[FUBAR-BDHR]

Yes 95-ME were built on top of MS-DOS-7.  You probably won't see it called that (maybe on an old 95 floppy set) but if you do a ver from the command prompt I believe you will see it. 

[headdie]

Yes 95-ME were built on top of MS-DOS-7.  You probably won't see it called that (maybe on an old 95 floppy set) but if you do a ver from the command prompt I believe you will see it. 

but many of the higher dos functions are no longer accessable

[Cyker]

I still play it in Win98 you insensitive clods! ;_;

Is this something on the cards then, or is purely out of curiosity?

Unless there's some show-stopping problem with Win98 support then I'd (obviously) prefer if it was kept it in. I can play it on Win2k, but it's slower and I have to limit the RAM to 1GB or my Sidewinder and my SB Live don't work properly due to stupid driver bugs, so it's just easier.

(And no, I can't upgrade my system because nothing new works in Win2k and I'm trying to boycott anything that needs on-line activation. Unfortunately I started that before WinXP came out.)

[The E]

The problem isn't so much Win98 as it is VC6. Newer builds might work on Win98, but there is no guarantee for this. And keeping this "feature" for people like you, who are really only a tiny minority of the userbase, is more trouble than it's worth, from my perspective.

Besides, if you don't want online activation, why not use Linux? FSO will run there as well, and Wine is better at Win98 compatibility than XP is....

[headdie]

for my money although SCP is supposed to be maintaining backwards compatibility with retail i think we are at the point now were the original OS support list needs addressing i mean Win98 as "good" an operating system as it is now over 10 years old now and with XP retailing at £20-30 on ebay I cant see why anyone would run 98 as a primary system

[Kosh]

Yeah, but it was easily possible to drop down to the command line to get access to a full-blown 16 bit DOS. While Win32 got started with 95, the old DOS API was still fully available in 95 and 98, making compatibility really easy.

Win32 started with the NT line. 9x was intended to introduce win32 to the home market while still retaining needed DOS compatibility, with the eventual goal of completely supplanting it with an NT based OS, which ended up being XP Home.

Yes 95-ME were built on top of MS-DOS-7.

It wasn't built on top per say, rather it was a bizzare hybrid 16-32 bit kernal. Given the fundemental incompatibilities between them it is no surprise the 9x line had the problems it did. Still it is impressive in a way they managed to make it work at all.

[Goober5000]

I still play it in Win98 you insensitive clods! ;_;

Me too.

Is this something on the cards then, or is purely out of curiosity?

See my post here.

The problem isn't so much Win98 as it is VC6. Newer builds might work on Win98, but there is no guarantee for this.

What he said.  Alternatives to VC6 are being investigated.

And keeping this "feature" for people like you, who are really only a tiny minority of the userbase, is more trouble than it's worth, from my perspective.

"They came for the Win98 users, and I did not speak up because I was not a Win98 user..."

[portej05]

Well, the major issue that I can see is that when we drop VC6, we'll have to start introducing platform releases.
PDB_DEBUGGING I'm not sure about on Win98, there may be memory issues, any rewrite of graphics code to take advantage of newer APIs will have to be rechecked and most likely written for platform support, debugging support may be non-existant, FRED doesn't currently have issues, but it may in future (and any new application will probably need the unicode framework for Win9x), there will be hacks galore for any problems we do have (just see a recent commit for a weird VC6 error).

How many of the features of 3.6.10 can Win98 users use anyway, and do nightlies actually work for Win98 users?

[Fury]

How many of the features of 3.6.10 can Win98 users use anyway

For legacy OS users, I doubt anything else matters except being able to play campaigns that may use features found only in newer fs2_open releases. On the other hand, more often than not, those new campaigns also pack enough eye candy to blow up most Win9x era PCs. I doubt even launcher flags can turn them all off in some cases.

and do nightlies actually work for Win98 users?

That's the question isn't it? I don't know if even .10 works on Win9x, but apparently that's the case as Goober hasn't said otherwise. Little birds have told me that not even Goober has played .11 nightlies on W9x, at least not recent. If that's the case then what's the point if the only remaining W9x developer doesn't bother maintaining the compatibility he so much wants to keep?


And now a personal rage.

This goes for everyone, not just W9x developers. Can you please stpp being stuck-up and not except modern games, or in this case modernized game to work on legacy OS that is 12 years old? Seriously, get a decent Win7 notebook or desktop with ATI or Nvidia GPU and you're set.

And those who voted for "No, but I expect fs2_open to work on Win98/ME", what the **** seriously? You don't even play on W9x and you expect the game to work on it? Who do you expect to maintain the compatibility and what cost  on effort and time? Not to mention keeping legacy support often comes at the cost of not being able to use more advanced/modern code/API/libraries.

If 3.6.10 works on W9x but .11 does not, I'd say that's fine. Don't even bother to fix it. It's about time Goober and anyone else gets a rig that can be called a PC and not a toaster. No wait I take that back, it would hurt toasters feelings.

[NGTM-1R]

And those who voted for "No, but I expect fs2_open to work on Win98/ME", what the **** seriously? You don't even play on W9x and you expect the game to work on it? Who do you expect to maintain the compatibility and what cost  on effort and time? Not to mention keeping legacy support often comes at the cost of not being able to use more advanced/modern code/API/libraries.

Considering you gave people the option to vote that, any rights you had to complain when they actually did so are null and void.

[Fury]

No it does not.

[Gregster2k]

Unless there's some show-stopping problem with Win98 support then I'd (obviously) prefer if it was kept it in. I can play it on Win2k, but it's slower and I have to limit the RAM to 1GB or my Sidewinder and my SB Live don't work properly due to stupid driver bugs, so it's just easier.

(And no, I can't upgrade my system because nothing new works in Win2k and I'm trying to boycott anything that needs on-line activation. Unfortunately I started that before WinXP came out.)

Every reason you have given can be worked around.

Regarding the Sidewinder, my Sidewinder works perfectly fine under Windows XP on my ASUS A7N8X motherboard (which possesses an integrated MIDI/joystick port).  There are also many drivers available for the SB Live! under Windows XP.  Neither of these devices worked well for me under Windows 2000.  And I have had no problems with RAM size.

Windows XP's online activation is easily defeated after installation.  I have bypassed online activation on all student editions of Windows XP that I've owned, shortly after installing them.  Why?  Out of principle -- same reason as you.  Now I'm on Windows 7, and quite happy with it.  I even activated it online.  Times change.

[jr2]

Is it possible to make compatibility opposite of what the problem is?  In other words, the problem is SCP doesn't support '98 / ME.

How about instead of mangling SCP to support 9x, check into a patch for 9x to make it support SCP?  i.e., a patch to support the newer APIs and the newer VC7/8/9 / whatever it is you coder gods are using nowadays.

I don't know if it'd be feasible, but it has been done (DX10 support on XP for Halo 2 [a "Vista-only" game]).  This way, if you want to / have to use 9x, you patch your system to run SCP.

There may be more to it than that, but the coders would know, so I'm posing the question here.

What do you think?

[Kosh]

This goes for everyone, not just W9x developers. Can you please stpp being stuck-up and not except modern games, or in this case modernized game to work on legacy OS that is 12 years old? Seriously, get a decent Win7 notebook or desktop with ATI or Nvidia GPU and you're set.

Maybe for some people getting a new computer isn't their highest priority? We did have a major economic meltdown after all......

[Vip]

This goes for everyone, not just W9x developers. Can you please stpp being stuck-up and not except modern games, or in this case modernized game to work on legacy OS that is 12 years old? Seriously, get a decent Win7 notebook or desktop with ATI or Nvidia GPU and you're set.

Maybe for some people getting a new computer isn't their highest priority? We did have a major economic meltdown after all......

The 9x series has been obsolete long before the economic problems even began.

[portej05]

(And no, I can't upgrade my system because nothing new works in Win2k and I'm trying to boycott anything that needs on-line activation. Unfortunately I started that before WinXP came out.)

There's no issue with online activation unless you've pirated something, then it gets iffy.
Unfortunately, I have a hard time with things like that when they're done on principle (just ask Goober5000). The current FSO compiler used on Win98 (VC6) is giving me no end of trouble with borked template handling.

[The E]

*snip*

Why waste brainpower on backporting features into an OS that old, when upgrading to Linux is a rather painless process?

[MatthTheGeek]

Agreed

[sigtau]

Windows Vista and below use the same memory manager found in Windows 98.

Other than that, there really isn't any reason to continue being concerned about Windows 9x/ME.

[pecenipicek]

Windows Vista and below use the same memory manager found in Windows 98.

CITATION ****ING NOW. Where the hell do you people pull this bull**** and trying to pass it off as actual facts?