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Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

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Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#11

Post by Azeralthefallen »

zenexer wrote: post #6
acemarke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option 5: run for the hills screaming? (Only half-joking here. I know it sounds like it's an important client, but it seems as if there was a serious breakdown in communications on the client's part, _and_ they're stuck on obsolete technology. These are not realistic requirements.) I suppose option 6 would be to figure out how to get the client to upgrade their systems to a modern hardware and OS, and then run the ol…

Option 6 seems like the most viable to me, but it's still a long shot. If they wanted to upgrade, they would've done that a long time ago. At the end of the day, they don't want to upgrade. I'm sure they could get software that does the same thing that runs on newer platforms if they cared enough.

Afaik they cannot upgrade because they are heavily reliant on a specialized piece of software that:

1. Requires a dongle attached to a parallel port for it to function. 2. The company who made it went out of business over 15 years ago.

They have plans in the future to migrate to linux, but that isn't in the card for a few years unfortunately.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#12

Post by Azeralthefallen »

heyjudy wrote: post #9

Is the app used in third-world countries? IE6 is insecure and only used on very old computers that can't install anything else. I'd check that the requirement is valid before doing a bunch of work.

The company isn't in a third world country they are basically reliant on an extremely specialized piece of software/hardware that doesn't work on anything more modern.

Unfortunately this is basically what i am dealt with and i don't have any real options of changing the environment.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#13

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #10
etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #2

I am sorry to hear about this. Seems like modern browsers are very hard to come by on such old platforms... Idea 1: AWS Appstream https://aws.amazon.com/appstream2/pricing/?nc=sn&loc=4 Idea 2: VNC to something else on premise Idea 3: Run the app inside Linux inside QEMU (or another emulator) Idea 4: Write your web app like its 1999 I think Idea 3 may be best for this case.

Idea 1: Is out because they are not actually connected to the outside internet from their workstations. Idea 2: Not viable due to the sheer number of users most likely. Idea 3: We tried to get virtualbox to run on their machines, which we found most only have a ~4 GB of ram and it makes hosting an entire other OS a very painful experience. Idea 4: Looks more and more likely. :(

QEMU may be lighter-weight. A lightweight linux OS and browser may be better.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#14

Post by zenexer »

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #7
zenexer wrote: post #5

I think you're out of luck. Hindsight is 20/20, but shouldn't their hardware and software requirements have come up long before you started development? How did you get to the point at which you were actively developing without knowing your target environment, especially if you're on premise? At first I wrote a response suggesting a few ways you might be able to get it working on older versions of Windows, but they'r…

Honestly we told them our requirements well over a year ago. Which wasn't an issue apparently, even when we did a pilot in their internal labs which they were running Ubuntu. It only came up after we started the rollout, when someone from their side who was asked to write documentation about how our app would work into their workflow, realized our app didn't work at all on his station. Which lead to oh no their requi…

I don't think you're going to be able to go the virtualization route with Windows 2000 as the host. As the client, sure, but not as the host. You'd need at least XP.

For many contractors, Windows 2000 as a requirement would be a red flag--decline the contract and run the other way, because that's just where it starts. Chances are you're looking at the tip of the iceberg.

Since you're already committed, though, your focus should probably be on pushing them to upgrade whatever they can. It's a lot easier to run old software on new platforms than the other way around. Whatever ancient programs they want to run, they can do it on newer versions of Windows--there's guaranteed to be a way, and it'll be a lot easier than getting a modern application running on Windows 2000. Lots of people want to run old programs on new computers. Nobody wants to run new programs on old computers.

Edit: To clarify, there are great programs like DOSBox that will let you run old programs you wouldn't normally be able to run on new versions of Windows. DOSBox targets a specific niche, but it works well, and the concept is quite prevalent: people want a way to run their old programs, even if it's just for nostalgia. I would bet my life on it being significantly easier to run their specialized software on a newer version of Windows, even if it's in a VM. (Or, heck, what about WINE, since they have Ubuntu?)

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#15

Post by zenexer »

rmason wrote: post #3

Is a Docker or a VM solution possible? I admit to not being very knowledgeable here. If you can get a virtualized solution running a different version of Windows (or Linux) on these machines just for your app. Either that or it's rebuild the app using jQuery and an earlier version of Bootstrap. For an alterative for Electron you can look into LibUI plus LibUI-Node.

Don't quote me on this, but I'm fairly certain it's not reasonably possible to get a proper VM running on Windows 2000. Even if you can get some form of virtualization working, it's going to be far too slow and cumbersome to run Electron.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#16

Post by zenexer »

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #11
zenexer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option 6 seems like the most viable to me, but it's still a long shot. If they wanted to upgrade, they would've done that a long time ago. At the end of the day, they don't want to upgrade. I'm sure they could get software that does the same thing that runs on newer platforms if they cared enough.

Afaik they cannot upgrade because they are heavily reliant on a specialized piece of software that: 1. Requires a dongle attached to a parallel port for it to function. 2. The company who made it went out of business over 15 years ago. They have plans in the future to migrate to linux, but that isn't in the card for a few years unfortunately.

If the dongle is for licensing:

1. You probably don't need it. I don't know about the legalities involved here or what the specific license is, but there's probably a trivial way to circumvent the hardware requirement, especially with a VM. Back when Windows 2000 was a thing, people were still using MD5, and nobody was using secure elements. Worst case scenario, they've got some of the actual program logic on there, and you'll have to either reverse it or replace it. Again, not commenting on the legalities here, but seeing how the software was (presumably) legally licensed and the company is long gone, it couldn't hurt to ask the lawyers whether they think it's safe.

2. You can pass a parallel port through to a VM if you really must.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#17

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

Azeralthefallen wrote: post #11
zenexer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Option 6 seems like the most viable to me, but it's still a long shot. If they wanted to upgrade, they would've done that a long time ago. At the end of the day, they don't want to upgrade. I'm sure they could get software that does the same thing that runs on newer platforms if they cared enough.

Afaik they cannot upgrade because they are heavily reliant on a specialized piece of software that: 1. Requires a dongle attached to a parallel port for it to function. 2. The company who made it went out of business over 15 years ago. They have plans in the future to migrate to linux, but that isn't in the card for a few years unfortunately.

Off topic, but .... Wow ... technical debt anyone?

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#18

Post by masiulis »

You are definitely not out of luck, IE6 is not that bad, older React versions even supported it. You just need more shims and more babel plugins, so get someone who knows babel/ES3 well. Add the console shim and start working error by error.

Also, you should ask this in a JS community, because in HN you will get way too generic answers.

Re: Ask HN: Being told to support IE6, any advice?

#20

Post by embeddeddev123 »

heyjudy wrote: post #9

Is the app used in third-world countries? IE6 is insecure and only used on very old computers that can't install anything else. I'd check that the requirement is valid before doing a bunch of work.

This setup is still the defacto standard in a lot of Factories in all developed countries, you will also see quite a lot of PCs still running Windows NT. If you have a production line the life expectancy is more than 20years with no need to upgrade anything including the hardware most of the assembly lines are controlled with really old hardware usually the hardware... The usual browser statistics do not reflect the corporate world they are some years behind... Fun fact one of the biggest Ie11 users is Japan, a rather developed country
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