Brujoloco: yeah, they have been goin´down the drain lately.

Also, It kinda bugs me quite a BIT that me, a lowly PC enthusiast guy can easily EMULATE a Virtual Machine today using a run of the mill install image disc for a particular OS and it will be IMPOSSIBLE (because yes, since that seems to be the argument he spouts) in a decade due to lack of dlls, drivers and embuggerance of the new technologies.

Current Virtualization software is to be honest being developed constantly and keeping up to date to run on the newest machines.

He seems to forget a good chunk of people actually run VM´s that already emulate windows95/winXP and actually play some good old games on them with according libraries/directx/dlls/resources.

Unless Win10 and beyond are totally unable to emulate a much low tech OS due to some technical alien induced hurdle I find it hard to grasp this whole concept of "doom an gloom". Fact is I quite believe the opposite, future machines will run them flawlessly resource wise and instead of virtualizing an OS within another, future machines will be able to virtualize/spoof even the AT architecture itself ALONGSIDE the OS.

Unless a cosmic force wipes the databases of current dlls/directX libraries/drivers/OS Install Images currently stored in the internet and easily found when properly searched for, we will be able to game quite promptly in the future.

Backwards compatibility is sometimes focusing on the wrong aspects of what to keep compatible. A sufficiently efficient CPU/Architecture with enough resources will always be able to emulate a lesser efficient system that consumes less resources overall, not by forcing the more efficient system to adapt to the previous one but by keeping the less efficient one encapsulated within the most efficient system.

Gilozard: Did you read the article? The author discusses precisely why VMs are not a great solution.

karnak1: Someone's gotta invent a "WinBox".

Schnuff: Meh, what a useless discussion. Yes, you can see a movie made 60 or more years ago...but the company selling it must convert it to the actual media first....its sometimes not easy. Yes, you can read an old book, but the pages are not in the same condition if not handled with care...and if you try to buy such a book its not cheap.
So what, as long as there are people buying such items there are others making a buck.

leon30: but can I play Midnight Club 2, a great racing game from 2003 on something newer than Windows XP ?

IAmSinistar: Nope, and I don't need to in order to point out a valid technological solution. If someone disagrees with my take on it, so be it. But from the comments other folks have made on the article, I feel pretty secure that I am more likely to be correct in this context.

Mrstarker: If it wasn't for hobbyists, often operating illegally under the threat of law, we might be living in this future already. Publishers don't give a damn about old games other than milking well known IPs.

It may well be that in the future the only solution will be to build a legacy computer if you want to play old games, because the effort required to make the games run on hecatoncore quantum PCs with supergraphics cards will be too big for enthusiasts.

Grargar: According to the users there, yes. It's the same case with Fallout 3, where its developer doesn't guarantee Windows 7 support, but the game can run on Windows 7. They just can't guarantee it will run on all Windows 7 configurations.

Gilozard: TL;DR You prefer being smug to actually understanding the issue.

leon30: Well, I haven't tried it yet on win 7, but hope it's working, this warning on steam really scared me thou.

IAmSinistar: Project much?

I have a firm grasp on the topic already without needing to read yet another histrionic fluff piece which stokes the same old nonsense. But if it speaks to your inner Chicken Little, then by all means, flap around barnyard as much as you like.

EDIT: To be clear, I'm talking about VM-based solutions, not the other problems such as DRM and closed hardware and all that. All computers are Turing machines, and thus with enough effort any computer can emulate any other computer. Whether someone will go to all the trouble of creating that emulation is a different matter. But until the very nature of computers change, this remains a feasible pathway for continued support.

Gilozard: [ignored]