Windows 95 has gone the extra mile to ensure the compatibility of SimCity and other games

A lot of interesting things can still be learned about older operating systems. Sometimes, these things are already documented (in a blog post) which miraculously still exists. One of these problems came up recently when someone noticed how Microsoft made sure of it Sim City And other popular applications run on Windows 95.

newly Tweet by Kalyoshika Highlights is an excerpt from a blog post by Fog Creek Software co-founder, Stack Overflow co-founder, and longtime software blogger Joel Spolsky. The biggest post around Chicken and egg os / order and order. The part that caught the attention of the Hardcore Gaming 101 podcast host is how Windows 3.1 was released Sim City It worked on Windows 95. Windows 95 integrated MS-DOS and Windows applications, upgraded 16- to 32-bit APIs, and was hypermarketing. Popular app like Sim Citywhich has sold more than 5 million copies, needs to work without a hitch.

Spolsky’s post summarizes how Sim City It’s Windows 95-ready, he heard it, without input from Maxis or user solutions.

John Ross, who wrote the original version of Sim City For Windows 3.x it tells me it left an error by chance Sim City Where he read a memory that he had just been released. yes. It worked fine on Windows 3.x, because the memory didn’t go anywhere. Here’s the amazing part: In beta versions of Windows 95, Sim City It did not work in the test. Microsoft tracked down the error and Added a specific icon to Windows 95 that searches for SimCity. If found Sim City On, it runs the memory allocator in a special mode that does not immediately free memory. This is the kind of obsession with backwards compatibility that got people ready to upgrade to Windows 95.

Spolsky (in 2000) considers this to be a credit to Microsoft and an example of how to break the chicken-and-egg problem: “Providing a backward compatibility mode that provides either a truckload of chicken, or a truckload of eggs, depending on how you do it. Look at it, sit down and engage in dollars.

Windows developers probably deserve some time to sit back, seeing how often they have to make adjustments to games and individual apps in Windows 95. Moreover, in @Kalyoshika’s replies you can find another example, pulled from Compatibility Officer in Windows’ Assessment and publishing tools (ADK). a Screenshot of code_and_beer Shows how Windows NT, when detecting files normally installed with final fantasy vii, It will perform a compatibility fix with an appropriate title: “Win95VersionLie.” Just telling the game that it’s running on Windows 95 seems to fix a major issue with it running, along with a few other simulation and virtualization tweaks.

Install the Windows ADK and open the Compatibility Administrator, and you can spy on some of the things Windows does for certain apps to make them run in the system database partition. If it detects files named “Horny.tif” and “bullfrog.sbk”, it updates the Windows 95/98 versions of dungeon guard These files must be located in Windows XP and later. Windows must stop Tom Clancy’s Rainbox Six From accessing the CD drive while it’s already playing a movie or other media, as well as disabling Alt+Tab switching while the game is open because the game can’t handle losing focus. And it’s not just old titles; Street Fighter V It gets a little tweak to its DirectX app to run on some systems.

In 2005, Raymond Chen, a Microsoft veteran and blogger of The Old New Thing Documenting the obsession with compatibility with Microsoft Windows 95. Chen wrote that the Windows 95 development manager “took his pickup, drove to the local Egghead Software store (when Egghead was still around), and bought one copy of each individual computer program in the store.” Everyone was responsible for up to two programs, which they would install, run, and document for errors. If an employee finishes two, he can come back to grab up to two more. Testers can keep whatever they have finished.

Mike Perry, Former Creative Director of Sim Maxis Empire (and later EA), noted later That there is, technically, a Windows 95 32-bit version of Sim City Available, as shown in the “Deluxe Edition” package of the game. He also states that Ross worked with Microsoft after leaving Maxis, which also explains why Microsoft is keen to ensure that people continue to build parks in the ideal network mode to improve residents’ happiness.