Re:Why Microsoft really patched XP
by twistedpair on Tuesday May 06, 2014 @12:43PM
(#7705552)
There are many stories to MS doing this. There are actually tons of conditionals in the MS source and kernel explicitly to fix broken vendor code. Look up the SimCity fixes they put in the Win Malloc to fix bugs Maxis wouldn't so that upgrades wouldn't break the game, despite the bug being entirely Maxis' fault.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Such things are no longer fixed directly in the kernel or other OS code. They have shims that can be enabled on a per-application basis that sit between system calls and the program. Those can then fix such things, e.g. lie about the OS version, allocate a little more than requested to avoid buffer overruns, etc. Windows then ships with a database which application requires which shims; in Vista that included some 5500 programs.