There should be no reason an application should not work on 32-bit Windows 7. Of course,
it if was badly-written and violated good security practice, it may not work, but that
simply means it was always wrong; Windows 7 just won't let it do the damage that earlier
systems like XP might have allowed. Foolish actions such as writing to the Windows
directories, the executable directory, trying to modify the Registry under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and similar bad behavior are now blocked. But if it was responsibly
written it should work.
Device drivers should work, but since device drivers have all kinds of sensitive issues
(ncluding security), a classic legacy driver that might have run on XP may cause "bad
behavior" on Windows 7 (typically, a legacy driver will simply disable all power
management everywhere). A properly-written driver that used the WDM model *should* work
correctly on Windows 7, but the only way to find out is to try it.
A 32-bit driver will not run on a 64-bit OS, so you would be constrained to use the 32-bit
version of the OS, or recompile your drivers for 64-bit mode (and test and validate them).
A properly-written driver can usually be recompiled in 64-bit mode with zero effort. For
poorly-written drivers, all bets about conversion or even "reasonable" behavior are off.
joe
Post by kathyI have a Windows XP application written in MFC. Can it runs on Windows
7 (32-bit)? Can Windows XP device driver work on Windows 7 (32-bits)?
My application uses some drivers which works on 32-bit Windows XP.
Joseph M. Newcomer [MVP]
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