Hercules host Windows OS requirements

Andrew H. Derbyshire

Oct 17, 2006

In looking at the httpserv.c module I see the authentication routine
is incomplete. I may be able to fix it for UNIX (I only have Mac,
FreeBSD, and Fedora Core 5 to test on -- which sounds broad, but isn't
really).

More interesting is that I can also implement it for Windows, having
previously looked up the Windows calls for a similar problem for my
employer. (Basically, it's straight out of MSDN ...
OpenProcessToken()/SetPrivilege() to initialize once, then LogonUser()
for each authentication.)

However, those calls are NT/W2K/etc, not Windows 98. Thus, does
Hercules REALLY have any reason to support Windows 98 in this day and age?

-ahd-

1:48 am

Re: Hercules host Windows OS requirements

Roger Bowler

Oct 17, 2006

--- In hercules-390@yahoogroups.com, Andrew H. Derbyshire wrote:
> However, those calls are NT/W2K/etc, not Windows 98. Thus, does
> Hercules REALLY have any reason to support Windows 98 in this day
> and age?

Hello Andrew,

Hercules currently runs on Win98, and while it's conceivable that a
future version of Hercules *might* require XP or later as a
pre-requisite, there is no plan at this time to do this yet.

I am aware that developers are often keen to push users forward and I
fully appreciate the motivation for this, but there can also be very
compelling reasons from a user perspective for preserving the status quo.

So for the present you need to assume that any modifications should be
made in such a way as not to break Win98 compatability. A reasonable
way to achieve this might be to place all calls to XP-only services in
a separate DLL which is loaded dynamically only if hercules determines
that it is running on XP or later. Obviously this means that Win98
users cannot profit from whatever functionality is provided by the
DLL, but assuming it is functionality which does not exist on Win98
anyway (validation of userid) then there is nothing lost.

Regards,
Roger Bowler

11:24 am