Is there an independent standard for Windows version support?

Does this question even make sense?

What I’m after is this: Suppose one is planning the requirements for a new software system.

Do there exist any independent published (i.e., non-Microsoft) standards that specify to what extent older versions of Windows should be supported by a software product? ISO? The American governing body for standards?

I was going to ask in one of the MSDN forums, but thought it would be better to ask somewhere not related to Microsoft.

I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve been writing software for Windows since 1992.

There’s certainly no public standard I’ve ever heard of. There might be some agency or large corporate standards , something like “NY State IT requires all client softare to be compatible with Win98 & Office 97.”

The real question you need to ask is: “What versions of Windows will my customers be using, and is there enough extra revenue in the long tail of, say, Win98 users to justify the extra expense of designing in compatibliity & doing the needed testing?”

Nothing public and cross-US that I know of. Lots of individual standards and corporate standards for purchasing as LSLGuy describes, and lots of specifications on how to stay supported from Microsoft itself, though.

I’d ping the question on MSDN and see what happens.