why windows 9X implement widechar functions, but when i try to call them i get "this call is only for win32 mode".

Why windows 9x has those exports, but has them nuimplemented?
Or maybe they added them later, when windows 2k come out?





I have more important issue, can i put widechar names into my iat, without risk that windows 9x wont load my file because of lacking exports?

b1528932,

IAT refers to imported names, it doesn't contain them. Unicode names probably can be used via UTF-8.

Windows 9x does implement some xxxW() API (MessageBoxW(), for example). The reason of those unimplemented exports is that application compiled with #define UNICODE can detect OS version and say something before it gracefully exits (without those it can't even load).

So microsoft was planning to add support for rest widechar later, after releasinjg certain 9x windows?

I wont find anywere windows without non-A/W exports? I always will have *A and *W functions, and i can safely assume that whatever i put on iat, it will load (wont find CreateProcess instead CreateProcessA/W, or just CreateProcessA, for example)?

b1528932,

NTDLL!LdrpSnapIAT() will answer all your questions.

AFAIK there were some downloadable packages that added some bits of unicode support to 9x. Can't remember the name though.

Why was this? Unicode was only starting, many things weren't yet implemented or even standardized. And it is also question of size: just unicode collation tables take several MB, and that was something you had to think about twice, back then. Especially if no one was going to use for next 2-3 years. I think I've read that Windows can't handle UTF-16 surrogate pairs to this day (dunno if true).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/210341

Windows 95 was designed to run on 8MB of RAM. A lot of features such as Unicode were skimped on. The Microsoft Layer for Unicode on Windows 95/98/ME Systems, which is what vid is referring to, is available here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/goglobal/bb688166.aspx (the download link is on the right-hand side).

baldr, win95 doesn't have ntdll.

comrade,

We were talking about Win9x («Consumer Windows» in MS-speak), right? I don't remember whether original Win98 contains NTDLL.DLL; SE does (though my reference to LdrpSnapIAT() was about WRK: binary rarely answers questions as clear as the source).

There could be one, mea culpa. The NTDLL in Win9x/SE is likely a compatibility-layer type DLL, not a real NTDLL that you would see in NT.