In engineering Citrix AppDNA, we evaluate all new Windows versions for application compatibility issues. The various methods we use include traditional testing and validation, as well as work from the Microsoft documentation.
The AppDNA team however as hollow a little deeper to look at the compatibility profile applications for the new operating system to make sure we do not miss something important. It sometimes highlights some interesting areas of research in our hunt for application compatibility issues. Take a view behind the scenes to see how AppDNA engineering built, compatibility algorithms accurate automated applications.
What difference is Windows 8.1 from Windows 8 and the respective server systems?
Some Windows 8 to 8.1 feature additions or operating system upgrades have been well documented in other blogs, for example, Paul Thurrott: "Hands-On with Windows 8.1 " . Apart from these changes noted, the analysis of AppDNA team revealed some minor changes to the footprint of the API and some re-organization filesystem. Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (and Windows Server 2012 / Windows Server 2012 R2) are essentially the same product "under the hood".
How do we arrive at this conclusion?
- Citrix is working closely with Microsoft to understand the changes in the new operating systems
- The AppDNA team tested a random sample of applications to ensure that there are no big changes in our expected results (100 testing applications validated to date)
- We are "under the hood" to see if there are changes in the file system and APIs
Windows 8 to 8.1 sample data
to make low-level analysis we must produce the difference between the two operating systems, using the products AppDNA technology.
It is as follows:
The data sample above can be summarized as:
| like | Windows 8.1 | Server 2012 R2 |
| Deleting files * | 548 | 548 |
| Deletions API (Import Address table vs. Export Address table) | 2394 | 266 |
* the number of deleted files may seem large, but it should be noted that some of these are reorganized. For example moving system files in different folders should have no impact since these paths are always in the search path of DLL.
Deleted APIs are more interesting because it seems to have a magnitude of 10 most remote API on the client operating system on the operating system of the server, because we expect them are similar in terms of the API they provide (or removed).
However, a closer inspection of the data, this can be easily explained. It seems that "SystemFolder migwiz wet.dll '(Migration Wizard, which is client side) has a number of changes / deleted API but it seems they are the mangled name. This change is probably irrelevant, in fact, only in this case we have removed 1,088 API. Do a manual check of the operating system reveals that these files exist, it must be non-deterministic nature of API exports mutilated name
This is an excerpt of sample data :.
Crack the Sky, the AppDNA team then evaluated all remaining API line line to verify that we did not miss anything. Then we found something odd ...
We found a bunch of 16 missing layer API WOW bits; However the files were present:
This is strange since we believe that Windows 8.1 x86 supports load 16 bit executables such as operating systems predecessors did.
So why did we have this disparity?
We comparatively file data and found that these files all had the same hashes that mean they are the heels on the file system. So we installed and ran a 16-bit application to see what would happen and discovered the following prompts:
This is not a major problem, it now appears 16 bit support is a " feature Windows "and requires elevation to install. Most users will be standard users, so that if this option is enabled on the construction, they will not be able to run the application. This is very important in a managed secure desktop environment, which is a type of questions AppDNA will focus on updating the product Citrix AppDNA 8.1 for Windows support.
administrative privileges In fairness, you still need Windows 8 to "activate" 16-bit applications. However, on Windows 8, the files were already in place and a setting change was all that was necessary.
Are there other pertinent thing?
Without going into all the changes, we found it interesting to note that there are changes to some basic DLL. For example, 20 kernelbase.dll removed and kernel32.dll API 61 API deleted.
Applications that use these APIs will fail, but since they are all undocumented API, we expect that most applications will probably not be affected. However, some "bad" applications that rely on these undocumented APIs will fail. The only way to be certain of these compatibility issues is by performing an analysis using Citrix AppDNA application compatibility software.
Summary
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, and their server counterparts for most are the same. As with any new operating system there are changes, but the impact appears to be minimal in light of what we found, so that Windows 8.1 is also compatible with Windows 8 the range of published news features.
See what AppDNA can make for compatibility with Windows 8 application now download it for free AppDNA editing application migration testing.
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