When building an app, how do you make sure an OS update wouldn't affect your app?

Question

For example, you created an application and it works fine in Windows XP. What do you need to do for it to work on Windows 7?

Answer 1

There's no absolute guarantee but if you play by the rules you can understand that the OS provider doesn't want to abandon software.

• only use documented system library/framework calls
• keep aware, read information from the OS provider
• try your software with beta versions of upcoming OS releases and make adjustments as needed.

Answer 2

Unless you need the native system libraries in your application, you could write your software such that it can be run in a popular Virtual Machine which places the burden of OS compatibility on the vendor of the VM. Java Virtual Machine is what comes to my mind.

This of course is not a guarantee either and you yourself probably have little control over the future of the VM. However, considering the widespread usage of the JVM for example, I do not see it likely to stop being supported in newer major OSes anytime soon.

Answer 3

Test your software!

If you have a product that works on XP and you know Windows 7 is coming out and some of your clients are going to use it, you need to test your software against it an release a new version if it does not.

Avoiding undocumented or deprecated APIs will help but it is no gaurantee.