Re: The Eventual Famine
I'm in agreement with Quasar on this. While it would be great for Microsoft to continue supporting XP, at some point it is no longer about money, and is instead a limit of what can be done with the older technology. A big part of "Supporting" XP would be keeping its security up to date, and this is the one area where I have to completely agree with their decision to abandon it.
They could have continued to support XP if it were not for the security side of things. Dark, you are correct that outside companies can do a fine job taking over to handle XP security (as some have). Up until a few years ago, every computer in my house (usually several) ran XP with only service pack 2 installed. A decade of using XP, without the latest service pack or patches, and I can only think of 1 or 2 times when a computer got seriously messed up due to some sort of virus or malware. This was partly due to third party anti-virus s oftware, me knowing what to do and not do to keep my computer safe, and possibly luck.
When supporting XP, Microsoft cannot rely on people using third party software or luck to stay safe though. It's a technicality. When a person backed into the side door of my car, they called it totaled even though there was just a dent. There was a tiny bend in the car's frame which would cost more to fix than the car was worth. Sure they could have just repaired the door and ignored the dent in the frame (which is what I wanted them to do), but technically they have to return the entire car to a certain standard without leaving anything out. I do think Microsoft could easily continue to support XP in the other ways, but because they can't maintain the right security standards they technically cannot "support" it anymore.
When it comes to older games not working on modern/future windows, I really do thi nk that is overblown as well. In the middle of 100 people talking about how they play some VB6 game on their windows 8 machines, you'll get some random post exclaiming that old VB games will no longer work once people have to switch over to windows 7 or 8! It's funny really, and clearly shows that they are more interested in spreading some sort of panic, than realizing that people are already doing exactly what they claim they won't be able to do. Now I'm probably exaggerating a bit here, but funnily enough, not that much.
There is only a very small chance that a VB6 game can't work on a windows 7 or 8 machine, and that is about how they were designed. A developer could have used specific folders to save files to, which the new UAC does not allow. That's just about it. Everything else can be solved by simply registering a few files. In addition, registering them for one game means you don 9;t even have to do it for the rest. It's a 1 time deal. The UAC situation is no different than a developer who foolishly designs their game to run specifically from C: drive, and the game fails to work when someone is running it from a separate hard drive. I've seen people make that same mistake, and it is more a failure to think ahead than a problem with old software.
Will all VB6 games stop once windows 9 comes out? I have no idea. I know the planes didn't fall from the sky when the year 2000 rang in. I also know a lot of people who swore they would. People are ALWAYS waving their arms trying to get people convinced that such and such program won't work anymore once the next version of windows comes out. I have heard those claims since as long as I've used a computer. Whenever I do sit down to play games, I play classics that came out between 1994 and 1998, and they all work just fi ne on my windows 8 computer. I have this dusty old CD spindle that has these CDs from when I was in high school and each new windows was supposed to mean I had to toss them into the trash. I'm still waiting for someone to be right. Oh I'm sure one day they will be, but I generally stop listening to a school of thought when it has been consistently wrong for 20 years. When the day comes where I toss these old games into the trash because they can't work, it won't be because a doomsday poster was correct, it will be because he was lucky. LOL!
So in summary... I agree that VB6 can't be officially supported due to security technicalities. VB6 games still work just fine on windows 7 and 8 (unless the developer made a poor design choice with how they save their files). VB6 games will probably still work long into the future because I've never seen anything to make me think any different.
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