I know, it sounds ridiculous but I was asked to make an application backwards-compatible with win98. Specifically, I am interested in the boost-thread library that I have used. So, where can I find information about which version of the boost libraries is compatible with which operating system?
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3Hang on a sec... Are you still using Win98? ---- Well, Off the top of my head. Nahhhh, Win98 isn't supported and shouldn't be..... – WhiZTiM Oct 05 '16 at 22:25
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1It's not me using that operating system :) – Binabik Oct 05 '16 at 22:33
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Refuse and explain them why Win98 is a bad idea in 2016. – deviantfan Oct 05 '16 at 22:33
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10This is an entirely reasonable question, that has a clear answer. – user253751 Oct 05 '16 at 22:35
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2[It is amazing the old systems you can find lying around and still doing useful work.](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/a23139/commodore-64-repair-shop/) – user4581301 Oct 05 '16 at 22:40
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Win'98 doesn't support multi-core systems, which greatly diminishes the value of threads. – MSalters Oct 06 '16 at 06:47
2 Answers
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It depends on which version of Boost you are interested in.
You can go through the Boost version history and search the Release Notes for one that lists a compiler that supports Win98.
A quick search hints that this is likely to be MSVS 2005. This means Visual C++ 8.0.
The latest version of boost that I've found to list this version of VC++ as a supported (and targetted) compiler is boost 1.52.0.
The Boost Thread library has been around since version 1.25.0, so this seems like an acceptable candidate.
Conveniently, the link to download the source code (of any particular version) are also provided on the version history page.
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It might be a good idea to dig through the release notes and issue tracker and see if you need to backport any essential fixes for the libraries you will use. – Dan Mašek Oct 05 '16 at 23:37
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Supporting MSVS 2005 equals to supporting Win98? I could also imagine that "supporting MSVS 2005" means "supporting MSVS 2005 on WinXP". For sure, I will have a try and if necessary, go back to 1.25.0 ... – Binabik Oct 06 '16 at 14:47
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1I can't find anything in the documentation mentioning that specifically. Considering that the [code](https://github.com/boostorg/thread/blob/boost-1.52.0/src/win32/thread.cpp#L12) seems to request even older version of the API (IIRC Win98 had `WINVER 0x500`), there's a decent chance. Unfortunately I don't have neither the compiler, nor the OS anywhere on hand to test this. – Dan Mašek Oct 06 '16 at 15:29
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See http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_55_0/libs/log/doc/html/log/installation.html
It requires XP or newer, and at least VC8.
deviantfan
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