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Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

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dr_andus:
At what point do you cut slingload and say "Developers, update your code."? At what point do you tell that user who refuses to upgrade their machine that they will not be able to upgrade to the newest version of Windows because of their choice? At what point is it time to move forward and let those who choose to remain in the past, remain there?
-Josh (November 22, 2012, 06:59 AM)
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There is an implicit assumption in your statement that future versions of software will be at least as good or better than past versions. However, some specialist software (and entire categories) developed by independent small developers may not get updated because the original developer or business are no longer around.

So if backward OS compatibility is not made possible somehow, a lot of very original software disappears and gets replaced by nothing in particular. E.g. I'm into outliner and PIM software and many of my favourites (BrainStorm, Outline 4D, Bonsai) no longer seem to be developed and I hear others reminisce about how there is nothing under the sun as good as GrandView or Ecco used to be...

I would go as far as saying that it's about losing bits of human cultural history, except that these software are often much better than any newly developed alternatives, so they are far from just being museum pieces (I use mine daily).

tomos:
From the POV of a productive environment:
The desktop is pretty highly evolved. To be honest I see 'the tiles' as fluff really.
Maybe in time there will be software developed that will make it really useful in a productive environment, but I dont know that that's the plan even (?)

Stoic Joker:
+1 MS has always gone out of it's way to allow backwards for legacy applications. Take DOS's legacy (CLI Only) interface, cmd.exe isn't exactly hard to find...and I seriously doubt it's going anywhere either.
-Stoic Joker (November 21, 2012, 08:31 PM)
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Whilst Windows 7 and 8 include something that look and behaves like DOS it isn't really and I am not convinced you can really expect to effectively run DOS apps on newer machines. Backwards compatibility is being lost - trying running 16 bit windows apps.
-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2012, 03:43 AM)
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still a very good record I'd say.
-tomos (November 22, 2012, 04:56 AM)
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As would I. Sure one might have to resort to using XP Mode on 64-bit machines ... But the point is that the provision was made readily available to any that need it. Virtualization took the brunt out of the line in the sand that needed to be drawn. I've still got a virtualized DOS v6.22 machine that connects to my domain that has come in handy for testing things more that once.

wraith808:
Whilst Windows 7 and 8 include something that look and behaves like DOS it isn't really and I am not convinced you can really expect to effectively run DOS apps on newer machines. Backwards compatibility is being lost - trying running 16 bit windows apps.
-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2012, 03:43 AM)
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Just did on Windows 7, with no problems, to show my wife one of my older projects that I worked on.

f0dder:
I'm not a big fan of Win8, and I think there's a lot of things that's wrong with it - but a lot of other people have voiced those concerns, so I won't. I'll keep it to "First they came for the [...], and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a [...]. - and I'm sorry, but no, I don't think that's fatalist thinking. Looking at what Apple is doing and speculating(!) that Microsoft wants to do the same, I do think that's the way we're heading... unless enough people protest. It's not there in current OS X, it's not there in Win8 - and I do realize that "Slippery Slope" is not a given - but things are not heading the right way.

I'll probably do a "Win8 immersion experiment" like I did with Vista, and I'm sure there's a lot to like about Win8 - following Channel9, I know the kernel guys have done really nice things with it. But The World Isn't The Kernel, and marketing people are REALLY evil and I'd like to put some Zyklon-B in their coke...

I'm not sure we'll like win9.

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