Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11(blog.enlyth.com)
461 points by enlyth 18 hours ago | 271 comments
tl;dr: The author hunted for the oldest GUI app that runs natively on Windows 11, initially landing on FREECELL.EXE from Feb 1993 (via Win32s), then digging further to get CDPLAYER.EXE from Nov 1992 (an NT 3.1 pre-release build) working, using a DLL to emulate a CD-ROM drive. Earlier NT builds failed due to incompatible PE formats or cdecl-vs-stdcall calling convention mismatches, though 16-bit apps like REVERSI.EXE (1985) can still run via the otvdm compatibility layer.
HN Discussion:
  • ↑Personal nostalgia about FreeCell and preserving old versions for family members
  • •Criticism of modern UI design and loss of native Windows API development
  • ↑Sharing related experiences of reviving old Windows software with compatibility patches
  • ~Software's poor backwards compatibility is shocking compared to physical books
  • ↑Adding historical context that FreeCell predates NT as the Win32s demo app