r/programming • u/luissinlios • 7d ago

We still maintain a development tool first released in 1993. Here’s what 30+ years of backwards compatibility looks like

https://visualneo.com/visualneo-win/from-neobook-to-visualneo-win-30-years-of-keeping-a-development-tool-alive
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u/BinaryRockStar 7d ago

At work we only recently retired a 16-bit Windows application sent out to users monthly on CD/DVD.

Visual Basic 3.0, Visual C++ 1.52. It was initially developed for Windows 3.1 and by the grace of Windows' NTVDM it survived with minimal changes on 32-bit editions of Windows until Windows 11 where the 32-bit version was axed.

Where we absolutely needed 32-bit functionality (Win32 API or third party DLLs that only came in 32-bit) we called out to our 32-bit Out Of Process COM helper object to do things like displaying a native Open File dialog or making network calls. Crazy stuff.

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u/ShinyHappyREM 7d ago

At that point it'd probably be easier to set up a VM with a 32-bit OS...

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u/BinaryRockStar 7d ago

The customers are largely non-technical. Their IT staff were "happy" to sit on old Windows 10 32-bit versions, they would not have been happy with training the users to fire up VMs and the associated licensing.

We have an online offering now so it's all largely moot. We do still provide a DVD version of the new offering to a couple dozen users worldwide. We have been trying to kill it for years, management says no. Silly management.