Win8 breaking changes...
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Here's a nice article about how Microsoft's often-cited architecture diagram has been misleading people all over the world: A bad picture is worth a thousand long discussions[^] But: the improved version there still does not reflect the reality. In reality, WinRT runs on top of good old Win32. It's nothing more then a set of COM libraries with a bit of syntax sugar added (the "language projections") to make it easier to use. Now the confusing portion is that Metro-style apps are restricted to use only the new APIs. This made people think there's something fundamentally new, e.g. that Metro-style apps don't run on top of Win32 (as that diagram seems to suggest). But in fact it is just an artificial restriction, and some people have already managed to circumvent it. However, apps that don't abide by this restriction will not be accepted to the Windows Store. My guess is that Microsoft created this restriction so that they have to option of getting rid of Win32 sometime in the far future - new Windows 8 Metro-style apps don't use Win32 directly, so they won't break if MS pulls the plug on Win32 in ten years or so. Or maybe these restrictions exist so that Windows 8 apps can run on the next Windows Phone version. Apps need porting anyways to work properly in a touch-focused environment, so it certainly made sense for MS to start with a new API and get rid of the requirement to be compatible with all API quirks since Windows 1.0. But don't forget that all of the above is for Metro-style apps only. All the compatibility layers are still present in Windows 8, and all Windows 7 applications I tried ran fine on Windows 8.
Thanks, my 5!
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
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They seem to be pushing WinRT instead of GDI, if GDI is still there then there will be a whole slew of other things as well. I'm all for being corrected, that's why I posted, Thanks.
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
GDI and the rest of the Win32 API are fully alive for desktop apps. You just can't use them for Metro apps.
Regards, Nish
My technology blog: voidnish.wordpress.com
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At distance looking at Windows8 I'm under the impression that Microsoft is breaking from the past in this version, it's a strange new experience since you could always count on Microsoft to be backward compatible (you can get most Win3.1 apps to work on Win7 64bit). Having said that I can see that clearly the current Windows architecture is not up to future challenges and is very very bloated, and needs a revamp/cleanup. But the problem is that Win8 while trying to be new is breaking everything that is in use today and it seems they are targeting consumer devices and not businesses and enterprise installations. ie a single screen mobile app style of application. This puts the design head on with things built on unix which is pretty damn good at nearly half of century old. While I can't agree with Apple's style of marketing (see excerpt below), I am lost at what Microsoft is doing with the mixed signals it is sending. Apple presentation : "... here we are and we have just created a new product which is absolutely astounding (applause from the crowd) its this round thing we put under thing to move stuff around, we introduce the iWheel (tm) [Samsung beware! if you copy it we will sue you]. (cheers from the crowd) Currently it comes in black, we will be giving you white ones in the future..."
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
I read that as "Wind breaking changes" and assume it was some form of new pollution control legislation... :-O
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
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I read that as "Wind breaking changes" and assume it was some form of new pollution control legislation... :-O
Real men don't use instructions. They are only the manufacturers opinion on how to put the thing together. Manfred R. Bihy: "Looks as if OP is learning resistant."
You should lay off the beans... :laugh:
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
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They seem to be pushing WinRT instead of GDI, if GDI is still there then there will be a whole slew of other things as well. I'm all for being corrected, that's why I posted, Thanks.
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
Windows desktop apps are fully legacy compatible with windows 8 from what I've seen but they are *definitely* a second class citizen in Windows 8 as it stands now unless by release they have a way for business users to force it to desktop mode and bring back the standard start menu which I'm pretty sure they will do. So in effect with some kind of option or switch windows 8 will be exactly windows 7 with a lighter kernel and some cleanup of the UI.
There is no failure only feedback
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At distance looking at Windows8 I'm under the impression that Microsoft is breaking from the past in this version, it's a strange new experience since you could always count on Microsoft to be backward compatible (you can get most Win3.1 apps to work on Win7 64bit). Having said that I can see that clearly the current Windows architecture is not up to future challenges and is very very bloated, and needs a revamp/cleanup. But the problem is that Win8 while trying to be new is breaking everything that is in use today and it seems they are targeting consumer devices and not businesses and enterprise installations. ie a single screen mobile app style of application. This puts the design head on with things built on unix which is pretty damn good at nearly half of century old. While I can't agree with Apple's style of marketing (see excerpt below), I am lost at what Microsoft is doing with the mixed signals it is sending. Apple presentation : "... here we are and we have just created a new product which is absolutely astounding (applause from the crowd) its this round thing we put under thing to move stuff around, we introduce the iWheel (tm) [Samsung beware! if you copy it we will sue you]. (cheers from the crowd) Currently it comes in black, we will be giving you white ones in the future..."
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
Mehdi Gholam wrote:
At distance
At a distance, I read your subject as "Win8 breaking wind". I guess, at a distance, I need glasses. ;) Marc
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At distance looking at Windows8 I'm under the impression that Microsoft is breaking from the past in this version, it's a strange new experience since you could always count on Microsoft to be backward compatible (you can get most Win3.1 apps to work on Win7 64bit). Having said that I can see that clearly the current Windows architecture is not up to future challenges and is very very bloated, and needs a revamp/cleanup. But the problem is that Win8 while trying to be new is breaking everything that is in use today and it seems they are targeting consumer devices and not businesses and enterprise installations. ie a single screen mobile app style of application. This puts the design head on with things built on unix which is pretty damn good at nearly half of century old. While I can't agree with Apple's style of marketing (see excerpt below), I am lost at what Microsoft is doing with the mixed signals it is sending. Apple presentation : "... here we are and we have just created a new product which is absolutely astounding (applause from the crowd) its this round thing we put under thing to move stuff around, we introduce the iWheel (tm) [Samsung beware! if you copy it we will sue you]. (cheers from the crowd) Currently it comes in black, we will be giving you white ones in the future..."
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
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Windows desktop apps are fully legacy compatible with windows 8 from what I've seen but they are *definitely* a second class citizen in Windows 8 as it stands now unless by release they have a way for business users to force it to desktop mode and bring back the standard start menu which I'm pretty sure they will do. So in effect with some kind of option or switch windows 8 will be exactly windows 7 with a lighter kernel and some cleanup of the UI.
There is no failure only feedback
Right now there's a registry key hack to bring back the older start menu paradigm, but that completely removes the ability to use "Modern apps". Toggle Start Menu Style on "Win8"[^] For clarificaiton purpopses, "Modern apps" are the kind that will live in the "start screen" experience. The kind that exist for Windows 7 and before would be considered "legacy apps" for Windows 8 terminology purposes. Examples of "legacy apps would be Office 2010, VS 2010, IE that supports plugins, etc. Basically anything that runs a window..
Mike Poz
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At distance looking at Windows8 I'm under the impression that Microsoft is breaking from the past in this version, it's a strange new experience since you could always count on Microsoft to be backward compatible (you can get most Win3.1 apps to work on Win7 64bit). Having said that I can see that clearly the current Windows architecture is not up to future challenges and is very very bloated, and needs a revamp/cleanup. But the problem is that Win8 while trying to be new is breaking everything that is in use today and it seems they are targeting consumer devices and not businesses and enterprise installations. ie a single screen mobile app style of application. This puts the design head on with things built on unix which is pretty damn good at nearly half of century old. While I can't agree with Apple's style of marketing (see excerpt below), I am lost at what Microsoft is doing with the mixed signals it is sending. Apple presentation : "... here we are and we have just created a new product which is absolutely astounding (applause from the crowd) its this round thing we put under thing to move stuff around, we introduce the iWheel (tm) [Samsung beware! if you copy it we will sue you]. (cheers from the crowd) Currently it comes in black, we will be giving you white ones in the future..."
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
Almost everything you ran before will run on the desktop in Windows 8. If you haven't downloaded the developer preview, it can answer a lot of questions for you. Win8 has basically 2 layers. One is the Metro theme with it's apps and the other is the standard desktop. They both work hand in hand for you to do your normal whatever. The Metro theme is basically a pretty app launcher and the desktop is the same old desktop with ribbon elements for the windows, an up arrow for explorer, and the start menu removed. While the Metro UI will launch apps, it can also launch desktop apps as well. When I installed Firefox, it placed an app launcher on the Metro UI as well etc. When it launches the desktop app, it switches to the desktop to load it. It's unfair to say that the desktop and it's apps are 'shoved aside' in place of the new Metro UI because you end up spending a considerable amount of time on the desktop anyway. Sure, once more and more apps become available, you'll be spending more time playing with them, but when it first launches, you'll still be using the same old apps. Even with all of the new apps, you'll still be spending considerable amounts of time on the desktop as it's the only way to move files etc. Overall, both UI's work together and it's all a buttery smooth process once you learn to use the little UI swapper.(No idea what it's called) Basically you can use that and the windows key to go back to the Metro UI from the desktop. I plan on spending some additional time with it, but for the first few hours of using it, I really enjoyed it. The only things I didn't like were the removal of Flash and Silverlight from the Metro IE and the removal of the standard Start Menu for the desktop. Even with those, I can say I'm looking forward to using this. The UI was quick and snappy. At no time did I ever feel it bogged down or get that 'boated' feeling. Oh, and one note to backwards compatibility.. I tested a vb6 game I wrote about 10 years ago and it ran exactly as you would expect.
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At distance looking at Windows8 I'm under the impression that Microsoft is breaking from the past in this version, it's a strange new experience since you could always count on Microsoft to be backward compatible (you can get most Win3.1 apps to work on Win7 64bit). Having said that I can see that clearly the current Windows architecture is not up to future challenges and is very very bloated, and needs a revamp/cleanup. But the problem is that Win8 while trying to be new is breaking everything that is in use today and it seems they are targeting consumer devices and not businesses and enterprise installations. ie a single screen mobile app style of application. This puts the design head on with things built on unix which is pretty damn good at nearly half of century old. While I can't agree with Apple's style of marketing (see excerpt below), I am lost at what Microsoft is doing with the mixed signals it is sending. Apple presentation : "... here we are and we have just created a new product which is absolutely astounding (applause from the crowd) its this round thing we put under thing to move stuff around, we introduce the iWheel (tm) [Samsung beware! if you copy it we will sue you]. (cheers from the crowd) Currently it comes in black, we will be giving you white ones in the future..."
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
-
They seem to be pushing WinRT instead of GDI, if GDI is still there then there will be a whole slew of other things as well. I'm all for being corrected, that's why I posted, Thanks.
Its the man, not the machine - Chuck Yeager If at first you don't succeed... get a better publicist If the final destination is death, then we should enjoy every second of the journey.
Win32, which was designed with C in mind, the WinRT APIs are written in C++ and designed from the beginning to be object oriented. User interfaces in C++ will be written primarily in XAML. This libraries for working with XAML have all been ported to C++ and are compiled to native x86. Metro applications written with XAML and C++ do not run on top of .NET, they get compiled directly to x86 just like any other Visual C++ application. Calling methods on UI controls is just like calling methods on any other object in C++. At the machine code level one pushes the this pointer onto the stack and then invokes a function via a v-table. This allows for the best possible performance even on low power devices. more ... http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/WinRT-API[^] The more things change .. the more they stay the same ... what do you think these "classes"/"templates" wrap .. guess ... wow .. win32/64 APIS ... it's just another SDK/DDK "Another library that didn’t make it into WinRT is GDI. If an application is going to use the Metro interface it needs to do so from top to bottom, it appears that mixing Metro and classic user interfaces is not possible." Really ... Win 8 will not run the thousands of MDI and Dialog base apps .. yea right .. great move... it will never happen ... I wouldn't through out your SDK 6.0-7.0 and visual studio 2008 just yet .. well not for some time .. Probably untill AFTER WIN 8 on desktops die the Vista Death.
modified on Monday, September 19, 2011 4:22 PM
