computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

, Windows on Windows (commonly referred to as WOW), was a

compatibility layer In software engineering, a compatibility layer is an interface that allows binaries for a legacy or foreign system to run on a host system. This translates system calls for the foreign system into native system calls for the host system. With so ...

32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculation ...

versions of the

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems sc ...

family of

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s since 1993 with the release of

Windows NT 3.1 Windows NT 3.1 is the first major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, released on July 27, 1993. At the time of Windows NT's release, Microsoft's Windows 3.1 desktop environment had established brand recognition ...

, which extends

NTVDM Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Overview Virtual DOS machines can operate eit ...

to provide limited support for running

legacy In law, a legacy is something held and transferred to someone as their inheritance, as by will and testament. Personal effects, family property, marriage property or collective property gained by will of real property. Legacy or legacies may refer ...

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

programs written for

Windows 3.x Windows 3.x means either of, or all of the following versions of Microsoft Windows: * Windows 3.0 * Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windo ...

or earlier. There is a similar subsystem, known as WoW64, on 64-bit Windows versions that runs 32-bit programs. This subsystem is not available in 64-bit editions prior to

Windows 11 Windows 11 is the latest major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released in October 2021. It is a free upgrade to its predecessor, Windows 10 (2015), and is available for any Windows 10 devices that meet the new Windows 11 ...

(including

Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 is the fifth version of the Windows Server operating system produced by Microsoft and released as part of the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became General av ...

and later, which only have 64-bit editions) and therefore cannot run 16-bit software without third-party emulation software (e.g.

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

is the final version of Windows to include this subsystem. This subsystem has since been discontinued, as Windows 11 dropped support for

processors.

Background

Many 16-bit Windows legacy programs can run without changes on newer

editions of Windows. The reason designers made this possible was to allow software developers time to remedy their software during the industry transition from

Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

and later, without restricting the ability for the operating system to be upgraded to a current version before ''all'' programs used by a customer had been taken care of. The

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subs ...

series of operating systems, reflecting their roots in

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

, functioned as hybrid 16- and 32-bit systems in the sense that the underlying operating system was not truly 32-bit, and therefore could run 16-bit software natively without requiring any special emulation;

operating systems differ significantly from Windows 9x in their architecture, and therefore require a more complex solution. Two separate strategies are used in order to let 16-bit programs run on 32-bit versions of Windows (with some runtime limitations). They are called

thunk In computer programming, a thunk is a subroutine used to inject a calculation into another subroutine. Thunks are primarily used to delay a calculation until its result is needed, or to insert operations at the beginning or end of the other subr ...

ing and shimming.

Thunking

The WOW subsystem of the operating system in order to provide support for 16-bit pointers, memory models and

address space In computing, an address space defines a range of discrete addresses, each of which may correspond to a network host, peripheral device, disk sector, a memory cell or other logical or physical entity. For software programs to save and retrieve st ...

. All 16-bit programs run by default in a single

virtual DOS machine Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Overview Virtual DOS machines can operate ei ...

with shared memory space. However, they can be configured to run in their own separate memory space, in which case each 16-bit process has its own dedicated virtual machine. The separate memory space increases system stability by preventing buggy 16-bit programs from interfering with one another, at the expense of reduced 16-bit

inter-process communication In computer science, inter-process communication or interprocess communication (IPC) refers specifically to the mechanisms an operating system provides to allow the processes to manage shared data. Typically, applications can use IPC, categori ...

and increased memory utilization. The WOWEXEC.EXE process on a

system facilitates Windows-on-Windows. In addition to Windows-on-Windows emulating the

and

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

kernels, the WIN.COM file emulates a

kernel for

, which runs the 16-bit DOS-based Windows applications on Windows NT.

Shimming

Application compatibility issues, notably around long filenames, multiple users and the concept of

least privilege In information security, computer science, and other fields, the principle of least privilege (PoLP), also known as the principle of minimal privilege (PoMP) or the principle of least authority (PoLA), requires that in a particular abstraction la ...

, may prevent some applications from working. For example, they may incorrectly assume full write access to the whole file system whereas

NTFS New Technology File System (NTFS) is a proprietary journaling file system developed by Microsoft. Starting with Windows NT 3.1, it is the default file system of the Windows NT family. It superseded File Allocation Table (FAT) as the preferred fil ...

security is in place. When the Windows 95 line of operating systems was designed, a key requirement was for the file system to keep backward compatibility with

8.3 filename An 8.3 filename (also called a short filename or SFN) is a filename convention used by old versions of DOS and versions of Microsoft Windows prior to Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.5. It is also used in modern Microsoft operating systems as an alterna ...

s to allow legacy applications to continue to work on the platform. Windows 95 and later operating systems therefore support a compatibility mode whereby both a long filename and a short filename are stored in the File Allocation Table. Furthermore, legacy applications that attempt to access hardware directly cannot do so in

user mode A modern computer operating system usually segregates virtual memory into user space and kernel space. Primarily, this separation serves to provide memory protection and hardware protection from malicious or errant software behaviour. Kernel ...

. Legacy applications may also fail if system configuration files from the DOS and Windows 9x era are not present in Windows NT based kernels, hence the reason for zero-length versions of files like

AUTOEXEC.BAT AUTOEXEC.BAT is a system file that was originally on DOS-type operating systems. It is a plain-text batch file in the root directory of the boot device. The name of the file is an abbreviation of "automatic execution", which describes its funct ...

and

CONFIG.SYS CONFIG.SYS is the primary configuration file for the DOS and OS/2 operating systems. It is a special ASCII text file that contains user-accessible setup or configuration directives evaluated by the operating system's DOS BIOS (typically residing ...

having to be carried forward on operating systems that do not use them. A considerable number of shims are present in the application compatibility layer of later versions of Windows to intercept and modify

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

calls made by legacy applications that were written with a different set of assumptions and operating system best practices in mind. These fixes are updated from time-to-time as issues are discovered in popular legacy applications that are still in use.

References

External links

Windows NT subsystems

*
Optimize How Windows 7 Runs 16-Bit and MS-DOS-Based Programs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Windows On Windows Discontinued Windows components 1993 software

Background

Thunking

Shimming

See also

References

External links