6 ms·

Exactly, Microsoft already does something similar by reserving some of their APIs for their own use. There are others that are available to some (eg the carrier

by 4thjuly 13y ago

Exactly, Microsoft already does something similar by reserving some of their APIs for their own use. There are others that are available to some (eg the carriers) but nobody else. It's nothing new, they have had so-called 'private' APIs since the early days of Windows.

chx 13y ago
And Windows detected DR-DOS and crashed your computer to kill DR-DOS and MS paid a paltry $150M to Caldera later but they got to upkeep their monopoly in the PC market. Now they get a small serving of this medicine and it's far less sinister and they whine. Oh they irony.
- ksk 13y ago
  >And Windows detected DR-DOS and crashed your computer to kill DR-DOS and MS paid a paltry $150M to Caldera later but they got to upkeep their monopoly in the PC market. Actually Windows ran perfectly fine over DR-DOS. Perhaps you're thinking of the beta version which included the code to not allow Windows to run on any dos other than MS-DOS. The reason obviously is purely technical. Because of the way Windows 3.1 worked it required access to internal MS-DOS undocumented data structures which could not be guaranteed to work on any other DOS clone. In fact Windows crashed on MS-DOS 4.0 because the internal data structures changed. MS-DOS 4.0 contains special code for backwards compatibility to trick Windows into thinking its running on the older version.
- deserted 13y ago
  Everyone thought it was $150M but it turned out to be $280M. Not that that makes much of a difference for Microsoft. The agreement has been public since 2009. http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/NovvMS-104-8.pdf http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/NovvMS-104-8.pdf > Microsoft also debated the exact language the message should contain. In the end, senior vice president Brad Silverberg said in a 1992 email that the message needed to steer users away from DR-DOS. "What the [user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS," Silverberg wrote.
ksk 13y ago
>It's nothing new, they have had so-called 'private' APIs since the early days of Windows Point to a single "private" API. There is no such thing. Preemptive apologies if you're a non technical person as these things are obvious to most programmers so I don't really want to berate anyone for simply not having sufficient information.
- 4thjuly 13y ago
  For recent examples I was thinking specifically about the Windows.Networking.NetworkOperators APIs and such. These APIs are 'private' to network operators. If you try to use them from a regular app then you'll be kicked out of the store. Or search msdn for "This API is not intended to be used directly from your code" for examples of other APIs that are 'private' to Microsoft and will similarly get you booted. Going back in time, there were (still are) a great many dlls and services in Windows with unnamed exports and not available to the general public (eg win32k, csrss, milcore etc). Go back to the dark ages and as others have already mentioned there's the famous AARD example that used undocumented DOS data structures to distinguish MS-DOS from other variants. Like I said, nothing new.
  - ksk 13y ago
    >If you try to use them from a regular app then you'll be kicked out of the store. Um.. That is not a private API. Those are the terms of the STORE, not the OS. You can use the API from whatever app you want. Although as a programmer I personally dislike such restrictions, its no different from what Google or Apple are doing for their own stores. >Going back in time, there were (still are) a great many dlls and services in Windows with unnamed exports and not available to the general public (eg win32k, csrss, milcore etc) What the... What are you talking about? Those DLLs are internal OS DLLs. Nobody besides OS components has any use for those APIs. >Go back to the dark ages and as others have already mentioned there's the famous AARD example Which never shipped since it was part of a windows beta version. >Like I said, nothing new. You can say anything you want ofcource. You'll have to bring actual evidence if you want to be taken seriously though.
    - 13y ago

by 4thjuly 13y ago

chx 13y ago

And Windows detected DR-DOS and crashed your computer to kill DR-DOS and MS paid a paltry $150M to Caldera later but they got to upkeep their monopoly in the PC market. Now they get a small serving of this medicine and it's far less sinister and they whine. Oh they irony.

ksk 13y ago
>And Windows detected DR-DOS and crashed your computer to kill DR-DOS and MS paid a paltry $150M to Caldera later but they got to upkeep their monopoly in the PC market. Actually Windows ran perfectly fine over DR-DOS. Perhaps you're thinking of the beta version which included the code to not allow Windows to run on any dos other than MS-DOS. The reason obviously is purely technical. Because of the way Windows 3.1 worked it required access to internal MS-DOS undocumented data structures which could not be guaranteed to work on any other DOS clone. In fact Windows crashed on MS-DOS 4.0 because the internal data structures changed. MS-DOS 4.0 contains special code for backwards compatibility to trick Windows into thinking its running on the older version.
deserted 13y ago
Everyone thought it was $150M but it turned out to be $280M. Not that that makes much of a difference for Microsoft. The agreement has been public since 2009. http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/NovvMS-104-8.pdf http://www.groklaw.net/pdf2/NovvMS-104-8.pdf > Microsoft also debated the exact language the message should contain. In the end, senior vice president Brad Silverberg said in a 1992 email that the message needed to steer users away from DR-DOS. "What the [user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS," Silverberg wrote.

ksk 13y ago

>It's nothing new, they have had so-called 'private' APIs since the early days of Windows Point to a single "private" API. There is no such thing. Preemptive apologies if you're a non technical person as these things are obvious to most programmers so I don't really want to berate anyone for simply not having sufficient information.

4thjuly 13y ago
For recent examples I was thinking specifically about the Windows.Networking.NetworkOperators APIs and such. These APIs are 'private' to network operators. If you try to use them from a regular app then you'll be kicked out of the store. Or search msdn for "This API is not intended to be used directly from your code" for examples of other APIs that are 'private' to Microsoft and will similarly get you booted. Going back in time, there were (still are) a great many dlls and services in Windows with unnamed exports and not available to the general public (eg win32k, csrss, milcore etc). Go back to the dark ages and as others have already mentioned there's the famous AARD example that used undocumented DOS data structures to distinguish MS-DOS from other variants. Like I said, nothing new.
- ksk 13y ago
  >If you try to use them from a regular app then you'll be kicked out of the store. Um.. That is not a private API. Those are the terms of the STORE, not the OS. You can use the API from whatever app you want. Although as a programmer I personally dislike such restrictions, its no different from what Google or Apple are doing for their own stores. >Going back in time, there were (still are) a great many dlls and services in Windows with unnamed exports and not available to the general public (eg win32k, csrss, milcore etc) What the... What are you talking about? Those DLLs are internal OS DLLs. Nobody besides OS components has any use for those APIs. >Go back to the dark ages and as others have already mentioned there's the famous AARD example Which never shipped since it was part of a windows beta version. >Like I said, nothing new. You can say anything you want ofcource. You'll have to bring actual evidence if you want to be taken seriously though.
  - 13y ago