Why is WOW not recursive (and 16, 8 bit)?

In message , Mark Lloyd
writes:
On 08/11/2018 05:07 PM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

[snip]

I can't see why they can't be sandboxed/emulated/whatever, so each
runs in its own block of memory. Using two layers of -/-/- if
necessary. Wherever the "handles" have different bit lengths, if
WOW32 and WOW64 can handle the differences for one level of change,
then surely together they should be able to handle both.

You could always run a virtual machine with 16 or 32 bit Windows.

But I need a Windows licence for those. The WOWs don't.

(This is just an academic curiosity; (a) I'm at present on a 32-bit
machine anyway, (b) I don't have anything 16-bit - that I can think of,
anyway, except possibly XTGold [if that's 16-bit], and I can easily live
without that - that I'd _want_ to run on 64-bit if I _did_ go there. I'm
just curious why the two WOWs can't be "nested".)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham
Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)

VanguardLH wrote:
....
VirtualBox can run software inside a VM but pretty much mask that is
happening, so the user thinks they are running VM'ed programs in a guest
OS just like the other programs that are running in the host OS. I've
done that with some family that had ancient greeting card software,
wanted to keep using it, but just had to get a later version of Windows
(sometimes with valid reason because other software they wanted to use
wouldn't run on the ancient OS version).

Just curious. Which ancient greeting card software? The Print Shop?
Do I assume, it prints correctly and well from the VM?

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Ant wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
...
VirtualBox can run software inside a VM but pretty much mask that is
happening, so the user thinks they are running VM'ed programs in a guest
OS just like the other programs that are running in the host OS. I've
done that with some family that had ancient greeting card software,
wanted to keep using it, but just had to get a later version of Windows
(sometimes with valid reason because other software they wanted to use
wouldn't run on the ancient OS version).

Just curious. Which ancient greeting card software? The Print Shop?
Do I assume, it prints correctly and well from the VM?

I was never into that type of software. My aunt also used to have fun
making her own greeting cards and then gluing glitter to it. Everyone
that got one of her cards ended up with glitter remnants all over their
floor, especially in the carpet. Years after she stopped doing that, I
still occasionally find some glitter the vacuum cleaner and carpet
washer had missed. I told her I would no longer accept any cards from
here if it had glitter. So did the rest of the family.

Right now, she is still using Windows XP on her home PC. Even when she
moved to XP, she had problems with even older software. My aunt is a
hoarder: nothing gets discarded if it has a use. In fact, she will keep
stuff that could be useful to someone else but she doesn't know who, so
she hoards it just in case she finds someone. I would use VirtualBox on
her home PC to let her keep using the really old greeting card and other
software until she eventually upgraded to a newer version or something
better and newer, and that could take years. Does she toss out the old
replaced software? Hell no. She just leaves the box sitting on the
shelf (yep, she keeps the boxes, too, and everything that was inside,
including limited offers that expired over a decade ago). When you
visit her home, there are narrow aisles for walking past all her trash.
When she dies and I'm stuck with the house, either I'll get 4-5
dumpsters and have some friends help with a trashing party or there'll
be an accidental fire.

She still has Zip disks and drives, 8" Pelican floppies, horse books
(for when she used to ride some 40 years ago but stopped when the horse
got killed when it escaped and got hit by a truck). Her current house
was built in 1962 but her furnishings were dated when they went into
that house. She keeps twist ties from baggies: I don't mean a handful
but drawers (that's plural) full of them. She uses teflon pots that
have less than half the teflon left.

So as to how old is the greeting card software, well, when did it first
start coming out? I think she still has some old DOS software on the
shelf. Remember Wordstar and Multiplan? Those are on her shelves.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Mark Lloyd WROTE:

You could always run a virtual machine with 16 or 32 bit Windows.

But I need a Windows licence for those. The WOWs don't.

Yes, you need a license for the WOWs, too. They come bundled in
Windows, and you need a license for Windows. Microsoft doesn't dole out
the WOWs independently of Windows. The license doesn't allow you to
dissect Windows into pieces to redistribute them separately.

I'm just curious why the two WOWs can't be "nested".

I doubt you'll find anyone expert as an OS-level programmer here.
Rather than have a WOW have its sytem calls redirected by another WOW,
and so on in a chain, just having each WOW would be sufficient. Whether
chained or supplied separately, supplying the WOW means having to
support it. Microsoft is long done with the DOS and 9x kernels as well
as the NT 3.x, 4.0, and 5.x kernels and the same for old WOW emulators
on old and unsupported versions of Windows. Backwards compatibility
doesn't mean you get to run ancient software on the newest OS.
Backwards compatibility does not extend indefinitely into the past.

I don't know why it is so hard for you to grasp that when a vendor stops
supporting a product then they are not going to continue supporting it
or any part of they don't want to support. They could provide their own
VM integrated into the latest version of Windows with images to run
Windows 9x, Windows 3.11, Windows 386 and 286, the 2 dozen MS/IBM-DOS
versions (well, they'd have to multi-boot to DOS since it wants direct
hardware access, especially memory, which is banned in the NT kernel)
but they don't support those, either. They could provide integrated VMs
for other operating systems, like Ubuntu, IBM VSE, MVS, and VM, 1100
Exec, Seattle DOS, DOSBOX, OS/2, MacOS, iOS, Android, CP/M, VAX, NeXT,
AmigaOS, and Atari but they don't suppose those, either.

"VanguardLH" wrote

| You could always run a virtual machine with 16 or 32 bit Windows.
|
| But I need a Windows licence for those. The WOWs don't.
|
| Yes, you need a license for the WOWs, too.

I think he meant he would have to buy a new
copy of a Win32 OS to run in a VM on a 64-bit
OS, in order to run 16-bit software.

I find it odd that people so often talk about
VMs without acknowledging the high cost in
both processing power and licenses. As though it
actually makes sense to run an OS inside an OS.

The AppleSeeds are especially weird that way.
You say Macs lack software and they answer that
you can run Windows in BootCamp. Sure, if you
want to pay $300 for a Pro license, in addition to
the high price of a Mac. I can buy a Windows PC
for about $400, so their logic doesn't make sense.

VanguardLH wrote:
Ant wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
...
VirtualBox can run software inside a VM but pretty much mask that is
happening, so the user thinks they are running VM'ed programs in a guest
OS just like the other programs that are running in the host OS. I've
done that with some family that had ancient greeting card software,
wanted to keep using it, but just had to get a later version of Windows
(sometimes with valid reason because other software they wanted to use
wouldn't run on the ancient OS version).

Just curious. Which ancient greeting card software? The Print Shop?
Do I assume, it prints correctly and well from the VM?

I was never into that type of software. My aunt also used to have fun
making her own greeting cards and then gluing glitter to it. Everyone
that got one of her cards ended up with glitter remnants all over their
floor, especially in the carpet. Years after she stopped doing that, I
still occasionally find some glitter the vacuum cleaner and carpet
washer had missed. I told her I would no longer accept any cards from
here if it had glitter. So did the rest of the family.

Ugh, I hate that too. I just use basic inket printer with images and
texts. Nothing fancy!


Right now, she is still using Windows XP on her home PC. Even when she
moved to XP, she had problems with even older software. My aunt is a
hoarder: nothing gets discarded if it has a use. In fact, she will keep
stuff that could be useful to someone else but she doesn't know who, so
she hoards it just in case she finds someone. I would use VirtualBox on
her home PC to let her keep using the really old greeting card and other
software until she eventually upgraded to a newer version or something
better and newer, and that could take years. Does she toss out the old
replaced software? Hell no. She just leaves the box sitting on the
shelf (yep, she keeps the boxes, too, and everything that was inside,
including limited offers that expired over a decade ago). When you
visit her home, there are narrow aisles for walking past all her trash.
When she dies and I'm stuck with the house, either I'll get 4-5
dumpsters and have some friends help with a trashing party or there'll
be an accidental fire.

I still use lots of old stuff too as long as they still work and useful
like my HP Photosmart 8450 printer from 2006, Belkin OmniCube KVM from
Y2K, etc. Anything that aren't useful, then they go bye bye like
trash, donations, sales, etc.

Lots of old people love to keep lots of old stuff. Look at those estate
sales! :O


She still has Zip disks and drives, 8" Pelican floppies, horse books
(for when she used to ride some 40 years ago but stopped when the horse
got killed when it escaped and got hit by a truck). Her current house
was built in 1962 but her furnishings were dated when they went into
that house. She keeps twist ties from baggies: I don't mean a handful
but drawers (that's plural) full of them. She uses teflon pots that
have less than half the teflon left.

Wow. Old tech stuff. Useless to me these days. I never used 8" floppy
disks. I remember seeing them in high school. I never knew they existed
that those sizes. I only had and used 5.25" floppy disks since my Apple
//c. Heh.


So as to how old is the greeting card software, well, when did it first
start coming out? I think she still has some old DOS software on the
shelf. Remember Wordstar and Multiplan? Those are on her shelves.

I remember using The Print Shop on Apple 2s. I was still using it in
Windows as well, but it got too slow and bloated with crap with online
stuff. Remember Print Master for DOS? I used that too!

Wow, I remember Wordstar. I never heard of and used Multiplan. I do
remember Word and WordPerfect in DOS.

These days, I just use HP Photo Creations since it is free. I still
hates it online requirement and bloatness. Hence, why I was asking.

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On Tue, 14 Aug 2018 07:21:16 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 14:03:47 -0400, Mayayana wrote:

As though it
actually makes sense to run an OS inside an OS.

I found it to be a much much better solution that dual-booting.

Same here. I love having simultaneous access to multiple computing
environments without having to (re)boot the computer. I have 70+ guests
configured in specific ways (for my work), so if I need to check
something real quick I simply bring that guest up, do a bit of work, and
then suspend it again, all without touching the main (host) computer.
Multi-booting would be a royal pain.

--

Char Jackson

Ant wrote:

I still use lots of old stuff too as long as they still work and useful
like my HP Photosmart 8450 printer from 2006, Belkin OmniCube KVM from
Y2K, etc. Anything that aren't useful, then they go bye bye like
trash, donations, sales, etc.

"Use" is the crux: she doesn't use tons of old software because she got
something else or the old stuff won't run under a new OS. Hoarders
don't throw anything away if they can rationalize that someday or
somehow it could possibly still be usable.

I buy separate salt and pepper. I want the pepper in a can to keep it
sealed so the oil doesn't evaporate; else, you end up with tasteless
black specks on your food. She doesn't buy separate salt and pepper but
buys them in pairs; i.e., one package that as both the salt and pepper
shakers (paper cores with plastic ends of which one can be turned to
open/close that end). She doesn't use the pepper becaus she doesn't
like pepper. So why buy the twin package with both salt and pepper?
Just buy the salt. She won't break the habit. Last time I counted, she
had 24 unused pepper shakers. Of course, somehow someday someone might
want the dried out tasteless pepper, so she hoards it.

Lots of old people love to keep lots of old stuff. Look at those estate
sales! :O

That doesn't mean they used it up until they died. While not as bad,
lots of people hoard some old stuff. They use the same rationale as my
aunt or mostly they forget they had it because it got stuffed on a shelf
then don't revisit or dumped in the attic, basement, or garage. I've
seen people have estate sales and notice the auctioneer is selling some
like-new deep-flush never-used large bath towels that they did not
remember they had.

I've seen "estate" sales at farms where coffee cans of old bent nails
were being sold. That actually has a good reason. Traveling into town
some 100 miles away to get more nails just isn't a viable option, so
farmers keep the bent nails figuring they'll straighten for reuse later.

Trash haulers are getting more picky. They won't let you toss CRTs,
fluorescent tubes, electronics (because of the lead solder), and other
materials now deemed hazardous. Residents don't want to pay the $10, or
more, fee per trip or sometimes per item to drop off the bad stuff at a
hazardous recycling center, so they keep stockpiling it in some on-site
trash heap. Ever notice those dead cars sitting in their fields?

Quite often the ruralites make only a couple trips per year into town.
They don't take an inventory of what they already have to know what they
don't need to buy. Even city folk don't do that. Consumers often make
impulse buys and often don't know they already have something, so they
buy more because, hell, they're already in the stores. When walking
through the stores, how many shoppers do you see with shopping lists?
I do before I go shopping while by if anything on the list is something
that I already have should my memory fail to remember.

Some folks just like to stockpile. Maybe surrounded by a bunch of
trashy stuff makes them feel rich. My mom and aunt were dirt poor when
they were being raised, so hoarding was a way of life back then. Every
week for as long as I can remember they would go to garage sales once,
or more, per week. It was their fun time together. Don't ask me why
they bought all those unmatched socks and mittens. They don't know,
either.

Mayayana wrote:

"VanguardLH" wrote

| You could always run a virtual machine with 16 or 32 bit Windows.
|
| But I need a Windows licence for those. The WOWs don't.
|
| Yes, you need a license for the WOWs, too.

I think he meant he would have to buy a new
copy of a Win32 OS to run in a VM on a 64-bit
OS, in order to run 16-bit software.

I find it odd that people so often talk about
VMs without acknowledging the high cost in
both processing power and licenses. As though it
actually makes sense to run an OS inside an OS.

The OP wants to (or interested in) running 16- and 32-bit executables
under Windows. $30 for Windows XP is considered a high price? If so,
that user cannot afford using a computer at any version of an OS. Every
computer will incur costs.

If software is critical, especially for a business, you don't change the
OS just because there is a new version of the OS if the critical
software won't run there. I remember working in a software publishing
company about 20 years that still supported customers of some ancient
version of IBM's VSE that was 20 years dead at that time.

In the part that I snipped, yes, it does often make more sense to buy
another computer with the new OS and the new[er] software to run over
there while keeping the old computer to keep running the old but
critical software on that old box. Just because you get a new computer
doesn't mandate you get rid of the old one. If the same was practiced
with clothing, I'd only have 1 shirt, 1 pair pants, 1 belt, 1 pair
socks, 1 pair shoes, 1 winter jacket, 1 t-shirt, and 1 pair tighty
whities. That I buy new clothes doesn't mean I get rid of the old
clothes until those old clothes are no longer usable except as rags.

Mayayana wrote:

"VanguardLH" wrote

| You could always run a virtual machine with 16 or 32 bit Windows.
|
| But I need a Windows licence for those. The WOWs don't.
|
| Yes, you need a license for the WOWs, too.

I think he meant he would have to buy a new
copy of a Win32 OS to run in a VM on a 64-bit
OS, in order to run 16-bit software.

I find it odd that people so often talk about
VMs without acknowledging the high cost in
both processing power and licenses. As though it
actually makes sense to run an OS inside an OS.

XP Mode was 2 parts: the VMM (virtual machine manager) called XP Mode
which is just an updated version of Microsoft's Virtual PC (but with
improvement to hide that a program was virtualized) and the XP image
file (the .vhd file - a virtual hard disk image). I still have those
downloads but didn't use Virtual PC for very long. As I recall,
VirtualBox or VMware Player, or both, could load VHD files, so I only
need the image file to have XP 32-bit run as a guest OS on Windows 7.

The XP Mode license was fettered by the Win 7 license: they had to be
used together. No slicing apart the components of Windows 7 to use
parts of it on one PC and other parts on another PC.

XP Mode (aka Virtual PC with .vhd file) was Microsoft's lure to get
users, especially businesses, off Windows XP and move to Windows 7.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:01:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

You can reload a copy of your appliance VM every
30 days, so that a license is not necessary. So if
you download a Win8 .ova for VirtualBox, you just
unpack it every 30 days and start fresh. You can
use the 30 day grace period, but have to reinstall
programs when you start fresh again.


Microsoft provides free Windows VMs which only expire after 90 days.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

After the 90 days has expired, the Windows 7 versions can be re-armed a
couple of times. Which gives you more time before you have to start
afresh and re-install programs.


--
Kind regards
Ralph

On Tue, 14 Aug 2018 20:59:59 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:01:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

You can reload a copy of your appliance VM every
30 days, so that a license is not necessary. So if
you download a Win8 .ova for VirtualBox, you just
unpack it every 30 days and start fresh. You can
use the 30 day grace period, but have to reinstall
programs when you start fresh again.

Microsoft provides free Windows VMs which only expire after 90 days.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

After the 90 days has expired, the Windows 7 versions can be re-armed a
couple of times. Which gives you more time before you have to start
afresh and re-install programs.

They don't go back very far; for an afternoon's fun try loading
Windows95 with IE3 into VirtualBox.

On Tue, 14 Aug 2018 13:45:37 +0100, mechanic
wrote:

On Tue, 14 Aug 2018 20:59:59 +1200, Ralph Fox wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2018 16:01:14 -0400, Paul wrote:

You can reload a copy of your appliance VM every
30 days, so that a license is not necessary. So if
you download a Win8 .ova for VirtualBox, you just
unpack it every 30 days and start fresh. You can
use the 30 day grace period, but have to reinstall
programs when you start fresh again.

Microsoft provides free Windows VMs which only expire after 90 days.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

After the 90 days has expired, the Windows 7 versions can be re-armed a
couple of times. Which gives you more time before you have to start
afresh and re-install programs.

They don't go back very far; for an afternoon's fun try loading
Windows95 with IE3 into VirtualBox.

I have 98SE available in VMware, but I've only run it a few times to see
if it works. It does, but it didn't inspire me to go even farther back
to 95.

--

Char Jackson

On 08/14/2018 07:45 AM, mechanic wrote:

[snip]

They don't go back very far; for an afternoon's fun try loading
Windows95 with IE3 into VirtualBox.

I have done it, although the version I had came with IE4 (more modern
than IE3 but still a very old version).

One problem I had was the lack of internet access. I had forgotten what
I did 23 years ago. On Win95, you have a enable TCP/IP.

It might be interesting to get IE1 working (supposedly it only works on
Win95 and NT4). There's not much you can do with it (IE 3 will not
work with name-based shared hosting, and also no cookies). However, it
could be interesting to see what it WILL do.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry.

On 08/14/2018 10:14 AM, Char Jackson wrote:

[snip]

I have 98SE available in VMware, but I've only run it a few times to see
if it works. It does, but it didn't inspire me to go even farther back
to 95.

I did it because it comes with IE4. I don't know if ANYONE uses IE4, but
it can be interesting to play with old stuff.

I have a simple clock page at http://notstupid.us/clox/clockie.html,
which I actually wrote for IE4. This will work only on browsers that
have document.all. This used to be just IE 4+ and Opera 6-12.x (Presto
versions). However, the newest versions of Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Edge,
and Safari all support it too.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

Christianity is not a religion; it's an industry.