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Home » Community » U++ community news and announcements » Win98 support
Win98 support [message #14563] Mon, 03 March 2008 20:07 Go to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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Registered: November 2005
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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
Re: Win98 support [message #14576 is a reply to message #14563] Mon, 03 March 2008 22:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mr_ped is currently offline  mr_ped
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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.
Re: Win98 support [message #14577 is a reply to message #14576] Mon, 03 March 2008 23:02 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mindtraveller is currently offline  Mindtraveller
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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.
Re: Win98 support [message #14580 is a reply to message #14577] Tue, 04 March 2008 01:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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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
Re: Win98 support [message #14583 is a reply to message #14563] Tue, 04 March 2008 02:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mr_ped is currently offline  mr_ped
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Or maybe we should change the poll.

Should we drop Vista support? Smile (I will not miss that one too) Very Happy
Re: Win98 support [message #14586 is a reply to message #14583] Tue, 04 March 2008 08:40 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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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
Re: Win98 support [message #14588 is a reply to message #14586] Tue, 04 March 2008 10:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cbpporter is currently offline  cbpporter
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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.
Re: Win98 support [message #14591 is a reply to message #14588] Tue, 04 March 2008 11:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mindtraveller is currently offline  Mindtraveller
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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.
Re: Win98 support [message #14601 is a reply to message #14591] Tue, 04 March 2008 14:12 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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Mindtraveller wrote on Tue, 04 March 2008 05:11

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.


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
Re: Win98 support [message #14603 is a reply to message #14601] Tue, 04 March 2008 14:16 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cbpporter is currently offline  cbpporter
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Have you tried WM_UNICHAR? I don't think it'll work better, but maybe worth a shot.
Re: Win98 support [message #14607 is a reply to message #14603] Tue, 04 March 2008 15:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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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
Re: Win98 support [message #14626 is a reply to message #14607] Tue, 04 March 2008 22:59 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Mindtraveller is currently offline  Mindtraveller
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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 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cbpporter is currently offline  cbpporter
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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?
Re: Win98 support [message #14638 is a reply to message #14637] Wed, 05 March 2008 12:01 Go to previous message
mirek is currently offline  mirek
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Registered: November 2005
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cbpporter wrote on Wed, 05 March 2008 04:57

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?



Last time I have checked it did... In fact, U++ requires very little from the OS...

Mirek
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