Ghisler OT: Maintaining compatibility across OSes

[Blight]

A bit of topic question for Christian,
How do you check compatibility with older versions of windows when adding new features. Some WinAPI functions are not properly supported on NT4 and Win95. Other than having multiple installations of these operating system, are you aware of a good method to check this?

[Lefteous]

2Blight

He mentioned that he is using VMware for this kind of tests.

[ghisler(Author)]

Indeed I'm using Vmware with about 20 different versions of Windows (of course all legal copies from MSDN), and VirtualPC for Windows 3.1 (Vmware just isn't good for Win31).

[SanskritFritz]

2ghisler(Author)

Vmware just isn't good for Win31

What?? How is this possible?

VirtualPC

The MS one? IS it good, compared to VmWare?

[wanderer]

2ghisler(Author)

Vmware just isn't good for Win31

What?? How is this possible?

One of VMWare's major problems with Win31 is that there are no drivers for the virtual hardware (display, network or anything else). If i remember correctly, there is insufficient or no support at all for memory management as well (emm386.exe either does not work at all or it works with NOEMS parameter only). Also, its virtual video adapter (VGA) is not fully VESA compliant.

I'm sure these are not the only problems it has with those older OS's . It seems they have given emphasis only in newer OSs...

[SanskritFritz]

2wanderer
Thanks! That helped me a lot!