On 2/24/2012, Ken Blake posted:
On Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:39:51 -0500, Wolf K
wrote:

On 24/02/2012 12:57 PM, Mark F wrote:
[...]
Most programs that are for Windows XP can run on Windows 7 using an
XP virtual machine,
[...]

Most programs written for XP don't need a virtual machine in my
experience. DOS programs do, as do many written for W2000 and not updated.



Not really to disagree with what you say, but it's important to
realize that programs were not written *for* Windows XP or Windows
2000. They simply were written back in the days of Windows XP or
Windows 2000.

Since they were written using an API, and possibly a development kit,
for the given version of Windows, I have to respectfully (but only
partially) disagree with you, but...

....but it's all implicit. The programmers were writing for what was
available, which worked on the current version of Windows, and no one
could tell them which parts of what they wrote would break in the
future. Or even if anything would break at all.

One could hope that the future would not break anything, but would only
add capabilities that the earlier versions lacked. And one would
probably be disappointed on occasion :-)

--
Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)