Compatibility Questions

Visual Studio 'targets' certain operating systems. Is this that my program will work on these systems (those operating systems are targeted?.)

How reliable is the windows compatibility property? My software uses Directx 8.1 and is not 3 dimensional. My desire is the compatibility with future Windows.

Thank you,

Josheir
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I believe that the way executable files work on later versions of windows should not change. However, in the case they do, when you get a newer version of VS, you should simply have to open the project solution in the newer VS and it will ask if you want to update it.

Conclusion:
You should be fine making programs, .exe files will not work differently on later versions of Windows.
And will Visual Studio Express 2010 my application created work on Windows 2000? My Visual Studio 2008 application did.

Thanks again,

Josheir
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That was hard to understand, but from what I am gathering, you are wondering if VS 2010 will be able to make apps for Win2000.

I would assume yes. VS 2010 makes your code into a .exe, those work on all current windows computers.

The answer would be yes.
My answer would be 'maybe'. Binary files for Windows aren't necessarily backwards-compatible, though they can be. Its based around the DLLs that you are required to link to for the version, as well as functions that you require to be exported from those DLLs. As a general rule, once a function is there in a DLL you'd expect it to stay there for all future versions (though you may have to run it in 'compatibility mode' to access the older versions of those functions), but they won't necessarily be there beforehand.

For your case, it should be fine, though. I'm pretty sure that the C runtime libraries for 2010 are compatible with Windows 2000, and DirectX 8.1 shouldn't be a problem.
Yes, VS2010 runtime and Windows SDK is compatible with Windows 2000. It is the last version of VS which support windows 2000.
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