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Windows 7 Not Backwards Compatable?

7:40 pm, April 6th, 2008, Leigh McMullen

Leigh looks over at fellow consultant Pete M., “if this is true, buddy, we’re going to be RICH! RICH beyond our wildest dreams…”

windowsbluescreen.png

Fake Steve, in a recent story, referred to an article by Dev Corvin, which was breaking news about the forthcoming Windows 7 (which has moved its ship date up to 2009 as a result of the spectacular results Vista has demonstrated in the market…). Found amid the usual Windows blah-blah-blah, which I suffer through so you don’t have to, was this tasty quote:

 

Dev Corvin, thebetaguy.com :

Windows 7 takes a different approach to the componentization and backwards compatibility issues; in short, it doesn’t think about them at all. Windows 7 will be a from-the-ground-up packaging of the Windows codebase; partially source, but not binary compatible with previous versions of Windows.

Now I didn’t just take FSJ and this Dev guy’s word for it, I employed minimalist “journalistic” research and went ahead and Googled “Windows 7″ “Not Backwards Compatible”, which yeilded some 1.8 million hits.

This has me literally giddy with anticipation, see I am a consultant, which my mom thinks is code for being unemployed, and about 55% of my firm’s business world-wide is Microsoft-related. I have half a mind to switch practices from Strategy and Transformation to MS (though those practitioners do look hostilely at my Blackberry let alone my Macbook Pro).

In short, fixing all that broken .NET code out there in corporate America will be tantamount to the Y2K effort 10 years ago; a license to print money for consultants. From the bottom of my heart, Thank you Bill.

Now why should anybody who reads Cult of Mac care about this, other than some kind of surrogate pleasure to be gained from my anticipated financial success?

Because, friends, Microsoft’s lock on corporate IT has every everything to do with backwards compatibility. Should Redmond choose to proceed with this folly, our ranks (of Mac loyalists) are destined to swell such that I might have to consider something other than my MB Pro to make me cool and hip in the eyes of our college hires (as-if… might I suggest a really expensive (and thus exclusive) accessory, like a tablet. –ed)

Posted by Leigh McMullen in Fake Steve, Humor, News, Rumors, Software | Comment on this article

About the author

LeighMcMullen

Leigh McMullen leads the Advisory Services & Strategy practices for the professional services arm of one of the Big-Five firms. He has written several books that would cure any insomnia you might have, and is an avid Mac junkie.

Email the author | Read more posts by Leigh McMullen.

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6 comments

    And what makes you think that MS isn’t going to deploy some vitualization technology like Rosetta or Classic so one can still run current applications? MS is not that moronic.

    mare, on April 7th, 2008 at 4:42 am

    Its a cute idea, but come on. April fools was last week. There is no way that MS makes that big a blunder. Its conceivable that some XP and earlier native apps would cease to run, but .NET? Besides the fact that this is pure speculation on your part, you mention that it would be source, not binary compatible. .NET apps don’t ship in binary form. They are JIT compiled and in theory are just as portable as a Java app. There will be a .NET runtime on the next version of windows, as sure as Cocoa will be part of the next version of the Mac OS.

    Its too bad, as I’d love to see them blow it, but even they can’t screw up that bad.

    razmaspaz, on April 7th, 2008 at 6:17 am

    Of course they’re not. When Windows NT came out, there was a Windows 16 subsystem which ran all of those apps in compatibility mode (much like Rosetta). The trick here is tough:
    1. the current seeds don’t have this compatability mode built in near as I can tell

    and more importantly

    2. Developers-Developers-Developers: Corporate IT’s love affair with MS, as all about CUSTOM application. No-one inside Redmond gives two dingos about whether your copy of Office for Windows 95 will still work. Heck, they’d prefer breaking changes to force an upgrade. This is not, nor has it ever been about end-consumers and compatability.

    It’s about the BILLIONS’s of lines of VB.NET code out there driving businesses around the world, and the developers who work in gray walled sweatshops, here and in India to produce and maintain it.

    There are already breaking changes between instances of the .NET framework (which is why “source” compatibility was qualified as “Partially”).

    Even if the source is 99.9% compatible it’s ALL going to have to be retested again.

    Leigh McMullen, on April 7th, 2008 at 6:25 am

    This would absolutely be the best thing Microsoft could do for its users. Just like the move to OS X, it would be painful, but better in the long run.

    But don’t expect Windows users to understand that. Doing this would instantly boost Linux and Apple’s market share overnight as upset Windows users flee from what they see as a mistreatment.

    So even though it’s the better choice and would improve Windows, it would be very bad for Microsoft’s bottom line. I’m not expecting it to actually happen.

    Jeff, on April 7th, 2008 at 6:57 am

    Read the article from thebetaguy more carefully. He’s only saying that the means by which backwards compatibility will be provided is going to change, through a new layer that exposes legacy versions of system libraries.

    Gary, on April 7th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    [...] I can’t even imagine the size of this problem, if true [...]

    Good God, Windows 7 not backwards compatable? | My Zen Arcade, on April 9th, 2008 at 4:36 am