Possible Reason Behind Version Hop to Windows 10: Compatibility

First time accepted submitter ndykman (659315) writes The Independent reports that a MS developer has suggested a real reason behind the Windows 10 name: old code. More specifically, code that looks for "Windows 9" to determine the Windows version. Fine for Windows 95 or Windows 98, but not so great for a new operating system. The article includes a link that shows that yes, this would be a problem.

Comments

How badly coded are Windows applications?

[ArcadeMan]

If something as stupid as the name of the operating system can trip up some applications, what about the rest of the code?

Instead of giving programmers dozens of ways of checking and doing things, they should be forced into doing it one way. Easier to prevent mistakes, check for errors, etc.

Re:How badly coded are Windows applications?

[thegarbz]

Major fallacy right there. This has nothing to do with windows applications, and nothing to do with giving programmers ways of checking things.

This has everything to do with bad programming, and no Mac and Linux are most definitely not immune from this either. Windows has an API to determine the version number, just like Linux has a way of determining it too. The problem is when programmers don't know or understand the API that things break. It's not even a case of giving programmers different ways of checking things. Different APIs are there for different reasons, the problem is idiot programmers who use the response of one API to infer information they should otherwise have gotten from another.

better name

[goombah99]

they should have just changed the whole name from "windows" to "Balmers gone, and its safe to us windows again, please come back".