Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2000 12:16:09 +0200 (IST) From: Eli Zaretskii X-Sender: eliz AT is To: Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Win 2000 & Djgpp In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: dj-admin AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk On Thu, 17 Feb 2000, Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel wrote: > Well A _good_ 32 bit OS should be able to handle and terminate any badly > behaving program gracefully. And gracefully doesn't mean crashing ;-). > Thats what protected mode is all about, One app shoudn't be able to mess > with another apps or even the OS's memory and resources etc. > > If a dos app can cause a fault in ntvdm and bring the whole system down > that shows that windoze (because of it's bad design) can't handle a badly > behaved app very nicely. As much as we all love to bash MS, let's keep things in proper perspective: they had an *enormously* hard problem on their hands. Providing an OS which will run DOS, 16-bit Windows, and 32-bit Windows programs on the same platform unaltered is a *daunting* task. Anyone who reads a book on Windows internals which describes the amount of trickery and thunking between different layers, should realize how hard it is. Would you rather have Windows discontinue support for legacy code? Probably not. I actually think that given all this complexity, Windows works surprisingly well. With some discipline, I manage to keep my system up and running for days and weeks without crashing. Linux, of course, doesn't have to deal with that problem. But then Linux breaks back-compatibility with itself regularly anyway... > Also have you noticed > that when you are running a vesa game full screen and you accidently press > that #@$*! M$ startmenu key , you cant re switch to your game as windoze > says that it can't redraw the display etc.. very nice I suppose ;-) This one is in the FAQ.