But that actually made sense! They care about backwards compatibility.
For those not in the know: some legacy software checked if the OS name began with "Windows 9" to differentiate between 95 and future versions.
The reason they checked that it started with "Windows 9" was because it worked for "Windows 95" and "Windows 98"
An often repeated urban legend that has no basis in reality. Software checking the version of Windows gets "6.1" for Windows 7 and "6.2" for Windows 8. The marketing name doesn't matter and is different.
It makes sense why they did it, but their messed up versioning was the cause to begin with. You should always assume Devs will cut corners in inappropriate ways.
They'll cut corners the more the shittier APIs and ABIs you provide
And for the same reason they went straight from 2.1 3.x to 5.0 when they renamed .Net Core to just .Net. Versions 3.x and 4.x would have been too easy to confuse (either manually or programmatically) with the old .Net Framework versions that were still in use, especially for Desktop applications.
Dotnet core 4 never existed because they wanted to make it the mainline dotnet... That means framework is retired and everything is now the slimmer multiplatform runtime.
Oh yeah right, I totally forgot 3.x.
some legacy software checked if the OS name began with "Windows 9" to differentiate between 95 and future versions.
This is a myth. Windows doesn't even have an API to give you the marketing name of the OS. Internally, Windows 95 is version 4.0 and Windows 98 is 4.1. The API to get the version returns the major and minor version separately, so to check for Windows 95 you'd check if majorVersion = 4 and minorVersion = 0.
Maybe it's a myth, but it sure sounds plausible. The software that checks the "Windows 9" substring doesn't even have to exist for this to be reason they chose to skip to version 10 — they just had to be concerned that it might exist.
Sure, maybe there's no C function that returns the string, but there's a ver command. It would be trivial to shell out to the command. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ver_(command)
but there are a TON of examples of code that checks for the substring
oh
oh no
There's code in the JDK that does that??
I really wish I didn't see that.
Yup!! Never look under the hood in software, you'll just be disappointed ☹️
I've been a software developer for 20 years and this comment is too real. Some days I'm amazed that any software even works at all.
Having worked in both food service and software, I encourage you not to visit the kitchen of any restaurants you enjoy either.
Please don't show me how the sausage is made
Strange argument... how does that prevent checks versus Windows 7, 8 and 1* all of which would be less than 9.
Because it checks if the version starts with the string "Windows 9*", not wether the number is less than 9.
This is a myth - code that checks the version number uses the internal version number, which is 4.0 for Windows 95.
Eh. I think Microsoft should have let that break so the spaghetti code finally gets fixed
I was about to say that most apps should check the NT number but then I remembered that until XP it wasn't common to run a NT system, but then I remembered NT 4 existed basically in the same timeframe as 95 did, and even if the argument went to "it's a 9x application", shouldn't these OSes at least have some sort of build number or different identifier systems? Because as I said NT systems were around, so they would probably need a check for that
Some programs just didn't work on NT though. A lot of installers were more OS specific back then.
But that actually made sense! They care about backwards compatibility.
For those not in the know: some legacy software checked if the OS name began with "Windows 9" to differentiate between 95 and future versions.
The reason they checked that it started with "Windows 9" was because it worked for "Windows 95" and "Windows 98"
An often repeated urban legend that has no basis in reality. Software checking the version of Windows gets "6.1" for Windows 7 and "6.2" for Windows 8. The marketing name doesn't matter and is different.
It makes sense why they did it, but their messed up versioning was the cause to begin with. You should always assume Devs will cut corners in inappropriate ways.
They'll cut corners the more the shittier APIs and ABIs you provide
The API is fine. It returns the internal version number (which is 4.0 for Windows 95), not a string. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winnt/ns-winnt-osversioninfoexa. There's no built-in API that returns "Windows 95" as a string.
And for the same reason they went straight from
2.13.x to 5.0 when they renamed .Net Core to just .Net. Versions3.x and4.x would have been too easy to confuse (either manually or programmatically) with the old .Net Framework versions that were still in use, especially for Desktop applications.Dotnet core 3.x exists
Dotnet core 4 never existed because they wanted to make it the mainline dotnet... That means framework is retired and everything is now the slimmer multiplatform runtime.
Oh yeah right, I totally forgot 3.x.
This is a myth. Windows doesn't even have an API to give you the marketing name of the OS. Internally, Windows 95 is version 4.0 and Windows 98 is 4.1. The API to get the version returns the major and minor version separately, so to check for Windows 95 you'd check if majorVersion = 4 and minorVersion = 0.
Edit: This is the return type from the API: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winnt/ns-winnt-osversioninfoexa
Maybe it's a myth, but it sure sounds plausible. The software that checks the "Windows 9" substring doesn't even have to exist for this to be reason they chose to skip to version 10 — they just had to be concerned that it might exist.
Sure, maybe there's no C function that returns the string, but there's a
vercommand. It would be trivial to shell out to the command. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ver_(command)This doesn't prove anything, but there are a TON of examples of code that checks for the substring. It's not hard to imagine that code written circa 2000 would not be future proof. https://sourcegraph.com/search?q=context:global+%22%5C%22windows+9%5C%22%22&patternType=keyword&sm=0
oh
oh no
There's code in the JDK that does that??
I really wish I didn't see that.
Yup!! Never look under the hood in software, you'll just be disappointed ☹️
I've been a software developer for 20 years and this comment is too real. Some days I'm amazed that any software even works at all.
Having worked in both food service and software, I encourage you not to visit the kitchen of any restaurants you enjoy either.
Please don't show me how the sausage is made
Strange argument... how does that prevent checks versus Windows 7, 8 and 1* all of which would be less than 9.
Because it checks if the version starts with the string "Windows 9*", not wether the number is less than 9.
This is a myth - code that checks the version number uses the internal version number, which is 4.0 for Windows 95.
Eh. I think Microsoft should have let that break so the spaghetti code finally gets fixed
I was about to say that most apps should check the NT number but then I remembered that until XP it wasn't common to run a NT system, but then I remembered NT 4 existed basically in the same timeframe as 95 did, and even if the argument went to "it's a 9x application", shouldn't these OSes at least have some sort of build number or different identifier systems? Because as I said NT systems were around, so they would probably need a check for that
Some programs just didn't work on NT though. A lot of installers were more OS specific back then.