Should we still be adding tetraethyllead to gasoline as an anti-knock agent, too?
Stranger
I really, really do not understand this. What’s so crazy about the idea of backwards compatibility? Yes, I realize this imposes a burden on the designers of software and technology. But we now live in a world where basic updates break our software! To say nothing of the BS experienced by the OP. I don’t think it’s crazy talk to want a change in that paradigm.
Microsoft make a huge effort to make Windows backwards compatible, but there’s a limit even for them. If you absolutely have to run an obsolete unsupported OS, run it in a virtual machine.
Microsoft has huge market share and makes a huge amount of money, so I don’t give a rat’s ass about THEIR problems. I avoid purchasing their products because of this nonsense, whereas I might be convinced otherwise if they went to the trouble of making their software not suck. And I believe they are fully capable, and fully capitalized to make that happen if they really wanted. So don’t try to make this a problem of my doing.
Ok, you are just venting, free of any real understanding, and that’s fair enough. Enjoy 
Backwards compatibility across the last few versions of incremental upgrades is certainly desirable, and most software companies try to maintain that; most “breakages” are due to a lack of rigorous testing rather than intentionally changing functionality. But insisting that an operating system maintain complete backwards compabitility to all physical interfaces, software libraries, and computing hardware standards over a period of fifteen years? That is like arguing that you should be able to fire black powder ammunition in an AR-15, or that your DSLR camera should also be capable of loading 35mm film. It would result in an operating system hobbled by gross overcomplexity, extreme interface requirement bloat, and inevitable security vulnerabilities. And as a requirement to support hertiage software and non-adopting users it is almost totally unnecessary; the basic IPv4 protocol is and will remain a standard for years to come despite its obsolecence, so users with old hardware and operating systems will still be able to function and communicate on a basic level, and it is far easier to build an emulator for any OS-specific application that cannot readily be ported to a newer architecture than it is to build a Swiss Army OS that can function as quickly or better than running the application on the original hardware and OS.
The one genuinely strong argument for maintaining backwards compabitlity–that there are legacy software applications that by dint of complexity, lack of documentation, or small number of developers familiar with the internal workings which require heritage hardware and operating systems to continue functioning–does more to highlight a weakness in the lack of forward compabiliity and good systems engineering (including documentation) of software development, e.g. that you should be able to take a well-engineered and documented software development and reproduce it on any system more capable than the one it was originally designed to operate on. And, in fact, having to do this ensures that instead of ending up with 40 year old spaghetti code written in a language no modern programmer is very familiar with and failing to use any performance methodology or calculation library improvements developed in subsequent years, you have a periodically updated code with a developer base that is reasonably familiar with the inner workings which can address deficiencies and institute improvements in the code as part of normal maintenance. The notion of being able to have a totally static application for fifteen years that operates just the same as the day it came out of the box should be an anathema to software, as the benefit of designing logic in software (rather than hardware) is the essential fungibility of instituting improvements. There was much bitching in the technical community (myself included) about the non-backwards compability upgrade from Python 2.7 to Python 3, and the supposed unnecessity of it (about which I am indifferent) but it is certainly the case that the time and effort put into porting Python 2 applications to Python 3 resulted in a lot of review of core functionality and enhancements that may not have happened otherwise, and has done much to ease the transition between the generations of code such that it is as nearly seemless as it could be. People who have developed proprietary code in Py2.7 can still maintain their code, but the threshold to converting over to Py3.4 has become much less onerous and also gives the impetus to go back through old code and evaluate its performance and implementation of advanced performance or reliability improving features.
That being said, there is no especially good reason to enforce user interface changes to a system just for the sake of doing so and often (with Microsoft especially) at the cost of making the interface more complex, confusing, and unfamiliar rather than just adding clarity or useful functionality. The “BS experienced by the OP” isn’t so much a back compatibility issue as it is the nearly incomprehensible Microsoft approach of trying to be all things to all customers but in a disjointed manner which is divorced from any sense of consumers’ needs or expectations. Some exec at Microsoft things that a cute application helper is what user’s really need to make their whole “Windows Experience” complete, and next thing you have a fucking google-eyed paperclip or small dog bugging you to try new features that having nothing to do with what you’re working on or interrupting you to tell you about other Microsoft products you should buy. But that’s just a basic problem with Microsoft and has been the case for twenty-odd years.
Stranger
Actually,when it’s up and running, Win 10 is pretty sweet. It’s tied via the internet-umbilical cord to Microsoft and their products, but it really runs flawlessly otherwise. I’m sure we’ll all eventually get screwed by MS, but I think Win 10 is an improvement over the previous versions. But, that said, I upgraded a new 8.1 computer to Win 10 before doing anything else to it. So, it was perhaps the best example of a flawless installation that could be possible. It still took the better part of an afternoon to do so.
It doesn’t really affect anyone negatively to not add that to gas, so they should do it. I’m talking about major changes that are forced and unnecessary for profit. There is absolutely no societal reason that Microsoft needed to get rid of XP. They could have kept making updates and patches to it, kept supporting it, but they don’t get any money from selling millions of people a brand new OS.
When I’m ruler of the world such answers will be taught to kids right at kindergarten, so they don’t ask such seditious questions!
“I know I may end up regretting this one day, but you gotta admit, this collar bomb looks pretty sweet!”
Microsoft elected to stop continuing support for XP for the same reason that Ford no longer builds parts and provides maintenance for the Ford Fairlane; because the effort and resources necessary to maintain this obsolescent vehicle would detract from the sustainment of recent and current production vehicles that makes them a measurable profit. XP has fundamental limitations that are inherent to the then-current hardware it was designed to function on and the modes in which an operating system is intended to be used (i.e. in desktop computing) that will not remain the same. In particular, Microsoft has predicted (correctly) that computing needs will move from general purpose fixed and portable desktop machines to compact personal devices (cell phones and cell- or mesh-network connected tablets) and application-specific appliances (unified automobile control consoles, automated controls, et cetera). That their attempt to develop an operating system to support that future need was an unmitigated balls up is not a point of dispute, but the notion that they are somehow obligated to maintain a product line simply because you want to keep using it regardless of merit to the bottom line of Microsoft and its shareholders is petulant and obtuse. If you find their business practices onerous–and I certainly do–the response is to vote with your pocketbook and move to a different operating system and application provider. None are perfect, of course, but as a private individual you are not locked into any particular operating system unless you have some specific application that only runs on that OS, and even then, you may have good alternatives available.
As for your hypothetical future of Orwellian dystopian control of what people and companies are allowed to do or think, I’m pleased to not live in it or the stifling of innovation and creative thought it would impose.
Stranger
I’d say that’s what we already have without much attempt at backward compatibility (BC).
I’m willing to take your word for it that this is the crux of the issue with Microsoft products rather than BC. To the user, it more or less amounts to the same problem though.
You said it’s unreasonable to expect BC going back 15 years - black powder in an AR15. And in your next post you say Microsoft isn’t obligated to continue supporting old products. You lay out the technical merits for this argument nicely, but from the user standpoint (or at least mine)… 15 years just isn’t that long.
We’ve discussed this many times on the boards, and it usually comes down to apples / oranges: the fact that I can still drive my 2001 Honda Accord doesn’t equate to computer development and changes in that industry. I get it - I understand Moore’s Law and that 15 years is an eternity in computer development. But I’m obviously not the only person who gets ticked off with my tools becoming unusable in that amount of time. Look how many businesses still use XP. Look at this thread that just popped up today. Different issue technically, but again, it’s MS doing a disservice to their customers in some manner.
So, taking your points on the technical difficulties of BC… Could it still be done with enough money thrown at the problem? From five years back instead of 15? Or starting now, could their software be developed in such a way that BC could be more easily achieved in the future? Because I think they ARE obligated to do better than this. MS has made enough money and has enough market share that I think they are morally, if not legally, obligated to do better by their users.
What the fucking fuck? Microsoft bends over six ways from Sunday to try to maintain backwards compatibility, and yet you’re bitching. Apple tells you to fuck off and die if you’re running a version of OS X more than two releases old. In the Linux world, stuff can break after nothing more than a security update.
honesty, 999 times out of 1,000, when software breaks after a Windows upgrade, it’s because whoever wrote that software did something Microsoft explicitly said not to do because it was “easier.” your beef is with the idiot who wrote your broken software.
but hey, go ahead and keep running an unsupported, 14 year old operating system. I’m sure you’ll be here blaming Microsoft for whatever malware you pick up.
so you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t know that you don’t know what you’re talking about, and you’re somehow proud of that?
look, I have a first-gen Mac Mini (2006.) It cannot run any version of OS X newer than 10.7, released in 2011. Meanwhile, my folks have a PC which has 2005-era hardware (Pentium D) which is happily running Windows 10. Saying Microsoft doesn’t care about backwards compatibility requires some measure of delusion so great that I have to think drugs are involved.
Fifteen years is approximately 7-8 generations of Intel processors, not to mention other pipeline, wireless networking, peripheral interfaces, and dynamically-linked libraries that are change or are obsoleted every few years in favor of newer and more capable technologies. By your argument, we should still be using SCSI interfaces to 137 GB maximum size hard drives. The rate at which computing hardware and software are evolved cannot be compared to virtually any other product on the market, hence why chip makers like Intel and AMD go to extensive lengths to get a concept to a manufacturing state and protect their intellectual property at extraordinary costs even though they are assured that the lifespan of a particular microprocessor design will have at most a production lifespan of about three years.
Maintaining backwards compatibility in the sense of being able to run old software on old hardware is almost trivial; it simply means keeping and maintaining an existing computer and operating system. Of course, as components wear out you have to salvage or source replacement components, and of course you don’t get the upgrades and enhancements of new technology, and in particular the security and performance enhancements of new operating systems. But when you drive an old car, you don’t get the safety or fuel economy enhancements of new vehicles, and you run the eventual risk that the kind of fuel that you need (e.g. leaded gasoline) may become unavailable. You are also stuck with all of the defects of that old design (poor engineering, cheap materials, lack of corrosion protection) that are (hopefully) addressed in newer products.
Similarly, having to adapt to new platforms means implementing better software development and testing tools and better documentation, as well as typically greater functionality, and the gains made from the higher performance of new hardware. When this is done well, this enforced evolution is a benefit to the user. When it is done poorly it isn’t so much an artifact of the change in operating system as it is continued poor practice in development and testing, or even the fundamental approach to user-friendly architecture (e.g. Microsoft Office). The expectation that everything should improve but still remain the same is an inherent conflict of goals.
As for Microsoft, you’ll find no argument from me that even their most earnest attempts to “help” the user are fumblingly incompetent, and many of their business decisions are made in a way adverse to the benefit of the end user. But this is an argument for avoiding that vendor, and fortunately today there are a number of turnkey options to do so, many of which are capable to some degree of running software originally developed for Windows XP or earlier versions of Windows or DOS. (I have several DOS applications written in obscure Fortran source that won’t compile on gcc that I run on both Linux and Darwin/FreeBSD using a simple emulator, and frankly they perform better on my five year old MacBook Pro in a virtual machine than they ever did on a 486 or whatever they originally ran on.)
That Microsoft doesn’t care about users of legacy code is a reflection that those users are such a paltry part of their market that produce negligible profit (and in fact supporting them retards selling new products), and so, no, they have no vested interest, moral obligation, nor legal requirement to support backwards compatibility or maintenance on an obsolescent operating system for some arbitrary duration. That they do support substantial backwards compatibility to previous OS–you should still be able to run most XP applications on Windows 8 or 10–reflects the recognition that supporting users of legacy code is important for their business, which is frankly more consideration than you’ll get from most commercial software vendors which produce products running on Windows and are highly motivated to obsolete your existing product by changing file formats or restricting access to features in older versions to force you to upgrade.
Stranger
I’ve never had a serious malware or virus problem. Perhaps because I’m a fairly good user. But look, I am (just) a user. I’m not a computer professional and won’t pretend to be. I didn’t start this thread, but I identify with the problem stated in the OP. Stranger was kind enough to lay out some of the technical issues with BC, and other problems with MS. I just don’t subscribe to the idea that because you can’t personally fix the car, you’re not allowed to complain when it breaks down.
From my point of view as a user, MS could do better. The many, many businesses that still use XP and would prefer it were still supported seem to agree. I take your point that third parties should perhaps share the blame when issues arise. But since this is the Pit, may a goat with the runs visit your mother in the small hours.
My car would certainly appreciate it.
FYI - we can’t actually go to the moon on 1960’s technology any more. Those parts and machines are no longer being made. The people who made them are dead. The software was written for computers that no longer exist. We can’t just turn a key and start up our moon program again. Hell, we can’t even make Shuttles any more. We can’t even get to the ISS without hitching a ride from someone else. If we want to go to the moon again, we have to start over with current technology - just like China is using in their space program, today.
you won’t until you do. when a malicious ad on an innocent website exploits a flaw in Java or Flash (or something else) and owns your machine.
the problem is you’re doing the equivalent of bitching that a 40 year old car is breaking down.
MS does better at this than almost anyone in the industry, and you’re still bitching.
fuck them. I don’t care about cheapskates or the idiots they hired who wrote shitty programs which break pretty much every software development guideline in existence. if you do things the right way, almost anything you write to run on XP should be able to run on Windows 7, 8, 8.1, and 10.
What the hell guys!?
You’re supposed to be posting about how badly you feel about my situation and hating on Microsoft!!
Here I come back expecting some commiseration, and I’m seeing a bunch of talk about horses and buggies and 40 year old cars, viruses and using black powder in M16s.
Meanwhile there’s an “ACTIVATE WINDOWS YOU PIRATE SHITHEAD” Watermark on my desktop and on anything else I do! I played Batman Arkham Knight yesterday and I totally died 'cause I Missed an enemy coming at me from the direction of the water mark. And there was a witty advertising that I almost missed 'cause it was being partly obscured.
Can we PLEASE concentrate on what’s important here? I want to see some more expressions of hate towards the evil corporate entity that is Microsoft, and prayers coming my way to help me get through this predicament.
Thank you.
I completely update OpenSuse twice a year with a completely new install for free — keeping the /home folder of course which preserves my KDE settings and the same applications. Plus I’ve chosen to make it permanently look like classic 2010 whilst all the OS files are completely revamped.
It takes about 45 minutes. It never breaks.
Unlike Microsoft whose updates recently borked thousands of machines.
I’m not pointing this out to win people to Linux: I don’t want millions more Linux desktop users. Just mentioning that not all OS makers are as retarded as MS. Apple’s pretty good too.