What is the difference between win16 and win32

This conversation is currently closed to new comments. Win16 processes 16 bit words while Win32 processes 32 bit words. In the very near future we will all be processing 64 bit words.

They are the stubs that a developer uses to create an interface with the operating system when the application is run to do things like bring up windows, read files, etc. The win16 API was written way back when it seemed natural to use bit integers to do a lot of things. Later on, as computers became bigger, the bit limitation seemed restrictive, and so win32 was created. The old notepad's limitation of characters was a result of win16 thinking.

Most MS operating systems will run applications written with either. XP, it is claimed, will not run applications written with win I am not sure about Windows I don't know of any way to tell, easily and automatically from a finished program whether it was written with win16 or win32, except to say that applications written in the past few years are probably win32, and very old applications are definitiely win The developer, of course, knows the difference because they are different libraries and header files.

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Sign in to vote. These were initially referred to as simply the Windows API, but were later renamed to Win16 in an effort to distinguish it from the newer, bit version of the Windows API.

Despite the file extension of exe, these actually are dynamically linked libraries. Win32 is the bit API for modern versions of Windows. The core DLLs of Win32 are kernel Win32 was introduced with Windows NT. The version of Win32 that was shipped with Windows 95 was initially referred to as Win32c, with the "c" standing for "compatibility", but this term was later abandoned by Microsoft in favour of Win In Windows NT 4.

Win32s is an extension for the Windows 3. The "s" stands for "subset". The bit versions are just two more supported platforms within Windows NT architecture and both bit and bit versions of an application can still be compiled from a single code base. All memory pointers are bit by default the LLP64 model , so the source code has to be checked for compatibility with bit pointer arithmetic and rewritten as necessary.