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From: Paul <nospam@needed.invalid>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-11,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Microsoft admits that Windows is short-term support in realistic
 terms
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2025 05:49:08 -0500
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On Fri, 2/21/2025 4:33 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:11:54 -0500, Paul wrote:

>> and somewhere in there, is the "Migration phase", where programs are
>> reinstalled one by one.
> 
> Wonder why this is even necessary. A Linux distro can upgrade itself in-
> place, without touching third-party stuff in /usr/local or /opt.

The appcompat knows a lot about well-known programs
and their needs. And can configure things for you.

Executable files have a compatibility setting in the Properties
of the file. You can tell it to "assume a WinXP environment", and
the OS can adjust the resources the program sees, so it looks like
Windows XP. For example, you can run Audacity, and offer it OpenAL
(no compat setting) or a previous audio subsystem if you set the
value to an earlier OS. The names of the audio inputs and outputs
change when you do this.

The appcompat can do that by itself. The user can adjust the menu value
as they see fit, if they think some other value is better.

In a Linux upgrade, all the package versions and their dependencies
are upgraded, so it's a forklift change where the existing packages
guide what items are updated immediately. Maybe the old version
of program used GTK2, the new version uses GTK3.

Part of a Linux upgrade, is removing some customizations known to
break an upgrade attempt. On Linux, you *back up* before an Upgrade
attempt. If Linux becomes wobbly, don't fret, restore from backup
and try again, like after you evaluate whether any PPA you added
could be responsible.

The Windows installer explicitly looks for blockers. For
example, I had one Windows Upgrade denied because "your VirtualBox
is not compatible with the new OS". Removing VBox 5 and
installing VBox 6, shuts up the message and the
check before the install starts, is satiated. But a
lot of other stuff is handled by AppCompat and installing
things using the .msi collection stored in C: . If you were upgrading
a Win7 Pro with WinXP mode to Win10, you would likely be told
that Virtual PC is not compatible with the OS, and the user then
removes WinXP Mode (supported by a Virtual PC install) from the
playing field and the Upgrade goes ahead. Anything virtualization
related, stands a chance of being an issue, unless the installer
logic finds the item is OK.

The Windows Installer doesn't know everything. It should have known
my video card was too old, but it does not attempt to resolve driver
dependencies early on. My Upgrade attempt rolled back, and on a
hunch, I installed another video card (desktop) to replace
the GMA4500 iGPU and the Upgrade finished on the second try.
There was no message on the screen that was the issue, it just
rolled back and that was it. I was supposed to "read logfiles
and figure it out for myself". I put in a sufficiently modern
card (WDDM 1.1 driver available) and took my chances without
reading any logs. That's because I'd read somewhere on the web,
that the particular Upgrade did not support XDDM driver cards.
We had been warned on previous occasions that support would
not last forever on XDDM (presumably, a WinXP era driver).

   Paul