Why I believe giving Win 9 to Win 7 users for free is smart

[Mike Gibson]

And while from our perspective that would be amazing on the desktop, what would I do as a Windows Phone developer if I wanted to make a Universal app? Unless you're also suggesting that they port Win32 to WP, then WP will lose a big advantage that has thus far got some big name apps onto the platform that otherwise might not have got written (for either platform considering that W8's weak audience + WP's weak audience = just big enough to develop for) and could further leave WP behind in apps. That's why I think it's better to improve WinRT (and I honestly think that I can see some ways for them to help the transition from Win32 to WinRT, but that's a whole new thread) than to hit the reset button and scrap it.

All Win32 needed to cover multiple device types was a native scalable+touch UI API. Basically a replacement for USER. Win32 was already portable across CPU architectures. The Surface RT uses Win32 recompiled for ARM (along with Desktop Office). However, I wouldn't have ported *all* of Win32 but rather defined a more secure and modern subset with a native scalable+touch UI API to it. That way it could have been backported to Win7. It is an all gain, minimal pain solution to the problem. Think about it: what is the main difference between a phone, a tablet, a laptop, etc.? It's the screen size. MSFT should have tackled that problem, not wasted their time reinventing internet and file access.

MSFT is almost there with their Universal WinRT API. It incorporates huge chunks of the modern Win32 API already: Direct2D, Direct3D, DirectWrite, etc. That's available on all devices, all the way down to a lowly 530. But then the ugly and unnecessary Async crap comes in and ruins the party in everything else (file access, internet access, etc.). Then they went overboard on security which essentially limits apps to simple trinkets. Then the app model itself where you're always being suspended or tossed out of memory -- which kills the potential for complex programs. The WinRT API and framework are simply not capable of supporting anything more than applets.

Anyway, if you start a thread on how to ease the transition from Win32 to WinRT, send me a note or post a link here. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Edit: here's a post on MSDN just today from an ISV fighting with the absolutely horrible performance in WinRT/WinPRT's file functions:

Terrible performance of StorageFolder.GetBasicPropertiesAsync. What are the alternatives?

Sorry pal, there are no alternatives. Win32's FindFirst/FindNext would have returned the entire file list in the time taken for the Async bull**** to return a single entry --- but MSFT doesn't let you use FF/FN except for app local storage.