Re: [ros-dev] ReactOS official compatibility target and the new build system

[Ged Murphy]

You misinterpreted what I said.
I didn't say usermode reports as being Win7, I said it can and should target
features of Win7.

Usermode should and does report as NT5.2.
It actually doesn't have a choice as the APIs which you use in usermode to
discover the version (GetVersionEx, VerifyVersionInfo) actually query
hardcoded values stored in the kernel.

Ged


On 13 November 2010 18:07, Colin Finck <mail(a)colinfinck.de> wrote:

>   Ged Murphy <gedmurphy(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >   Kernel targets 2k3 (additionally with any newer
> > architecture if possible
> >  / applicable.
> >  Usermode targets the latest version of Windows.
> >  
>  This means that we always need to ensure that applications properly detect
>  ReactOS as NT 5.2 all the time and don't expect features of newer Windows
>  versions. Otherwise they could make false assumptions about the kernel
>  capabilities.
>
>  Unfortunately, this isn't always the case as demonstrated e.g. by r39384.
>  For some reason, the VMware Tools Installer (which of course supports NT
>  5.x), tried to import NT6-specific functions like wcsncpy_s from msvcrt.dll.
>  It's most-likely related to the fact that our msvcrt.dll still had the
>  version number 42.4.0.0 at that time, but shows a problem that can arise if
>  we mix targets.
>
>  The version number of msvcrt.dll has been changed to that of the
>  corresponding DLL in 2k3 SP1 later on, but let's assume that we had
>  implemented all NT6-specific functions in msvcrt.dll and changed the version
>  number to that of the Vista DLL.
>  Some poorly written application might assume that it runs on Vista now and
>  expect much more from the whole system: Other DLLs should be the Vista
>  versions as well, some Vista-specific features might be requested and it
>  might even attempt to use the NT6 version of a bundled driver.
>  This is of course a very specific case, but we cannot reliably say that no
>  such Windows application exists.
>  We can only prevent these problems by providing an OS targetting a single
>  Windows version from kernel-mode up to user-mode.
>
>  Therefore I appreciate Jérôme's option 3) for targetting a single Windows
>  version (NT 5.2) while at the same time enabling us to add code for a later
>  target change.
>
>  Most of our DLLs still have that 42.4.0.0 version number by the way, so
>  this should be another thing to fix to ensure compatibility.
>
>  Cheers,
>
>  Colin
>
>
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