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  • #16
    Quoth Geek King View Post
    3) Microsoft throws up its hands and goes to the pub to get pickled (another simplification)
    At least Jester and CustomersRuinMyLife benefit from that.
    "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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    • #17
      In addition, to go full on 64 bit in the OS, there was no way to just keep building on top of the old DOS based system.
      But the paint on me is beginning to dry
      And it's not what I wanted to be
      The weight on me
      Is Hanging on to a weary angel - Sister Hazel

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      • #18
        There's actually a hardware reason why 16-bit software is no longer supported on 64-bit Windows. Simply put, when the OS first switches the CPU into 64-bit "long mode", it retains the ability to temporarily switch to 32-bit "protected mode" - but *loses* the ability to switch back to the 16-bit "real mode" or "virtual 8086 mode" until the entire PC is reset.

        Real mode is what DOS and very old Windows programs used. Virtual 8086 mode is what Windows used to run those programs safely in a 32-bit protected environment. Losing both of those means that the programs can no longer be run. It's a particular pain because there is some 32-bit software (which *would* run) that has a 16-bit installer (which won't).

        NB: 32-bit versions of Windows 7 can still run 16-bit Windows software. I think. I haven't tried it recently enough to be certain. But then they can't run 64-bit software.

        There is a solution, in theory at least - CPU emulation. Apple did that for both the 68K-to-PowerPC transition and the PowerPC-to-Intel transition, and it worked really well in both cases. But that's Apple. Microsoft can't be arsed.

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        • #19
          Does anyone know if the original version of The Sims is 16- or 32-bit?
          "Crazy may always be open for business, but on the full moon, it has buy one get one free specials." - WishfulSpirit

          "Sometimes customers remind me of zombies, but I'm pretty sure that zombies are smarter." - MelindaJoy77

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          • #20
            Quoth firecat88 View Post
            I try to install apps, and I get the following error code: 0x80070005.
            Been a while since I dealt with Microsoft internals, but that looks more like a compound error code than a single error code. The kicker is that the high bit is set - on the internals I worked with, the upper 2 bits were reserved for showing the severity of the error (both clear = no problem, 2nd highest set = something bad but not insurmountable, highest set = insurmountable problem, both set = shit hit the fan). Lower down you've got 2 groups where the set bits indicate the type of error (my guess is that the lowest-order bits have different meanings when set, depending on the error type defined by the higher-order bits, in this case the "5" represents bits whose meaning would differ depending on what shows up where the "7" is).

            Almost tore my hair out over this. There was a function that needed to be called for each possible bus type, with its return (a defined type) each time being compared to previous values, and the lowest one taken (i.e. the bus type where the hardware you were looking for was actually found). Based on the documented results, it wasn't finding the hardware. After much digging through half a dozen "Type A defined as type B defined as type C" until it reached a "native" type, it turned out that the defined type mapped onto a signed long. Since any bus type either not present, or where the hardware wasn't installed, would have the high bit (a.k.a. "What you're looking for isn't here - go someplace else") being set, and the "live" hardware would have it clear, this type mapping resulted in a "nobody home" being lower than "found it", since the high bit being set marked it as a negative number.
            Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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            • #21
              Anything using accelerated 3D will be at least 32-bit. That includes The Sims.

              Not sure about the installer, though. I should have a copy of it somewhere, so I could try it.

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              • #22
                Quoth Geek King View Post
                1) A vocal group of people had complained for some time that MS needed to do an OS from scratch so that the old code could be properly optimized for the times (simplification of argument), so that's what they did.

                2) New vocal group starts complaining that their old stuff no longer works without third party software (that is mostly available).

                3) Microsoft throws up its hands and goes to the pub to get pickled (another simplification)

                That'd be Windows ME. All pretense of MS-DOS was ditched then. It was also the end of a lot of other legacy code, as the next version of Windows merged the NT and consumer lines into the singular NT-based OS we know today, and eventually grew to be Microsoft's most beloved OS despite a rocky start.

                But hey, ME wasn't all bad. If you didn't have any legacy stuff to support, it was just fine. Also, ME gave birth to Emui-tan, the first OS-tan.
                Supporting the idiots charged with protecting your personal information.

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                • #23
                  *cough*

                  Windows ME was still DOS based. It was hidden slightly more thoroughly than in Win98, but pretty much everyone agrees that ME stood for "Mistake Edition". It broke a lot of stuff that had worked in 98, for no real gain.

                  Windows NT was the line that was no longer DOS based. NT eventually developed into the versions of Windows we use now. 2K and XP were the editions that added successively better backwards-compatibility support for Win9x based software.

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