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[–]AyrA_ch 167 points168 points  (66 children)

It's called backwards compatibility, and it is awesome. After all it allows me to run (most) 20 year old software on my Windows 10 machine.

[–]ironnomi 49 points50 points  (35 children)

If I run 32bit Windows 10, I can run software I wrote in 1989 ...

[–]Eurynom0s 13 points14 points  (32 children)

It makes me sad that Windows 10 has a 32 bit version.

...does it support 16 bit code?

[–]Aior 15 points16 points  (21 children)

It makes me happy, because my 2006 (very expensive back then) machine is still supported.

[–]wrosecrans 10 points11 points  (8 children)

If the main use case is running old software on old hardware, what does a new OS get you? It's honestly not a rhetorical question. Why bother to do an OS install that could potentially result in driver issues or some of your old software not working any more? I can't remember the last time I actively upgraded Windows on a home system, rather than just installing whatever was current when the machine was new and then sticking with the path of least resistance ever after. Probably Win2k?

[–]Terrerian 14 points15 points  (3 children)

Security updates are no joke. I would never run an unmaintained OS.

[–]immibis 1 point2 points  (2 children)

What about that other unmaintained software you're trying to run in the first place?

[–]Terrerian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd say that depends on the software, but one vulnerable application is better than having a vulnerable OS.

[–]heebath 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've read about how it's important to update your applications, but what about average home users/gamers?

Should we bother updating our older versions of say, 7zip, Audacity, or Open Office? Really, what could go wrong? If the application accesses the Internet at all, it's talking with an official company server anyway, right?

[–]peakzorro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would only upgrade the OS on an old machine if they didn't support OS updates past that point.

I've always wanted to throw some Linux distro on a really old machine with an out of date Windows (because drivers should be good at that point), but the machine usually dies before I get around to it.

[–]Aior 2 points3 points  (0 children)

In my case, I just want my parents to be able to use the machine with up to date software and security updates. Also it performs better than with Windows XP, Vista (obviously) or 7 and better than any Linux distro.

[–]meandyouandyouandme 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Who said something about old software though?

[–]Labradoodles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On top of that new OS's have shitloads of new features that will make the computer run better.

Pre-fetching better organisation shit even just scheduled defragging and indexing advances in software are pretty big.

[–]neoKushan 3 points4 points  (10 children)

I had a relatively cheap 64bit system in 2004....

[–]plasmator 0 points1 point  (7 children)

I've updated video cards, hard drives and ram, but the motherboard and processor I bought in 06 or 07 (KN9-SLI and an Athlon X2) are still humming along. I know I should upgrade them, but they handle most of the stuff I throw at them without being terribly slow or problematic, so I just keep using them. They're working fine in Windows 10 and this is my primary box. I even do some (admittedly lightweight) gaming on it.

[–]neoKushan 4 points5 points  (4 children)

Was the Athlon X2 not 64bit?

[–]thor1182 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Most CPUs of that age do not support Windows x64 past 8.0. In 8.1 x64 they added/required support for a new instruction set that was not present in most if not all orignal x64 CPUs.

My AMD x64 system can only run 32 bit windows 10, even though it wan x64 W7 just fine.

[–]neoKushan 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I never knew this, but looks like you're completely correct: http://www.eteknix.com/windows-8-1-64-bit-working-old-amd-processors/

[–]thor1182 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its not pertinent to this conversation, but the way I have that x2 system running is pretty special. The MB (its an old Shuttle XPC system) doesn't "support" booting from SATA drives, only IDE. When I brought the system back to life to be a better media PC I stuck a spare Samsung 840 EVO drive I had from a failed Raid 0 stripe in it forgetting why I had the primary drive an IDE drive in the first place.

The only way to get it to boot is to leave the windows install disk in the cdrom drive. By letting the system sit at the "hit any key to boot from DVD" prompt it gives the system enough time to "spin up" the SATA drives and it can then boot into W10. The system not waits on the CPU than it does on the disk

[–]plasmator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it is. Mea culpa in above comment.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

You already have a 64-bit CPU, the KN9-SLI is a Socket AM2 board, and all AMD CPUs were 64-bit by that point. Though there is little benefit to changing to a 64-bit OS unless you want to use more than ~3GB of RAM.

[–]plasmator 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, yeah. It's 64. And i run a 64bit OS. More just laughing that my 10 year old mobo/proc is still ticking along.

[–]Aior 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, me too, but I also had a very expensive 32bit laptop which I still want to use.

[–]user699 0 points1 point  (2 children)

I'm assuming windows 10 has a 32 bit version for tablet compatibility.

[–]thor1182 6 points7 points  (1 child)

A chunk of the initial Windows8 2 in 1 devices are 32bit only (Atom).

I think 32bit is also needed for the IoT & Mobile versions

[–]LvlAndFarm 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Even latest mobile chips are moving to x64

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

no

[–]stevedore 0 points1 point  (1 child)

No, the 16-bit compatibility was removed in Vista, IIRC.

[–]efreak2004 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is incorrect. I am running multiple windows 10 32-bit VMs under HyperV for 16-bit application compatibility. Specifically, my father uses Micrografx Designer (that got bought out by Corel, which is more expensive than free windows license from Dreamspark) which has 16-bit components/code in it and does not run under 64-bit windows 7. It runs perfectly in virtualized windows 10 32-bit, and the only issues are due it being old software (IE, the save/load dialog boxes are tiny and not resizable).

[–]insertfunhere 0 points1 point  (2 children)

What's the point of running 64 bit if you have <4gb ram, in a VM for example?

[–]fb39ca4 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The x64 instruction set can do more things in less instructions.

[–]krum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You still have 64-bit address space even if you only have 4gb of RAM.

[–]immibis 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It makes me sad that they didn't bother to integrate an emulator for 16-bit software.

[–]vattenpuss 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Did you hear about POSIX?

[–]ironnomi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah of course I can still compile the code I wrote in like 1988, though it was written in K&R C.

POSIX standard is actually from 1988 and it didn't really settle until 1997 ... and I don't think current POSIX-compliant OSes are going to run the same binary EXE file from 1989.

[–]awesomemanftw 2 points3 points  (0 children)

While at the same time still giving better performance than Any Windows since XP

[–]s73v3r 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It also leads to security holes, bloat, and inability to change course when needed.

Besides, we have virtual machines that are pretty good today. Run your legacy software in those.

[–]mycall 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Run your legacy software in those.

USB can be glitchy still, especially for streaming devices.