Windows 8 Replaces the Win32 API (with WinRT)

[USCode]

http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/WinRT
Not sure what impact this will have on PB in the future, if any.

Similar article:
http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/WinRT-API

[GoodNPlenty]

I have been testing some of my projects on Windows 8 x86 Developer Preview with PureBasic 4.60 RC1 with no issues. I believe the Win32 API will not be removed due to all the legacy applications that would be impacted.

[Thorium]

I believe the Win32 API will not be removed due to all the legacy applications that would be impacted.

Not only because of legacy support but windows itself uses the API and i dont think they rewrite all the stuff just so it uses a new API.

And i am pretty sure that a lot of the new API objects are just wrapping win32 API functions, even if the article states it does not.

[Zach]

As alluded to above, JavaScript can access the native functionality from the WinRT API. In the keynote demo it only took a couple lines of code to expose the new Windows open file dialog. Since Facebook was already installed on the machine the open file dialog showed images from the presenter’s Facebook page. The JavaScript application had no networking code at all, this link between it and Facebook was handled entirely by the platform.

If that doesn't scream Web security nightmare I don't know what does....

[Polo]

WinRT is the new OS-level API layer. This is the new native API for Windows, it isn’t a new layer on top of Win32.

So Win32 is now officially dead.
This API will probably be only available only on Win 7 & 8, thus no serious developper will use it, considering a lot of companies are still using XP...

[luis]

I still don't believe it isn't at least in part built on top of win32.
But since it does not actually replace it, it is even possible.

Anyway they are two different things for different uses, if you have to believe what people who assisted to MS presentations is reporting.

WinRT is a new set of APIs that have the following properties:

It implements the new Metro look.
Has a simple UI programming model for Windows developers (You do not need to learn Win32, what an HDC, WndProc or LPARAM is).
It exposes the WPF/Silverlight XAML UI model to developers.
The APIs are all designed to be asynchronous.
It is a sandboxed API, designed for creating self-contained, AppStore-ready applications. You wont get everything you want to create for example Backup Software or Hard Disk Partitioning software.
The API definitions is exposed in the ECMA 335 metadata format (the same one that .NET uses, you can find those as ".winmd" files).

WinRT wraps both the new UI system as well as old Win32 APIs and it happens that this implementation is based on top of COM.

http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Sep-15.html

another article

http://www.itwriting.com/blog/4866-a-fe ... ntime.html

[Zach]

I think that not having to worry about HDC's and all that might be helpful to idiots like me.

[Polo]

I installed the developper preview, Purebasic and my apps work fine, thankfully.

[DarkDragon]

WinRT is the new OS-level API layer. This is the new native API for Windows, it isn’t a new layer on top of Win32.

So Win32 is now officially dead.
This API will probably be only available only on Win 7 & 8, thus no serious developper will use it, considering a lot of companies are still using XP...

Side note: The Win32 API has not been removed and older applications using the traditional application execution environment will continue to work as expected.

[SFSxOI]

It replaces the Win32 API with WinRT as the MAIN NATIVE API, but does not do away with the Win32 API - for the operating system look and feel (mainly). Its like when Vista came out, people thought GDI went away but it didn't and is still there and DWM replaced GDI for the main look and feel but GDI still works fine. WinRT may be the new main native API for the look and feel, and its not a layer on top of the Win32 API (rather it kinda sets beside the Win32 API - sortta kinda almost in parallel with the Win32 API and even uses at some points part of the Win32 API for some things), but Win32 API is still alive and well, its just not the main native API for the look and feel. PureBasic, and stuff made with it, or using the Win32 API will still work. Win32 API is not dead.

Does anyone serious think that MS would, upon release of Windows 8, put literally hundreds of thousands of people out of work, make thousands of companies go out of business, world wide, or even cripple their own software and render it useless in Windows 8 because it was made with the Win32 API, by removing the Win32 API and replacing it with WinRT? Seriously now...

[Polo]

WinRT is the new OS-level API layer. This is the new native API for Windows, it isn’t a new layer on top of Win32.

So Win32 is now officially dead.
This API will probably be only available only on Win 7 & 8, thus no serious developper will use it, considering a lot of companies are still using XP...

Side note: The Win32 API has not been removed and older applications using the traditional application execution environment will continue to work as expected.

Yes, still it makes Win32 dead, has it won't be developed no more or enhanced (ie there's no hardware acceleration etc...) and Win32 looks less and less native compared to MS apps.

[SFSxOI]

Yes, still it makes Win32 dead, has it won't be developed no more or enhanced (ie there's no hardware acceleration etc...) and Win32 looks less and less native compared to MS apps.

No, Win32API is not dead, and there is hardware acceleration like there has always been, and it looks no more less native. It will still be developed (although it may not be as frequently enhanced for look and feel things in favor of WinRT but it will still be 'fixed' when needed), and i'll bet when Windows 8 gets released and the list of all the changes under the look starts coming out that somewhere in that information you will see some new Win32 API. Or at least says the MS representative we have here at our facility.

[DarkDragon]

Yes, still it makes Win32 dead, has it won't be developed no more or enhanced (ie there's no hardware acceleration etc...) and Win32 looks less and less native compared to MS apps.

Yes, that's somehow true, but still: win32 api won't only exist in windows 7 and windows 8.

... and there is hardware acceleration like there has always been ...

No, WPF and Silverlight is hardware accelerated. IMHO that's how "hardware acceleration" is meant in this case. The only thing which is hardware accelerated in win32 are the popup windows, because of Aero, but neither buttons nor other control elements on it.

[Zach]

Besides, we have to think realistically about this.

You want to be using Win32API 20 years from now? I don't.
Things change over time, and at some point the hard choices have to be made and consequences have to be felt. But at least it is a gradual change and not something that happens utterly out of the blue...

We see this all the time with DirectX and other technologies that improve over time. A newer version shows up, and newer software starts using it, while we can still use our older software for months/years/whatever, but eventually it doesn't matter because everything is being made using the new stuff.

After WinRT has been around for 10 years and a couple new versions of Windows, I wouldn't lose any sleep about Win32 being officially removed.

Want your old stuff? OK. Install an older OS that you probably have sitting around with a license collecting dust, cause you upgraded to the newer OS. Keep an older PC around for this purpose. Heck maybe virtual / emulation tech will be good enough we can do it all in real time with the right hardware

That would be fun.

[SFSxOI]

Yes, still it makes Win32 dead, has it won't be developed no more or enhanced (ie there's no hardware acceleration etc...) and Win32 looks less and less native compared to MS apps.

Yes, that's somehow true, but still: win32 api won't only exist in windows 7 and windows 8.

... and there is hardware acceleration like there has always been ...

No, WPF and Silverlight is hardware accelerated. IMHO that's how "hardware acceleration" is meant in this case.

Those are not the only method of hardware acceleration, while those things do include hardware acceleration, think back for a bit....where did hardware acceleration come from before WPF and Silverlight and even Windows Vista? The hardware folks manufactured hardware and drivers that leveraged the capabilitites of the hardware, and they developed that using the Win32 API or created their own 'API' for operating with the Win32 API environment.

BTW, Silverlight is not actually native to the OS, its really in addition to the OS, for right now at least.


The sky did not fall today, i'll bet it will not fall tomorrow, and i'll also bet that it will not fall when Windows 8 is released. However, in case of nuclear war or devine intervention or asteroids/metors hitting the earth, all bets are off so don't try to collect then