Thread: Will win32 API programming knowledge in C still aplly to MS Vista?

I recently bought the Petzold Programming Windows 5th edition. I've made it to chapter 3. But I was just curious because a reviewer on amazon said that in MS Vista, the new windows version, the win API calls are all deprecated and .NET is going to be the new API.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-...Fencoding=UTF8

Is this true? or is this guy just full of it (I mean he also didn't like Guild Wars!)? Should I bother learning the win32 API in C if all the functions are going to be pointless in the next windows incarnation?

He's full of it.

He's full of it. Think about it - there's billions of dollars of software that uses the Win32 API directly in C. If Vista broke that, all of that software wouldn't work. Microsoft don't do that - in fact, there is code in Windows XP that simulates bugs that software from Win95 expected.

While Microsoft certainly won't be pushing it, they won't force anyone to stop writing WinAPI code.

Originally Posted by Ancient Dragon

The guy didn't say win32 api was going to be obsolete, discontinued or no longer supported, just that win32 api is deprecated (ancient but still supported for backward compatability). The preferred method of writing NEW programs is with Visual Studio .NET or parts of it such as C#. C porogramming skills in the MS-Windows world are quickly becoming obsolete -- programmers must either keep their skills upgraded or expect to someday be without a job. Some (many?) programmers may scoff at that, but how many CPM (predessor of MS-DOS) , MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 programmers are still around today? Either keep your programming skills current or die by the wayside.

I agree with your final verdict, anyone should keep his programming skills in sync with future technologies, including .NET, C# and the rest stuff.
Besides that, I have to dissagree with you. .NET VM/JIT, the whole Windows Vista, Office 12, all of them are pure C code.

Microsoft have just released the new Vista SDK for C/C++ programmers. C/C++ is one way for a systems developer who writes low level code, like drivers, kernel code, hardware accessing code, operating system parts, embedding apps etc.

I've tested a pure Win32 - C program in the MS Vista Beta and it works flawlessly. Your Win32 - C programs will work in Vista. No need to worry.

However, things are rapidly moving forward and .NET - C# etc.. will become the dominant tools for development on Windows Vista, and probably future versions of windows.