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  3. It's a common and dangerous misconception that software becomes radioactively unusable the moment it stops being "supported".

It's a common and dangerous misconception that software becomes radioactively unusable the moment it stops being "supported".

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  • a1ba@suya.placeA a1ba@suya.place
    @grishka though I guess masturbating for old software isn't something specific for windows users, because it reminds me of a dude who reported a bug about something not compiling on his ubuntu 18.04 machine. Why 18.04? Who fucking knows!
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    wrote last edited by
    #9

    41402-nyan, I can understand problems supporting Windows XP. I've been there myself, I had to write separate code to support it in that Telegram calls library I used to work on. But the way some open-source projects break compatibility with Windows 7, it feels intentional sometimes. Some minor crap like random number generation for example. Roll it back and everything just works.

    a1ba@suya.placeA 1 Reply Last reply
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    • lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
      @a1ba @grishka And well given modern software, keeping compatibility with EOL systems isn't just your own code but also dependencies, and in the case of operating systems, sometimes entirely different system APIs/ABIs for which it might be really hard to keep compatibility with both.
      (And of course given it's EOL, the all the bugs stay unfixed, so workarounds pile up)
      a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
      a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
      a1ba@suya.place
      wrote last edited by
      #10
      @lanodan @grishka yeah, that's what I meant saying about not being able to convince everybody. It's fairly easy to make your own code work on outdated systems, but fixing everything down the dependency tree? Absolutely not. You might ask it's developers, and if they're chill like SDL devs for example, they might do something about it or direct you towards a better workaround. But if it's MSVC you probably won't hear anything from Microsoft dare you ask them about supporting XP or 7 in their compiler.
      lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL 1 Reply Last reply
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      • ? Guest

        41402-nyan, I can understand problems supporting Windows XP. I've been there myself, I had to write separate code to support it in that Telegram calls library I used to work on. But the way some open-source projects break compatibility with Windows 7, it feels intentional sometimes. Some minor crap like random number generation for example. Roll it back and everything just works.

        a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
        a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
        a1ba@suya.place
        wrote last edited by
        #11
        @grishka I don't believe it's intentional, they might just not use 7 and they'll never know because the documentation don't exist online anymore.
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        • a1ba@suya.placeA a1ba@suya.place
          @lanodan @grishka yeah, that's what I meant saying about not being able to convince everybody. It's fairly easy to make your own code work on outdated systems, but fixing everything down the dependency tree? Absolutely not. You might ask it's developers, and if they're chill like SDL devs for example, they might do something about it or direct you towards a better workaround. But if it's MSVC you probably won't hear anything from Microsoft dare you ask them about supporting XP or 7 in their compiler.
          lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL This user is from outside of this forum
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          lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
          wrote last edited by
          #12
          @a1ba @grishka Yeah MSVC you'd need to keep compat' with period-corrupt^Wcorrect compiler instead. And SDL, well depending on how ancient you might still need to keep compat' to an earlier release branch (say keeping SDL2 when you'd want SDL3 as the recommended setup).
          ? a1ba@suya.placeA 2 Replies Last reply
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          • a1ba@suya.placeA a1ba@suya.place
            @grishka I don't believe it's intentional, they might just not use 7 and they'll never know because the documentation don't exist online anymore.
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            wrote last edited by
            #13

            41402-nyan, it would've been free to just not touch that piece of code. If I remember right, it was the Go runtime.

            The win32 documentation still exists on the Microsoft website. The only thing that changed about it in the last 15 years is the design and the annoying machine translation that you have to undo.

            a1ba@suya.placeA 1 Reply Last reply
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            • lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
              @a1ba @grishka Yeah MSVC you'd need to keep compat' with period-corrupt^Wcorrect compiler instead. And SDL, well depending on how ancient you might still need to keep compat' to an earlier release branch (say keeping SDL2 when you'd want SDL3 as the recommended setup).
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              wrote last edited by
              #14

              Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:, iirc MSVC can compile for any 32-bit Windows down to 95 if you specify the right flags and don't use new APIs

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              • ? Guest

                41402-nyan, it would've been free to just not touch that piece of code. If I remember right, it was the Go runtime.

                The win32 documentation still exists on the Microsoft website. The only thing that changed about it in the last 15 years is the design and the annoying machine translation that you have to undo.

                a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                a1ba@suya.place
                wrote last edited by
                #15
                @grishka maybe, don't touch anything and it still works, that's a great rule. Except rewriting or refactoring old code is a thing.

                As for MSDN, I remember it's just not telling the minimum supported OS for some Win32 calls or being misleading. Not to mention new bit flags or extended structs, those are never documented.
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                • lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
                  @a1ba @grishka Yeah MSVC you'd need to keep compat' with period-corrupt^Wcorrect compiler instead. And SDL, well depending on how ancient you might still need to keep compat' to an earlier release branch (say keeping SDL2 when you'd want SDL3 as the recommended setup).
                  a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                  a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                  a1ba@suya.place
                  wrote last edited by
                  #16
                  @lanodan @grishka the problem with older MSVC is that they're not C or C++ compilers as they barely understand standard conforming code. Newer versions better at understanding basic C99 stuff, it took them decades to implement it.
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                  • ? Guest

                    Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:, iirc MSVC can compile for any 32-bit Windows down to 95 if you specify the right flags and don't use new APIs

                    a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                    a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
                    a1ba@suya.place
                    wrote last edited by
                    #17
                    @grishka @lanodan yes, but you can forget about C++11 (or about C++ altogether because of standard library) and everything might randomly explode inside of CRT.
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                    • a1ba@suya.placeA a1ba@suya.place
                      @grishka @lanodan yes, but you can forget about C++11 (or about C++ altogether because of standard library) and everything might randomly explode inside of CRT.
                      lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL This user is from outside of this forum
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                      lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
                      wrote last edited by
                      #18
                      @a1ba @grishka At least that CRT doesn't also makes cathodic tubes explodes.
                      a1ba@suya.placeA 1 Reply Last reply
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                      • lanodan@queer.hacktivis.meL lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me
                        @a1ba @grishka At least that CRT doesn't also makes cathodic tubes explodes.
                        a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
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                        a1ba@suya.place
                        wrote last edited by
                        #19
                        @lanodan @grishka if it's a program that enables custom resolutions...
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                        • a1ba@suya.placeA a1ba@suya.place
                          @grishka @lanodan yes, but you can forget about C++11 (or about C++ altogether because of standard library) and everything might randomly explode inside of CRT.
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                          wrote last edited by
                          #20

                          41402-nyan, yeah that can happen. You may try to swap the newer C runtime with the older one after the fact but I'm not sure how interchangeable those msvcrt*.dll libraries are. There's also a static library component even if you link dynamically.

                          a1ba@suya.placeA 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • ? Guest

                            41402-nyan, yeah that can happen. You may try to swap the newer C runtime with the older one after the fact but I'm not sure how interchangeable those msvcrt*.dll libraries are. There's also a static library component even if you link dynamically.

                            a1ba@suya.placeA This user is from outside of this forum
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                            a1ba@suya.place
                            wrote last edited by
                            #21
                            @grishka static build basically the same just allows to compile everything into one binary.

                            >swap the newer runtime

                            Oh, yeah, that doesn't really work. And linking to older versions is also not an easy task.
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