13 Nov
2010
13 Nov
'10
6:07 p.m.
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