VC2003 & Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

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  • Charles E Hardwidge

    VC2003 & Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

    I feel a bit dumb for asking this but I lost my documentation in an
    accident. Could someone confirm the last supported PSDK for VC2003 and
    95/98/ME & NT4?

    --
    Charles E Hardwidge

  • David Wilkinson

    #2
    Re: VC2003 & Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

    Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
    I feel a bit dumb for asking this but I lost my documentation in an
    accident. Could someone confirm the last supported PSDK for VC2003 and
    95/98/ME & NT4?
    Charles:

    1. To my knowledge, the PSDK is still backward compatible to older OS's. By
    setting WINVER etc. you can eliminate features available only on later OS's.

    2. Also to my knowledge, there are no limitations on the version of the PSDK
    that can be used with VS2003 (VC7.1).

    3. The last version of VC to officially support Windows 95 was VC6. The latest
    PSDK usable with VC6 was February 2003.

    --
    David Wilkinson
    Visual C++ MVP

    Comment

    • Charles E Hardwidge

      #3
      Re: VC2003 & Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

      "David Wilkinson" <no-reply@effisols. comwrote in message
      news:#l7JyfxGJH A.2580@TK2MSFTN GP05.phx.gbl...
      Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
      >I feel a bit dumb for asking this but I lost my documentation in an
      >accident. Could someone confirm the last supported PSDK for VC2003 and
      >95/98/ME & NT4?
      >
      1. To my knowledge, the PSDK is still backward compatible to older OS's.
      By setting WINVER etc. you can eliminate features available only on later
      OS's.
      >
      2. Also to my knowledge, there are no limitations on the version of the
      PSDK that can be used with VS2003 (VC7.1).
      >
      3. The last version of VC to officially support Windows 95 was VC6. The
      latest PSDK usable with VC6 was February 2003.
      Thanks Dave.

      Things are looking that way but VC++2003 is internally documented as
      supporting 95 and NT4, and I have a recollection that Microsoft commented
      that a later PSDK was the last to officially support older targets.

      I guess, it's one of those funny things where you get a different answer
      depending on who you ask. It's just annoying me that my replacement
      compatibility spreadsheet has question marks all over the place.

      Does anyone have a clue what PSDK was the last Microsoft officially
      recommended for VC++2003? That would fill a hole in the spreadsheet and shut
      me up.

      --
      Charles E Hardwidge

      Comment

      • Jim Barry

        #4
        Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

        David Wilkinson wrote:
        3. The last version of VC to officially support Windows 95 was VC6.
        I don't think that's right. It was possible to target Win95 up until VC2005 when the CRT introduced a dependency on IsDebuggerPrese nt, which only exists from Win98.
        The latest PSDK usable with VC6 was February 2003.
        Yes, the XP/SP2 SDK libs were compiled with /GS (buffer security check) making them incompatible with VC6.

        --
        Jim Barry, Microsoft MVP

        Comment

        • Jim Barry

          #5
          Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

          Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
          Does anyone have a clue what PSDK was the last Microsoft officially
          recommended for VC++2003? That would fill a hole in the spreadsheet
          and shut me up.
          As David said, there is no such limitation. I guess you could say the last PSDK that works with VC2003 is the Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK, because that was the last to be called "Platform SDK". Its name has changed to Windows SDK (for Vista) - but it should still work with VC2003.

          --
          Jim Barry, Microsoft MVP

          Comment

          • David Wilkinson

            #6
            Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

            Jim Barry wrote:
            David Wilkinson wrote:
            >3. The last version of VC to officially support Windows 95 was VC6.
            >
            I don't think that's right. It was possible to target Win95 up until VC2005 when the CRT introduced
            a dependency on IsDebuggerPrese nt, which only exists from Win98.

            Jim:

            It seems that you are right. There were problems with Windows 95 targets on
            VS2002, but these were fixed in VS2003. See, for example:

            <http://groups.google.c om/group/microsoft.publi c.dotnet.langua ges.vc/browse_thread/thread/8d796d13e098d33 6/fee4f8e8b4a25e0 4>

            However, I think that, in general, the withdrawing of support for earlier OS's
            in successive Visual Studio releases is a major impediment to upgrading. It is
            certainly one of the excuses I used for sticking with VC6 for a long time.

            If the PSDK can be backward compatible (with appropriate WINVER etc.) why cannot
            Visual Studio be likewise?

            --
            David Wilkinson
            Visual C++ MVP

            Comment

            • Jim Barry

              #7
              Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

              David Wilkinson wrote:
              However, I think that, in general, the withdrawing of support for
              earlier OS's in successive Visual Studio releases is a major
              impediment to upgrading. It is certainly one of the excuses I used
              for sticking with VC6 for a long time.

              If the PSDK can be backward compatible (with appropriate WINVER etc.)
              why cannot Visual Studio be likewise?
              I agree with the sentiment, though I cannot see any reason to target Windows 95 these days. In fact I would personally find it very hard to justify supporting Windows 98/Me/NT4 either.

              It does seem a little odd that apparently the only thing stopping VS2005-compiled images running on Win95 is the missing IsDebuggerPrese nt export in kernel32.dll. There may be other technical reasons why Win95 is not supported, of course, but I dare say the actual reason is non-technical (think testing).

              --
              Jim Barry, Microsoft MVP

              Comment

              • Charles E Hardwidge

                #8
                Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

                "Jim Barry" <jim@mvps.orgwr ote in message
                news:ejctH$MHJH A.4792@TK2MSFTN GP04.phx.gbl...
                David Wilkinson wrote:
                >However, I think that, in general, the withdrawing of support for
                >earlier OS's in successive Visual Studio releases is a major
                >impediment to upgrading. It is certainly one of the excuses I used
                >for sticking with VC6 for a long time.
                >>
                >If the PSDK can be backward compatible (with appropriate WINVER etc.)
                >why cannot Visual Studio be likewise?
                >
                I agree with the sentiment, though I cannot see any reason to target
                Windows 95 these days. In fact I would personally find it very hard to
                justify supporting Windows 98/Me/NT4 either.
                >
                It does seem a little odd that apparently the only thing stopping
                VS2005-compiled images running on Win95 is the missing IsDebuggerPrese nt
                export in kernel32.dll. There may be other technical reasons why Win95 is
                not supported, of course, but I dare say the actual reason is
                non-technical (think testing).
                As you comment, there's some issues with VC2005 but it starts getting really
                hairy with VC2008. I found one blog topic someone had written up on the
                issues and it gets really involved. I don't have a link to that but some of
                you folks may be interested in looking at legacy extender.

                Retain Windows 95/98/Me/NT 4.0 compatibility in your existing C/C++ projects when migrating to Visual Studio 2005 or 2008.


                --
                Charles E Hardwidge

                Comment

                • Charles E Hardwidge

                  #9
                  Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

                  "Jim Barry" <jim@mvps.orgwr ote in message
                  news:ONEocEKHJH A.1156@TK2MSFTN GP04.phx.gbl...
                  Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
                  >Does anyone have a clue what PSDK was the last Microsoft officially
                  >recommended for VC++2003? That would fill a hole in the spreadsheet
                  >and shut me up.
                  >
                  As David said, there is no such limitation. I guess you could say the last
                  PSDK that works with VC2003 is the Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK,
                  because that was the last to be called "Platform SDK". Its name has
                  changed to Windows SDK (for Vista) - but it should still work with VC2003.
                  If I read things properly, the Windows Server 2003 R2 (Mar 2006) is the last
                  one tested against VC2003. The Windows SDK (Feb 2007) is the last for
                  VC2005, and Windows SDK (Feb 2008) is the latest for VC2005 SP1.

                  The last Windows 2000 SP4 SDK was Windows Server R2. I think, 98/NT was R2
                  as well but am not sure. I did have it documented but as I said at the top,
                  I lost that when I had an archive accident.

                  --
                  Charles E Hardwidge

                  Comment

                  • Jim Barry

                    #10
                    Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

                    Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
                    If I read things properly, the Windows Server 2003 R2 (Mar 2006) is
                    the last one tested against VC2003.
                    Oops, yes - R2 is what I meant, not SP1 :-)
                    The last Windows 2000 SP4 SDK was Windows Server R2. I think, 98/NT
                    was R2 as well but am not sure.
                    Not quite sure what you mean by that. In general you can go back as far as you want by defining WINVER etc to the appropriate value.

                    --
                    Jim Barry, Microsoft MVP

                    Comment

                    • Jim Barry

                      #11
                      Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

                      Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
                      As you comment, there's some issues with VC2005 but it starts getting
                      really hairy with VC2008. I found one blog topic someone had written
                      up on the issues and it gets really involved. I don't have a link to
                      that but some of you folks may be interested in looking at legacy
                      extender.
                      Interesting!

                      --
                      Jim Barry, Microsoft MVP

                      Comment

                      • Charles E Hardwidge

                        #12
                        Re: VC2003 &amp; Last PSDK for Legacy Platforms

                        "Jim Barry" <jim@mvps.orgwr ote in message
                        news:OClBgfZHJH A.1156@TK2MSFTN GP04.phx.gbl...
                        Charles E Hardwidge wrote:
                        >If I read things properly, the Windows Server 2003 R2 (Mar 2006) is
                        >the last one tested against VC2003.
                        >
                        Oops, yes - R2 is what I meant, not SP1 :-)
                        >
                        >The last Windows 2000 SP4 SDK was Windows Server R2. I think, 98/NT
                        >was R2 as well but am not sure.
                        >
                        Not quite sure what you mean by that. In general you can go back as far as
                        you want by defining WINVER etc to the appropriate value.
                        There's compiler support and OS support. Later SDK's can work but may not be
                        tested against older build environments or targets.

                        --
                        Charles E Hardwidge

                        Comment

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