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StarCraft II in Windows Seven


Recently a great deal of buzz for Microsoft’s up and coming operating system, Windows Seven, has been echoing around, particularly since it has begun its public beta in January. In our own StarCraft community, this has led to the inevitable question: Will StarCraft II perform okay with Seven?


Xordiah Speaks

Recently Leord wrote to Xordiah, Blizzard’s Community Manager for Europe, asking for information regarding support for Windows Seven on my behalf. It took a few days, but we received a fairly inviting response by email, saying "that is not something I can discuss at this point but as you are aware yourself, if the time comes Blizzard always has an interest in having our products run on the most popular OS." She would not give any official answer to our question though, so sorry – no 100% confirmation at this point. She did, however encourage us to speculate "if Blizzard will have a very recent game be playable on a current operating system, and how Windows compatibility works." Basically, she has not committed Blizzard to anything, but at the same time said some quite telling statements.

There is no doubt to many of us here at StarcraftWire.net that StarCraft II will be coming out this year, and one can make comparisons of the game's closeness to a final release version to Windows Seven's own progression, which recent news has told us is to have its final release candidate in May, just over a month from now.

Of course, it is possible to glean greater meaning from her statement by reviewing how Windows Compatibility functions.


Windows Support

Windows can been reasoned to have gained such a dominance of the Personal Computer and Small Server market due to its universality, simply being compatible with all the programs you see on the shelves of stores. This did not come about by accident, but by design. Rather than supporting a mishmash of different operating systems, base codes and radically differing hardware in the style of the early 80s, developers moved on to a simple system where you know there will be a vast worldwide market. This is naturally much better from a business perspective, so the move was quite natural.

Windows doesn't allow programs direct access to the hardware like its DOS days, it is all controlled through a hardware-software support interface program which any program from Microsoft Word to Half Life 2 are suppose to direct their queries and demands. This program is DirectX and (in its various versions), the common platform used to talk with hardware and get it to do as you wish with in same language no matter any hardware differences. DirectX compatibility works even for hardware far more advanced than what was available when the software was developed.

This translation layer is handy as the program never really needs to understand the hardware in great detail, that's for the layer to understand, thus the games doesn't care if it has a Pentium III or a Core i7 in the box as long as it provides what it needs to operate. this is why Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition can work with hardware almost 15 years newer than the Pentium I and pre-Pentium processors it was designed on. Technically speaking Blizzard don't support the game operating on OS versions like XP or Vista, though many people have had success with it on Windows XP including myself and most StarcraftWire.net staff members.


So, will it work? More on Windows Support on page 2.

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