Delphi 2, by accident, can also compile -more or less- Win32s compatible binaries w/ relocation tables.
Funnily, you can even include manifest files as used by Windows NT 6.0 onwards.
The result is a binary that is able to run on Windows 3.1 onwards, needs no runtimes and looks "GDI+ style"
(uses Windows Common Controls) on Vista and onwards. The only problem I've encountered so far, is the icon beeing missing.
If you want to give Delphi (Object Pascal) a try, I'd start with Delphi 2 first.
Later Versions can be got as book ware (Delphi for Kids included Delphi 3 Pro and Delphi 7 Personal).
They are also able to import their siblings' older project files.
There's also Turbo Delphi, which was released for hobbyists a few years ago.
And Lazarus, which can compile programs for Mac OS X, too.
Anway, I'm not sure if Delphi is still considered to be "alive".
Edit: Silly, me! 😅 Manifest resource files and Common Controls were used in NT 5.1 aka XP already.
Visually, they became more apparent beginning with NT6/Vista. Without them, programs look really dated there.
Azarien wrote:For Windows 98 and Me (but not 95) there is yet another possibility: those systems support .NET Framework up to
version 2.0, and even the newest Visual Studio can still generate .NET 2.0 (but not 1.x) executables. This allows one to write programs
in C#, VB.NET and potentially other languages and run them on Win98 (Visual Studio 2017 itself requires Windows 7).
VB.NET 2005/2008 are able to translate Visual Basic Classic (VB6) programs to VB.NET syntax.
The runtime of the latter, msvbvm60.dll is included from Win98SE onwards, incl. Win X.
Technically, someone could write code in VB Classic and run that binary on anything from Win95 onwards.
Or even from Windows 3.0 onwards, if the VB project was created in VB1 first, then converted by VB4 32-Bit
and finally compiled by VB6.
I'm not sure whether or not I should recommend that, though.
Besides the classic C vs Basic debate, VB6 is much like XP.
It had been officially killed about a thousend times and still lives on.
Ironically, the new upcoming "Win10 on ARM" is said to include a Win32 emulator
with a 386-ish instructions set (maybe MMX, too).
Who knows how long it will really last. 😐
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