5 ms·
Genuine question, not being sarcastic: why would someone want/need these downloads?
by jamesdhutton 9mo ago
Genuine question, not being sarcastic: why would someone want/need these downloads?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- NetOpWibby 9mo agoInstalling Acid Pro 6 requires Visual Studio Redistributable packages the Microsoft no longer has available. At least, last I checked.
- craigmoliver 9mo agoThey have the C++ ones are available: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-support...
- hsbauauvhabzb 9mo agoI have a legitimate need to replicate systems that are sometimes very legacy for security research (apps that sit on top, rather than the os itself). Building stuff like a base Windows XP image is easy enough, but sometimes system updates are required - even stuff like iirc tls1.2 isn’t supported in IE6
- hsbauauvhabzb 9mo agoI’ll also add: games and nostalgia.
- dbcooper 9mo agoThere's a tool for blocking selected driver updates that still works on Windows 11. Very handy.
- selfhoster11 9mo agoHistorical preservation, retro computing, period-correct hardware setups.
- PinkMilkshake 9mo agoLots of workshops, factories, university research labs, etc. still use old machinery that would be a huge waste of money to replace just because the computer that controls it runs Windows 95. In some cases it can't be replaced because the company that created the software, drivers, or IO cards is long gone.
- hsbauauvhabzb 9mo agothe hardware and software licences for some of these systems can run into the millions too
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- nelqn 9mo agoThe C++ redistributables are necessary for many programs and, for some reason, recent versions of Windows do not include them all.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- iberator 9mo agoImagine you have a 2m$ spectroscope or offset printing machine running windows xp.
- numpad0 9mo agoAnd it's not worth risking Windows 11 destroying it by slamming the irreplaceable robotic stuff into itself in such ways that NASA or NTSB would find fancy UI animations or virtualization based security culpable. You may insist that programs that control airplanes and nuclear reactors are supposed to be written in Rust + TypeScript on daily updated Linux installation that depends on AWS us-east-1, but they would insist it ain't stupid if it works.