VFP 9 on Windows 9?

[EzLogic]

I read few posts on the web that MS is NOT supporting 32bit on windows 9 coming up.

Anyone read anything or might know anything on the up coming OS?

I am getting nervous.

Ez Logic
Michigan

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Share your reference, everything else is just feeding rumours.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Mike Gagnon]

http://www.networkworld.com/article...t/windows-9-details-are-already-emerging.html

Mike Gagnon

If you want to get the best response to a question, please check out FAQ184-2483 first.

 

[craigber]

That's certainly going to slow adoption

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[Mike Lewis]

Once all of the apps, drivers and plug-ins move to 64-bits, there will be no need for 32-bit backwards compatibility

All of the apps? That covers a heck of a lot of software. Not just the likes of Excel and Photoshop and Firefox, but also the vast number of custom applications, third-party add-ons, niche utilities, shareware, freeware ... and lots more. It will be an awfully long time before all of those are replaced or rewritten.

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[craigber]

Mike,

Photoshop, Excel, and FireFox already have 64 bit versions.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[Mike Lewis]

Photoshop, Excel, and FireFox already have 64 bit versions.

I said " ... not just the likes of Excel and Photoshop and Firefox ... "

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[EzLogic]

I hope so. That would suck big time..

Again, my friend Paul Mrozowski, said the same thing.. there are MILLIONS of legacy apps that are 32bit throughout the world. there is no way its going to get killed.

(crossing fingers)

Ez Logic
Michigan

 

[Olaf Doschke]

x64-only: This isn't a hard prediction to make. Before Windows 7 even launched, Microsoft said that its successor, Windows 8, would be the very last version of Windows to support the old 32-bit architecture. This makes sense. There hasn't been a 32-bit x86 processor (not including Atom) on the mainstream market for several years.

...

Prior to the release of Windows 7, Halsey writes, Microsoft warned software developers that they had just six years left to make sure all of their software, plug-ins and Windows extensions were 64-bit. That's perfect with a 2015 timeline. So don't say you weren't warned.

No More Legacy Support: This would be dependent on moving to 64-bits. That would mean no more of the WoW64 architecture to support 32-bit windows. Once all of the apps, drivers and plug-ins move to 64-bits, there will be no need for 32-bit backwards compatibility. If you do need Windows XP support for some reason, it will likely be through sandboxed virtualization similar to what is done in Windows Server 2008, which is 64-bit only.

I doubt this is the right deduction from the fact there is no 32bit processor anymore. All existing 64bit processors have a 32bit and even 16 bit (real) mode for downward compatibility with the x86 architecture family. I doubt no 32bit OS means pure 64bit drivers and software only, this is nonsense. My guess is, there only will be 64bit OS versions in the same sense as 64bit versions are today, with a 32bit subsystem. There only is no need for 32bit only Windows as there is no pure 32bit processor anymore, so no secondary 32bit CD/DVD bundled with Windows 9 64bit. But it makes no sense to purge the SysWoW64 folder, just because it contains 1.2 GB of files. And AFAIK the only other things needed are 32bit drivers to let Windows work with 32bit software despite including hardware other than the CPU.

It would be nice to see an official statement of MS about this, or at least a reference to the alledged MS warning about the end of 32bit.

That said there are already enough other reasons to port legacy software into the new world, 64bit is only a weak reason, only few software has the need to address more than 4GB RAM. Interoparability, Unicode, Data growth, not only but also big data, modern UI/UX and many more aspects are ahead of what VFP offers, also in regard to performance. And the new world is not limited to .NET.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Dan Freeman]

It would be nice to see an official statement of MS about this, or at least a reference to the alledged MS warning about the end of 32bit.

Or perhaps something more recent than a speculative blog post from 2011?

 

[craigber]

My guess... you'll see support in Windows 9 for 32 bit apps. Why? One word: Satya. He wants to do what's right for the customer, unlike the previous CEO at Microsoft.

Craig Berntson
MCSD, Visual C# MVP,

http://www.craigberntson.com/blog

 

[dbMark]

I *hope* that the post meant simply that MS would no longer produce a 32-bit OS version starting with Windows 9 and not that all 32-bit apps were doomed. I think the warning was directed at apps that *ONLY* worked in 32-bit Windows, that they would need to be rewritten to work in 64-bit Windows. Fortunately VFP works in either configuration.

For example, our departments recently finished a roll-out of 64-bit Windows 7. Some apps still in use were written in Dbase 5 for DOS with 32-bit Windows compatibility, vintage circa 1995. They had worked fine with 32-bit Windows XP but failed in 64-bit Windows 7. The looming rollout got us to update and rewrite the code in VFP. (At some point we will move out of VFP, but not yet.)

At least, I'm hoping Windows 9 won't be that draconian to drop all 32-bit apps. It so, the article did mention sandboxed virtualization.