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Comment by okanat | Hacker News Reader

Windows doesn't break backwards compatibility unless it is absolutely worse to keep it around. Think about old SMB protocol that caused security issues. The old Delphi programs continue to work since both the API design is more future-proof and Microsoft did a mind-boggling amount of work to keep ABI stable.

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I recall some very nasty hacks and often-won't-work-at-all issues in trying to get Delphi 6 to run on Vista or Windows 7. Windows breaks backwards compatibility more often than "never".

I would be surprised if Delphi 5 ran without a hitch on Windows 10/11.

On the other hand, I'd also be surprised if the code couldn't be ported as-is, with just some minor tweaks if any, to the latest Delphi release (released this month).

The transition to Unicode strings was a breaking change that did have some impact, but if the code used string manipulation routines instead of direct byte manipulation it should work without any change.

I rebuild a large number of demos with no change. Well, the UI looks date, you need to manually enable HighDPI (one checkbox away), do a few tweaks. The IDE plugins, those are broken. And some libraries don't ship any more.

That's more or less what I expected. I've recompiled some older D3 stuff in modern Delphi and most just works. The ones that were really troublesome used third-party components.

>> I would be surprised if Delphi 5 ran without a hitch on Windows 10/11

I'd be surprised if it didn't. Not Delphi, but I've been helping a client update their Windows program, from a compiler which shipped in 1998. Their program, with that compiler, runs just fine on Windows 11.

The backward compatibility of the Win32 API is such that I regularly use programs last compiled 20 years or more ago.

Microsoft sure has done a great job, but I have experienced some issues around Program Files and registry virtualization, along with UAC.

I suppose if you run it as admin and/or install it outside Program Files it'll make it a lot less troublesome.

So, not unexpected, but I'd still be mildly surprised.

> some issues around Program Files and registry virtualization, along with UAC.

Now that's rattling a thing in my brain. I recall disabling UAC was one of the more consistent ways to get Delphi 6 to even run on Windows 7, and even then it wasn't a guarantee.

Yeah, I had the displeasure around 2009-2011 of trying to get an old IDE version running on then-current versions of Windows, with multiple Vista and 7 computers in the office. It ran fine on Windows XP, but newer OSes were not so lucky.

Perhaps the solution was to purchase a newer Delphi, but that avenue wasn't sought after.

Yeah... I saw a lot of poorly written apps using localized data in the application's directory, when they started locking down Program Files, all kind of bugs started to pop up. I don't blame MS much, they had some compatibility shims in place, but it was still troublesome. Mostly blame the early app devs for not understanding separation of the application/libraries and the data the app uses/manipulates.

It's more hit or miss than you might think. If you're just using mostly basic parts of the Win32 API then it is basically about as solid as any backwards compatibility ever has been.

The fall off occurs as you veer off into deeper holes:

- Multimedia software and games tend to hit on areas of Windows where compatibility is far from perfect.

- Even 32-bit software would sometimes have random Win16 binaries, and those are not emulated; I don't blame Microsoft or anything, but they could support it if they wanted to. (Understandably, they do not.)

- Software that uses truly obsolete Windows components may no longer work. AFAIK .NET Framework 1.1 hasn't been supported since Windows 8. Old ActiveX and COM components can also be a problem.

This has led to some situations where you might actually have better luck running the old software under Wine and Linux than modern Windows, especially for some older games.

It's not that Microsoft didn't do immense amounts of work here, but in practice there are some holes I've run into.

> Even 32-bit software would sometimes have random Win16 binaries

InstallShield being a common one in that regard. So common that 64-bit Windows, which doesn't support 16-bit binaries, contains code to handle specifically[1] InstallShield and Acme 16-bit binaries[2].

[1]: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20131031-00/?p=27...

[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/winprog64/ap...

Was it Delphi or the installer? I do not have Delphi 6 but i have Delphi 2 and while the installer doesn't work out of the box (IIRC you can make it work with otvdm which can run 16bit programs on 64bit windows) you can simply just copy the files from the CD and it'll work.

Here is a screenshot from ~5 years ago when i was playing around writing a Quake 1 level editor in Delphi 2 under Windows 10[0] (i switched to using Linux as my main OS soon after and converted it to Lazarus[1]).

[0] https://i.imgur.com/I48gyMv.png

[1] https://i.imgur.com/7MSH98p.png

Hey this is interesting. Did you write the rendering code in Delphi too?

Did a bit of search, is it QuARK?

Yes the rendering code is in Delphi too. It uses an OpenGL control i wrote some years ago[0] which include OpenGL bindings for Delphi 2 (i haven't tested later versions). The control is actually a conversion of one i made for Borland C++ Builder [1].

It is not QuArK, though AFAIK QuArK was made in Delphi too. There have been a few other Quake editors made in Delphi, like the qED Quake Editor which was one of the earlier Quake editors (the author wrote a book about quake mapping too[2]).

[0] http://runtimeterror.com/tech/dglvp/

[1] http://runtimeterror.com/tech/bcbgl/

[2] https://archive.org/details/unofficial-quake-level-design-ha...

Thanks, I like your website BTW. It reminds me of the 90s.

Man I love it. Back in 1999/2000 I was very into Quake mapping and Half-Life mapping. I didn't make any good maps but the community was great. I remember talking to other mappers on ICQ every night.

I believe the community is still thriving.

As I recall, the installer seemed to complete fine, but the IDE itself had problems, and this was consistent on every Vista and W7 computer. Windows XP computers could run it without issue.

It's been a long enough time that the details have left my brain, but the feelings of pain have not been forgotten :-)

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