Retiring 32bit Windows?

Previous topic - Next topic

Youkaisan

Since long MS has pushed Win11 with 64bit only release, 32bit hardwares(somehow it's rare now) are officially not supported. Although as WoW64 still exist, we can still run the 32bit executables at least till 2029, when the LTSC 2019's 10 year support ended.

I still have some Atom devices and 2 Celeron 1037U mini PCs which has only 2GB RAM, they are not so capable to run x64 Windows, maybe become obsolete within 2 to 3 years, still usable, but not so useful anyway.

MS has made transition of Visual Studio from 32bit to 64bit, and 32bit SDKs may reach EoL in later VS releases, will GLB drop 32bit compilation in later release or left it as legacy support?

erico

Probably going to keep legacy support as long as possible.
There are versions that will compile fine even on WinCE.

dreamerman

GLBasic is using 'well estabilished' libraries, the only way that 32bit target would become obsolete with them is when future versions of GCC would have only 64bit compilation on windows so that would affect also GLBasic, but I highly doubt that, at least for couple years, specially as that such toolchains (GCC) are used also for compilation on some embedded, legacy or special devices (so compatibility is important in terms of target architectures). Even if possible future GLB version will have only 64bit target, most likely you will be also compile same code with older versions just for legacy devices, so don't worry about that.
You raised interesting topic, and it's advised to target 64bit first, but include 32bit exe for legacy devices/as fallback if its possible.
Check my source code editor for GLBasic - link Update: 20.04.2020

erico

Also, legacy as a lower level support is something I enjoy. My GLB games for PC are on the market for quite some years over a few windows versions and it all runs fine, no need for me to tackle anything. This is very nice as I don´t take well to have to update ones own app every year because of system something or whatever. My games are made to sell over a long period of time, not all in one, so it all works great for me.