Probably a stupid question, but... [What is Win32?]

[pinata666]

What exactly is Win32? Because the zdoom.org site says I need it to run ZDoom, and it sounded like an operating system. Since I'm running XP, I don't want to download ZDoom only to have it not work. Clarification would be appreciated here... can ZDoom run in XP, or do I need an emulator of some sort?

[Patrick]

Zdoom will run on Windows XP just fine

[HackNeyed]

Yes. Simply put XP, Vista, 7... All fine. Even the 64bit versions will run the program in 32bit mode automatically since the program only supports 32bit mode.

[Csonicgo]

pinata666 said:

What exactly is Win32? Because the zdoom.org site says I need it to run ZDoom, and it sounded like an operating system. Since I'm running XP, I don't want to download ZDoom only to have it not work. Clarification would be appreciated here... can ZDoom run in XP, or do I need an emulator of some sort?

win32 is developer's terms for 32-bit windows.

[DaniJ]

Note quite. It is the "old" name for the Windows API (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API).

[Csonicgo]

DaniJ said:

Note quite. It is the "old" name for the Windows API (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API).

it isn't just win32 anymore? heh, I suppose that would be misleading, after all.

[Quasar]

DaniJ said:

Note quite. It is the "old" name for the Windows API (see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_API).

But "Win32" is still a platform distinct from the Windows API as a whole, as the Windows API is now also supported for 64-bit programming, previously on IA64 and now on x64. The WIN32 symbol is defined even in 64-bit environments though, since they are a superset.

[Jodwin]

pinata666 said:

Since I'm running XP, I don't want to download ZDoom only to have it not work.

Downloading and trying it out would have been faster than first asking, though.

[pinata666]

Jodwin said:

Downloading and trying it out would have been faster than first asking, though.

Meh. I'm used to sacrificing speed for caution.

Thanks for all your help, everyone. Downloading Zdoom now.

[RestlessRodent]

Win32 is Windows 32-bit

or...

Windows 95
Windows 98
Windows 98 Second Edition
Windows ME
Windows NT
Windows 2000
Windows XP
Windows 2003
Windows Vista
Windows 2007
Windows 7
Windows CE

However, Win32 is deprecated now...

[Csonicgo]

GhostlyDeath said:

However, Win32 is deprecated now...

Absolute nonsense, as usual. I don't even have to back up my statement. Win32 isn't going away, just like 32-bit processors are not going away. Microsoft has said nothing about deprecating the API anywhere in any documentation that I can find. Only speculation and "I heard it from some guy..."

Please, think before you post.

[chungy]

The API is still called Win32 even though it runs on 64-bit processors anyway.

[CODOR]

The best part is that I'm running XP x64 and the 64-bit libraries are in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. The 32-bit libraries are in C:\WINDOWS\SYSWOW64. (This actually almost sorta makes sense, as the subsystem is called "Windows On Windows-64", being that which runs older 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit Windows.)

I figure 32-bit applications will be around for at least another 15 years. We're just getting to the point now where 16-bit apps won't run natively and that's mostly because of the hardware and not so much the operating system...

[RestlessRodent]

Csonicgo said:

Absolute nonsense, as usual. I don't even have to back up my statement. Win32 isn't going away, just like 32-bit processors are not going away. Microsoft has said nothing about deprecating the API anywhere in any documentation that I can find. Only speculation and "I heard it from some guy..."

Please, think before you post.

Win64 is all the rage. Pretty soon Win32 will just be a compatibility layer like Win16, it already is.

[Graf Zahl]

GhostlyDeath said:

Pretty soon Win32 will just be a compatibility layer like Win16, it already is.

... which still means that it's not going away any time soon. Unlike the Win16->Win32 transition this time it's far less radical and I see 32 bit software live on for a long time.