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Win98 support [message #14563]

Mon, 03 March 2008 20:07

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Win98 support[ 14 votes ]
1.	Do not change anything	3 / 21%
2.	Introduce NOWIN98 flag	5 / 36%
3.	Introduce WIN98 flag	3 / 21%
4.	Wipe out Win98 support (really, we cannot, just want your opinion)	3 / 21%

So far, we have tried to keep Win98 support for as long as possible.

To make things clear, Win98 support means that U++ can run on machines that lack unicode support - the check is done in runtime, if unicode is available, it is used, otherwise we fallback to ANSI API, so really nothing to loose.

Anyway, Windows Vista seems to have a bug that makes this impossible - some keyboards do not send correct characters. This bug is known and possibly fixed.

Should we change anything just because of this? If yes, how? Please vote and share thoughts.

Note: We cannot avoid Win98, we have commercial apps runing on Win98.... (unbelievable, but true).

Mirek

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Re: Win98 support [message #14576 is a reply to message #14563]

Mon, 03 March 2008 22:08

mr_ped
Messages: 826
Registered: November 2005
Location: Czech Republic - Praha

Experienced Contributor

I don't think you should get rid of Win98 because of Vista bug, but just because it is pointless (except your commercial application) and I prefer single good solution without compromises.
Besides that I don't care about MS Windows at all. Very Happy

And I wonder how often you need to improve that application, so if you can't afford to split U++ and work on those Win98 applications with current upp (if the updates are very sparse), and drop non-unicode completely from future versions of upp for new applications.

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Re: Win98 support [message #14577 is a reply to message #14576]

Mon, 03 March 2008 23:02

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

Mirek, I think that Win98 is still widely used in many places, i.e. industrial automation. U++ is so effective, that it is still possible to write Win98-capable applications (and it means a lot for a number of purposes) running OK on 200 MHz computers (QT works slower). So, may be it is not very efficient to remove such advantage of U++.

Instead, if there`s problem with keyboard scan codes, nothing prevents us from detecting OS on application start and using appropriate scan code resolver, so U++ programmer see no difference between programming Vista/XP/9x.

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Re: Win98 support [message #14580 is a reply to message #14577]

Tue, 04 March 2008 01:23

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Mindtraveller wrote on Mon, 03 March 2008 17:02

Instead, if there`s problem with keyboard scan codes, nothing prevents us from detecting OS on application start and using appropriate scan code resolver, so U++ programmer see no difference between programming Vista/XP/9x.

Well, this is what we always did. But there seems to be no workaround for the Vista bug.... App compiled for ANSI is simply not getting the right codes.

Mirek

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Re: Win98 support [message #14583 is a reply to message #14563]

Tue, 04 March 2008 02:15

mr_ped
Messages: 826
Registered: November 2005
Location: Czech Republic - Praha

Experienced Contributor

Or maybe we should change the poll.

Should we drop Vista support? Smile

(I will not miss that one too) Very Happy

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Re: Win98 support [message #14586 is a reply to message #14583]

Tue, 04 March 2008 08:40

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

mr_ped wrote on Mon, 03 March 2008 20:15

Or maybe we should change the poll.

Should we drop Vista support? Smile

(I will not miss that one too) Very Happy

Hehe, that would be the best Smile

Unfortunately, there is no such option.... Sad

Mirek

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Re: Win98 support [message #14588 is a reply to message #14586]

Tue, 04 March 2008 10:11

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

I vote for NOWIN98 flag (default false).

After all, this seems to be a Vista bug, and I don't think we should do massive changes because of such a bug, which may eventually be fixed (but don't bet on it Smile

).

I think there is nothing wrong with supporting Win98 until 2010, probabbly later. But with the flag we'd have a possibility to ship two exe's: one default without NOWIN98, and one for Vista. As Vista gains popularity, we'll probably have to rename the old mode "legacy" mode, seeing that this is the trend.

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Re: Win98 support [message #14591 is a reply to message #14588]

Tue, 04 March 2008 11:11

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

Still, maybe it is still possible to emulate right codes on Vista? Win32 gives a number of silution for key-press emulation.
Is there a topic where I can read specific information about the problem? Maybe I can be in use to resolve it.

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Re: Win98 support [message #14601 is a reply to message #14591]

Tue, 04 March 2008 14:12

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Mindtraveller wrote on Tue, 04 March 2008 05:11

Well, you can try, but IMO, there is no way.

The problem is that WM_CHAR contains '?' instead of the proper character. And we have no control about how WM_KEYDOWN is translated to final char....

Mirek

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Re: Win98 support [message #14603 is a reply to message #14601]

Tue, 04 March 2008 14:16

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Have you tried WM_UNICHAR? I don't think it'll work better, but maybe worth a shot.

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Re: Win98 support [message #14607 is a reply to message #14603]

Tue, 04 March 2008 15:14

mirek
Messages: 14255
Registered: November 2005

Ultimate Member

Yes. Does not seem to work.

But you can try too - WndProc.cpp.

My personal take: It is M$ bug which will be gone in month or two, then all internet connected Vista's will be fixed. Maybe we can let it as it is (?).

Besides, NOWIN98 is not as simple as it seemed....

Mirek

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Re: Win98 support [message #14626 is a reply to message #14607]

Tue, 04 March 2008 22:59

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

It seems like good idea. Let`s wait for month or two. I think SP1 or SP2 will certainly correct such a noticable bug.

[Updated on: Tue, 04 March 2008 23:00]

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Re: Win98 support [message #14637 is a reply to message #14626]

Wed, 05 March 2008 10:57

cbpporter
Messages: 1427
Registered: September 2007

Ultimate Contributor

Mindtraveller wrote on Tue, 04 March 2008 23:59

It seems like good idea. Let`s wait for month or two. I think SP1 or SP2 will certainly correct such a noticable bug.

We could try and wait, but for SP1 my hopes are set just high enough so that the start menu doesn't crash every other day. "Windows Explorer has stopped working". "Windows is checking for a solution...".

Since NOWIN98 is not trivial, I think we should leave it as it is for U++ 2008.1. But I think NOWIN98 should still be implemented slowly, as a low priority task, and renamed as NOANSI or UNICODE or something. I can think of a few situations where it could be useful to produce a binary without any legacy support.

PS: Does U++ work on Win95 too?

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