HIVE

Well, I remember what I said too, and I still consider Windows XP deprecated, even more so now, but yet, I have to give credit where credit is due.

As for compatibility, hopefully VMs won't be needed, since there have been no issues so far with XP up to Win10 (vista being ok with WFE surprised me the most).

Well, XP and Server 2003 are *very* much in the news currently:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-xp-and-server-2003-compiled-from-leaked-source-code/

On December 20, 2018 you did more than tell me XP is deprecated, in this last post about me. As a reminder:
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/posts/3313983/
It is not the fact you have written that 99% of my information is pretty stupid and subjective and is a wall of stupidity, that bothers me. It is the fact you did not *explain* how and why. THW is also a place where people come to learn. Therefore, further developments might have been welcomed by some.

(cont'd)

Regarding compatibility, you have written afterwards that WFE now supports Window versions from 95 up to Windows 10
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/posts/3332417/
... well, no. No version ranging from 2.1 to 2.8 could run on W98SE nor on W2000. and v2.8 would not even load anymore on XP (while v2.1 to 2.7 were indeed working on that OS). My testing was done on VMware Workstation Player 15.x, with the contents of the archive 'WFE Versions 21-28.zip'.

Regarding W95 compatibility, it is imho useless, as WC3 v1.26a requires W98 to run afaik
http://classic.battle.net/war3/faq/features.shtml
(and v1.27a requires XP as a minimum)

Again, for OSs XP and below, and even now windows vista and 7 are no longer supported, hence making them deprecated.

As for the 95 -> Windows 10, Before I added .xml yeah, it was working, though that 's not really important anymore.

Also VMs do not really replicate OS fully, but still I agree with you that newer versions of WFE should be tricky to run on old OSs.

And thanks for the heads up, was quite a useful read.

As for the "stupidity" that response was due to the info you presented being incorrect and besides the point, like "This literally says nothing about why XP should matter at all.
For starters, Warcraft 3 was designed with W9x OSes in mind (and boy, it painfully shows!)."

Would prefer if you didn't bring that up, but afaik my response hasn't changed and won't change regarding that matter, in case you wondered.

Sorry, but I stand by my point, but yeah, I could have handled it calmer.

Deprecated does not mean nobody uses any of these OSes anymore, be they still supported or not. And btw, W7 still is officially supported by Microsoft, via their ESR (=paid service). And very probably their previous OSes also are as well, unofficially and for selected high-rank customers.

How do you know WFE was working on W95, especially since WC3 requires W98 and DirectX8.1 afaik, and DX8.1 can not be installed on W95? (the last DirectX version compatible with W95 is v8.0a afaik)

(cont'd)

An hypervisor like VMware Workstation Player does not have to fully emulate another computer. Other software (like 86Box for example) does, but performance greatly suffers because of that. This is why one must not forget to target earlier CPUs (PII or PIIIs) for WC3 as well with hypervisors, because such a mistake would get unnoticed in VMware.

The WC3 engine was first designed in 1998; one only has to have a look at the list of supported video cards to realize that. I bet most of that code is still there in v1.26a / 1.27a. Therefore i, too, rest my case, until I am proven wrong.

(cont'd)

Because melee maps are unplayable on a PII (contrary to Blizzard's campaigns which are more or less playable, and even though the final mission of the Rexxar Campaign is not very enjoyable on a PII 350), it is imho best to target PIIIs (and the SSE instruction set) as a minimum, even though it may leave some AMD users behind. Hey, even I have my limits when it comes to compatibility...
;D

"How do you know WFE was working on W95, especially since WC3 requires W98 and DirectX8.1"

I can test my tool without WC3 though? What I meant was that my tool works on Win98, not that WC3 does, though adding xml made 95/98 unsupported.

"The WC3 engine was first designed in 1998;"

The time of its design doesn't really do much, though I do remember running it on Windows 2000 and Millennium, though, that was on patch 1.23 or 1.24 can't really remember.

"Because melee maps are unplayable on a PII (contrary to Blizzard's campaigns which are more or less playable"

It's easier to say, that "minimum requirements" is still to low to play any competitive map, or heck even any melee map, hence why it feels like hot garbage, which makes sense.

As for W7, again, ESR != actual support, since we can't really say how many people actually use it, hence why it is deprecated and nowadays newest programs simply require win8+.

imho the best way to test WFE, is with the game itself.

Maybe you will want to make all the previous versions available in a separate single archive (similar to the 'WFE Versions 21-28.zip' one)? When I did the testing, the earlier 2.1-2.3 ones worked better for me, because the latter ones (note: versions >2.7 untested) crashed the game when trying to view the FMVs.

The time of the design of the engine of any video game does matter, because so very many things are derived from it afterwards.

Yep, the official minimum requirements are too low to fully make use of all the possibilities of the game. Regarding online play back then, it was always the owner the fastest PC who had a clear advantage iirc.

W7 ESR is actual support. It is used by all who paid for it.
Another solution/workaround for deprecated OSes might be to use a third-party service such as 0Patch for example
https://0patch.com/

Nowadays, not all programs require Windows 8.x in order to run. by far.

"The time of the design of the engine of any video game does matter, because so very many things are derived from it afterwards."

Not the point I was making, but yeah, this is correct.

Well, I repeat, most of the NEW programs require Win8 and higher, and as .net evolves, and it won't be updated on win7, that will make it deprecated, which is what I am trying to explain to you.

"W7 ESR is actual support. It is used by all who paid for it." this doesn't tell me a number, hence why I said "we can't know how many use it".

"Maybe you will want to make all the previous versions available in a separate single archive (similar to the 'WFE Versions 21-28.zip' one)?"

All of them are available on my Yandex disk, will add them to Google Drive too, though I should add that to description I guess. Thanks.

Regarding .NET, we have the Framework and we have Core. I am guessing that at some point everything will be merged into a single product, because the branding feels a bit confusing.

As of this writing, I have installed the Frameworks v2.0->4.8 on my Windows 10 PC, plus Core and the Desktop Runtime 3.1.6.
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/3.1
Now seriously, what a confusing mess Core is imho...
;D

btw, I can provide you the archive WFE_v2.9.zip, should you need it (note: downloaded on 06/09/2019). Also, impressive list of supported versions for the widescreen feature with v2.13.

"Well, I repeat, most of the NEW programs require Win8 and higher, and as .net evolves, and it won't be updated on win7, that will make it deprecated, which is what I am trying to explain to you."
- https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/5.0/5.0-supported-os.md
- https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/3.1/3.1-supported-os.md
- https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/release-notes/2.1/2.1-supported-os.md
Windows 7 SP1 support will still be strong imho

The Master page is here:
https://github.com/dotnet/core/blob/master/os-lifecycle-policy.md

"btw, I can provide you the archive WFE_v2.9.zip," if you still have it, sure just send it to me and I will upload it to Google Drive and Yandex.

"Windows 7 SP1 support will still be strong imho"
For now that is yeah, but once EoL hits, it will be written out of .net and .net core, but we shall see.

The paste is up and ready:
https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/a6943105c45f90f1f8854ff19a5dbe8f22141/
I have put your original unmodified zip inside a 7z archive, to preserve the date of my download in 2019.

Because Windows 7 also exists embedded in devices (ATMs etc.), support for it will last longer than one might expect. As an example, Windows XP officially reached end of support on April 8, 2014 for the average PC desktop consumer, *but* support for Windows XP embedded (POSready 2009) was discontinued on April 9, 2019. And I bet Microsoft created more patches afterwards, except those ones are not public, and therefore not downloadable anymore as standalone offline installer versions.

Regarding XP embedded POSReady 2009, it has been updated for five extra years with security patches for the OS, expanded with new features (TLS 1.1 and 1.2 support), and ofc the .NET Frameworks have been patched as well, all at least until 2019 (and probably beyond imho)