Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[TheBoy]

Yeah, know about the patches, but should we still be using such old software?

[cem_devecioglu]

Yeah, know about the patches, but should we still be using such old software?

until somebody pay the bills for the time and effort spent for a replacement project.. :-/

[Martin_1962]

No full screen DOS mode - useless for older games and some applications

Not tried in Win7, but as Vista is similar, I guess its same - its possible, bit of tweaking iirc, inc disabling Aero. Been ages since I've had to do it, I'd need to look it up.

Obviously, its not DOS, its simply a full screen command prompt that sits on top of Windows.

However, in this day and age, we certainly should not still be running console based apps that need to go full screen, this is 2009 FFS.

XP could manage it so could 2000, so why break it?

Backward compatibility if 15-20yr old apps is unimportant.

I'd say backwards compatability is actually pretty important.

[Martin_1962]

Yeah, know about the patches, but should we still be using such old software?

Why shouldn't they?

If it works and does as required

[cem_devecioglu]

actually its not a rule but large companies and banks mostly using

old software as it takes many years to become a stable and bug free

software..

[Martin_1962]

actually its not a rule but large companies and banks mostly using

old software as it takes many years to become a stable and bug free

software..

It takes about 5 years to develop a system - our last system took 10 years to fully do!

[cem_devecioglu]

actually its not a rule but large companies and banks mostly using

old software as it takes many years to become a stable and bug free

software..

It takes about 5 years to develop a system - our last system took 10 years to fully do!

As expected ..Development and testing and other phases are expensive also..

and add training costs..

[sev]

how have you found driver support - will vista drivers install?

[TheBoy]

No full screen DOS mode - useless for older games and some applications

Not tried in Win7, but as Vista is similar, I guess its same - its possible, bit of tweaking iirc, inc disabling Aero. Been ages since I've had to do it, I'd need to look it up.

Obviously, its not DOS, its simply a full screen command prompt that sits on top of Windows.

However, in this day and age, we certainly should not still be running console based apps that need to go full screen, this is 2009 FFS.

XP could manage it so could 2000, so why break it?

Backward compatibility if 15-20yr old apps is unimportant.

I'd say backwards compatability is actually pretty important.

To a point I agree.  But not back that far.

The languages/programming systems these 20yr old apps are using are no longer supported, haven't been for years.  This is one area where Microsoft are one of the most generous, offering 10yrs of support for a product from release.  If the programming systems aren't supported, how on earth can a developer truely provide support. Simple answer, you can't.  And then there is the sticky issue of security problems...

I am racking my brains trying to think of DOS based apps (not Windows Console based apps), and I'm struggling.  I know there is a common one used by Chinese Restuarants.  A few years ago, a lot of EPoS stuff was DOS based, but these are all without fail Win32 apps now.


I applaud MS for having the balls to remove support for stuff - I know they got a lot of flack over NT4's demise - but at least they don't do what a lot of other companies do, not mentioning Borland (good ridance) - claiming to support a version, but when you call them, the only answer is you need to upgrade!

[TheBoy]

actually its not a rule but large companies and banks mostly using

old software as it takes many years to become a stable and bug free

software..

It takes about 5 years to develop a system - our last system took 10 years to fully do!

Thats probably too long a lifecycle for PC based apps in this industry, esp if you are targetting non government customers.

Even so, 10yrs ago, you should have been targetting NT4/W2K as your target OS - MS-DOS was already dead in the water by then.  Its like if you started developing a major new version (as opposed to refining old version), you would be targeting Vista/Win7 now, not W2K which is dropping out of support very soon, or XP, which is due to drop out of support in 2 years.

[TheBoy]

how have you found driver support - will vista drivers install?

Not come across anything that hasn't worked yet.  Things like printers, I've used Vista Drivers.

Saying that, nothing special about my desktop, and virtually all the currently installed drivers for system itself are from the Win7 DVD.

[Martin_1962]

We have test run our latest software on Windows 7 and it does work, however NONE of our customers have shown ANY interest in Vista at all.

As to ther PCs

I'd guess about 75% XP, 10% 2000, 15% 98, and there is resistance to XP from some of our customers hardware support companies.

A lot of our customers like the DOS package and do not want to move to our Windows package, and we still have about 10% of the system to finish converting.

But then it is a case of do we convert a rarely used screen or develope a module loads of users are crying out for?

[Kevin Wood]

To a point I agree.  But not back that far.

The languages/programming systems these 20yr old apps are using are no longer supported, haven't been for years.  This is one area where Microsoft are one of the most generous, offering 10yrs of support for a product from release.  If the programming systems aren't supported, how on earth can a developer truely provide support. Simple answer, you can't.  And then there is the sticky issue of security problems...

I am racking my brains trying to think of DOS based apps (not Windows Console based apps), and I'm struggling.  I know there is a common one used by Chinese Restuarants.  A few years ago, a lot of EPoS stuff was DOS based, but these are all without fail Win32 apps now.


I applaud MS for having the balls to remove support for stuff - I know they got a lot of flack over NT4's demise - but at least they don't do what a lot of other companies do, not mentioning Borland (good ridance) - claiming to support a version, but when you call them, the only answer is you need to upgrade!

The above is true for mainstream applications but at the fringes things move a bit slower.

We recently had to support some customers using an old DOS based platform for testing GSM base stations. The box is totally obsolete but there is nothing else on the market that will do the testing they require. It's based on a DOS PC but there are no issues with software support. It doesn't connect to anything so security is a non-issue. It's unlikely that we'll find a bug in DOS or the development environment (Borland C++ - Sorry ) that will be a show-stopper at this stage - so manufacturer support for those is not an issue. It's no problem to support (a breath of fresh air compared to Windows based stuff, in some respects).

The problem is hardware support - which reminds me - anyone know of a source of 486 Motherboards?

In most respects Windows (currently 2K) was a monumentally bad choice for the successor to that box IMHO. If the users can get it into the building under the radar of the IT police it's fine, but as soon as someone figures out it's a PC internally and starts altering security policies, installing antivirus software, etc. the problems start...

A substantial amount of development effort does into continually migrating it from one version of Dev Studio to the next too. That disappears into the noise for a huge volume app with lots of manpower being poured into it generally, but for something a little more specialised it's a real pain.

Had it been based on something the end user barely recognises as a computer I suspect it'd have been much easier.

Kevin

[TheBoy]

We have test run our latest software on Windows 7 and it does work, however NONE of our customers have shown ANY interest in Vista at all.

As to ther PCs

I'd guess about 75% XP, 10% 2000, 15% 98, and there is resistance to XP from some of our customers hardware support companies.

A lot of our customers like the DOS package and do not want to move to our Windows package, and we still have about 10% of the system to finish converting.

But then it is a case of do we convert a rarely used screen or develope a module loads of users are crying out for?

- the hardware support companies need to be sacked. 98 is no longer supported, w2k unsupported this year (or is it next).  98 should never have been used in business anyway.

When they upgrade their PCs, Vista will be more attractive, seeing as it will be free with the PC

[TheBoy]

To a point I agree.  But not back that far.

The languages/programming systems these 20yr old apps are using are no longer supported, haven't been for years.  This is one area where Microsoft are one of the most generous, offering 10yrs of support for a product from release.  If the programming systems aren't supported, how on earth can a developer truely provide support. Simple answer, you can't.  And then there is the sticky issue of security problems...

I am racking my brains trying to think of DOS based apps (not Windows Console based apps), and I'm struggling.  I know there is a common one used by Chinese Restuarants.  A few years ago, a lot of EPoS stuff was DOS based, but these are all without fail Win32 apps now.


I applaud MS for having the balls to remove support for stuff - I know they got a lot of flack over NT4's demise - but at least they don't do what a lot of other companies do, not mentioning Borland (good ridance) - claiming to support a version, but when you call them, the only answer is you need to upgrade!

The above is true for mainstream applications but at the fringes things move a bit slower.

We recently had to support some customers using an old DOS based platform for testing GSM base stations. The box is totally obsolete but there is nothing else on the market that will do the testing they require. It's based on a DOS PC but there are no issues with software support. It doesn't connect to anything so security is a non-issue. It's unlikely that we'll find a bug in DOS or the development environment (Borland C++ - Sorry ) that will be a show-stopper at this stage - so manufacturer support for those is not an issue. It's no problem to support (a breath of fresh air compared to Windows based stuff, in some respects).

The problem is hardware support - which reminds me - anyone know of a source of 486 Motherboards?

In most respects Windows (currently 2K) was a monumentally bad choice for the successor to that box IMHO. If the users can get it into the building under the radar of the IT police it's fine, but as soon as someone figures out it's a PC internally and starts altering security policies, installing antivirus software, etc. the problems start...

A substantial amount of development effort does into continually migrating it from one version of Dev Studio to the next too. That disappears into the noise for a huge volume app with lots of manpower being poured into it generally, but for something a little more specialised it's a real pain.

Had it been based on something the end user barely recognises as a computer I suspect it'd have been much easier.

Kevin

I know of DOS boxes that are doing time critical I/O controlling machinery, though even these are sucomming to non DOS (Unix in this case) boxes...