revisiting the "What am I running on?" question

[Roel Schroeven]

Thomas Jollans schreef op 20/02/2019 om 12:48:

> I'm fairly sure "win32" was used on W9x as well.

Indeed, it was used for all 32-bit Windows versions: both the 9x line 
and the NT line. There were differences, of course. For example there 
are many calls that take SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES parameters. On 9x those 
parameters simply didn't do anything.

> In any case it *was*
> correct at the time, as early versions of Python also ran on DOS and 
> Windows 3.1. "windows" would not have been suitable.

The API in Windows 3.1 (and 3.0 and 3.11 I suppose) was called the 
Windows API at the time, later renamed to Win16 to distinguish it from 
Win32 in the newer 32-bit Windows versions.

And then there was also Win32s, a subset of the real Win32 used on 
Windows 3.1. And WinCE, but let's not go there.

-- 
"Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a
friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger."
         -- Franklin P. Jones

Roel Schroeven