Re: About support for Windows XP and Internet Explorer, and possible leftover code

Mark Hammond <[email protected]> Mon, 18 Mar 2024 10:13:40 -0400
Newsgroups gmane.comp.python.windows
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On 2024-03-18 1:57 a.m., Samuel Therrien wrote:
> I've been wondering, what's the state, intent, or policy on support 
> for older OSes? I haven't seen it be mentioned (for example on the 
> readme), yet still see a handle of areas of code referencing support 
> for older OSes (XP, Vista, 7, 8.1, CE, ...), but also commits and PRs 
> dropping support for them (at least building with 8.1 SDKs is dropped).
>
> I'd assume to be "whatever still has a non-EOL CPython version that 
> can be installed", but maybe not?

Yep, that's correct. As you note, dropping support for building using 
older SDKs is dropped more aggressively, but that generally doesn't 
prevent things running on those older OSs.


>
> On a technical level, I'm also wondering if winxpgui and winxptheme 
> actually serve any purpose anymore?
>
>  *
>     winxpgui seems to be some patched-up win32gui for XP?
>  *
>     I'm not sure what winxptheme is exactly. I'm not able to do much
>     with it. I guess "the Windows XP 'theme' API" is some old Windows
>     stuff that never quite went away in the background.
>
These were split to support older OS versions back in the day, but 
there's no longer a need given we no longer support XP at all. However, 
for backwards compatibility we can't really drop the names - IOW, these 
could all technically be rolled into a single .pyd, but `from winxpgui 
import foo` must continue to work somehow for all `foo` it worked for in 
the past.

>
> As for Internet Explorer, technically there's a mode in Edge to allow 
> some sites to run pages in "IE mode" (that thing really won't die, 
> will it?), but that's still through the Edge application.
> The iebutton and ietoolbar demos technically do install an addon that 
> I can see and enable in "Internet Settings", but idk if they can 
> really do anything (and as such, if the demos are still valid).

In that case I see no reason to not consider them valid.


Cheers,


Mark

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    <p><br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2024-03-18 1:57 a.m., Samuel
      Therrien wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DM6PR02MB4571C0CE993028FCAB83CFA6E42D2@DM6PR02MB4571.namprd02.prod.outlook.com">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
      <style type="text/css" style="display:none;">P {margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;}</style>
      <div class="elementToProof"
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
        I've been wondering, what's the state, intent, or policy on
        support for older OSes? I haven't seen it be mentioned (for
        example on the readme), yet still see a handle of areas of code
        referencing support for older OSes (XP, Vista, 7, 8.1, CE, ...),
        but also commits and PRs dropping support for them (at least
        building with 8.1 SDKs is dropped).<br>
        <br>
        I'd assume to be "whatever still has a non-EOL CPython version
        that can be installed", but maybe not?<br>
      </div>
    </blockquote>
    <p>Yep, that's correct. As you note, dropping support for building
      using older SDKs is dropped more aggressively, but that generally
      doesn't prevent things running on those older OSs.<br>
    </p>
    <p><br>
    </p>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DM6PR02MB4571C0CE993028FCAB83CFA6E42D2@DM6PR02MB4571.namprd02.prod.outlook.com">
      <div class="elementToProof"
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
        <br>
        On a technical level, I'm also wondering if winxpgui and
        winxptheme actually serve any purpose anymore?</div>
      <ul
data-editing-info="{&quot;orderedStyleType&quot;:1,&quot;unorderedStyleType&quot;:2}"
        style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
        <li
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: &quot;- &quot;;">
          <div
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
            winxpgui seems to be some patched-up win32gui for XP?</div>
        </li>
        <li
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); list-style-type: &quot;- &quot;;">
          <div
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
            I'm not sure what winxptheme is exactly. I'm not able to do
            much with it. I guess "the Windows XP 'theme' API" is some
            old Windows stuff that never quite went away in the
            background.</div>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </blockquote>
    <p>These were split to support older OS versions back in the day,
      but there's no longer a need given we no longer support XP at all.
      However, for backwards compatibility we can't really drop the
      names - IOW, these could all technically be rolled into a single
      .pyd, but `from winxpgui import foo` must continue to work somehow
      for all `foo` it worked for in the past.<br>
    </p>
    <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:DM6PR02MB4571C0CE993028FCAB83CFA6E42D2@DM6PR02MB4571.namprd02.prod.outlook.com">
      <div class="elementToProof"
style="font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
        <br>
        As for Internet Explorer, technically there's a mode in Edge to
        allow some sites to run pages in "IE mode" (that thing really
        won't die, will it?), but that's still through the Edge
        application.<br>
        The iebutton and ietoolbar demos technically do install an addon
        that I can see and enable in "Internet Settings", but idk if
        they can really do anything (and as such, if the demos are still
        valid).</div>
    </blockquote>
    <p>In that case I see no reason to not consider them valid.</p>
    <p><br>
    </p>
    <p>Cheers,</p>
    <p><br>
    </p>
    <p>Mark<br>
    </p>
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