is never going to work. Apparently the games run in windowed mode which means Crossfire will never work. And that's a huge problem for me.

I agree about Origin and Uplay. They have both improved a lot and now do just as they should do. It's a bit of a pain running three different apps (Steam Origin and Uplay) but I have all of them blocked at startup so opening them when I see fit is no problem.

PC gaming lolz
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digit ... iver-on-pc

Not reading (x) posts?

Nah.

Still, worth getting the PC snark in, eh?

Clearly tongue in cheek and also totally out of context for the thread it was in, plus not so rude as it ignored the four posts directly preceding it in the thread.

Keep your hair on. I am a PC gamer as well, you know!

Sorry shit day at work I'm being unnecessarily prickly.

And now Myp is kissing you. It can't get any worse.

He could be kissing back.

Can't it Dave? Can't it?

I've been saying that since .net 1.0. Why can they add a Linux 'native' nt subsystem but continue to insist that .net be a bug-ridden shit-pile working around win32 by adding layers and layers of new awful?

I love c#. Love it. Hate going back to c++. But Jesus, why was 'Nt subsystem' not a day 1 requirement of the CLR?