Will Delphi 5 IDE run on windows 10?

3
votes

I run Delphi 5 on a surface pro 3 (win 8.1) as well as win 7-64bit on a desktop. If the surface pro 3 is "upgraded" to win 10 will Delphi 5 continue to run properly?

2
delphidelphi-5
Modern IDE versions run on Win10, and they have a lot more complexity and dependencies than D5 had. So I am sure it will work fine, especially if it is working on Win8. On the other hand, modern versions do put some files in the Windows system folders, and those files need to be moved manually on an "upgraded" system because Win10 preserves an existing Windows installation by renaming C:\Windows to C:\windows.old and that has caused some minor problems for the IDE. So, if you run into any problems running D5 because it cannot find files in the system folder, check the old system folder. - Remy Lebeau
Additional comment to remy's comment; you can downgrade if it turns out that any of your software is not working. Only for one month after the win 10 upgrade though. - Laurens Ruijtenberg
Really appreciate the helpful replies from both Remy and Laurens. Thanks. - Pseudolus
Q: Any particular reason you're using Delphi 5? As opposed to, say, Borland Pascal (at one extreme), or the current version of XE8 (at the other)? Interesting link: Inspiration to Ditch Your Ancient Delphi Version - paulsm4
@paul Sometimes it's just expedient, sometimes it's safe. I recently made a minor change to a no longer maintained program, a program developed in Delphi 6. It would have been risky to change to a modern Delphi. - David Heffernan

2 Answers

2
votes

Yes, Delphi 5 will run on Windows 10. Of course, you need to deal with the fact that the IDE attempts to write to its installation directory which fails under a default installation under UAC. But you already know how to deal with that since you have experience running it on Windows 7 and Windows 8.

0
votes

It runs but more experimental, not recommend to develop something. On some machines the dbe installer stops during installation. The component bar dont show hints. It becomes unstable after termination of a debugged program some freezes the IDE. You should start delphi as administrator without compat. options otherwise you get very slow programs in debugging mode. Oh i forgot, some components are broken like the latest quickreport component produces errors like "no default printer available".