This 8 min YouTube video talks about why you can’t name a file CON in Windows 10 but after the 4 minute point he talks about being backwards compatible with earlier versions of Windows and even MSDOS which had to be used with Windows 3 and earlier. He points out that Excel still has a date bug which was added to maintain compatibility with Lotus 123. This was not an unknown bug, it is still part of the specifications of Excel.
On Sunday, 2020 May 3 we had a Zoom meeting of our computer club Mobile Computing SIG. One of the members brought up the use of Microsoft Office and we discussed something about Word using .DOCX and .DOC files. He said the only thing he could find new in .DOCX files was that it supported XTML (like HTML). I pointed out that most computer users don’t use Microsoft Office, but he disagreed. Back to that later. I’m bringing this backwards compatibility issue up because I think it’s something that should be dealt with if the older versions had a known bug, then this should not be passed on to the newer version but it should be dealt with in a way that gives the user a choice of keeping the bug or not allowing the bug. The user should be prompted for a choice to keep or not allow the bug when the program reaches the bug. The program would not allow any further actions be taken without the decision. It could be a pop-up window or the calculations could be grayed out. However it’s done, the user should have the final say if he or she wants to keep or change the bug.
