Choosing a Minimum Recommended Video Mode

You should choose a minimum recommended video mode for your program. The standard minimum supported video mode for Windows 98 is 640 × 480 with 256 colors. If your interface is simple, you should support this mode. However, the more complex a user interface is, especially a complex MDI application, the less likely it is to work well in lower resolution modes. For example, try using Microsoft Visual C++ in 640 × 480 mode. It isn't pretty and it's fairly awkward, but it is functional. Had Visual C++ been designed to work well in 640 × 480 mode, its usability in higher resolution modes would have suffered greatly. Visual C++ simply has too much functionality to work well in this video mode, and forcing the interface design to accommodate the mode would have resulted in many unnecessary restrictions. As a result, the designers of Visual C++ chose 800 × 600 as its recommended minimum video mode.

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Choose a minimum recommended video mode for your program.

Your program should always support at least 256 colors. This is the hardest number of colors to support, since high color and true color modes don't use a palette. Users will probably use 16-color mode only if there isn't a suitable driver for their video hardware—a problem that is much more likely with Microsoft Windows NT than with Windows 98. Even if your program uses colors other than the 20 reserved system colors, it will most likely be functional in 16-color mode without any special programming effort.

Lastly, you should certainly support both large and small fonts in all video modes. While this sounds easy enough, there are some details you need to be aware of, as I'll describe shortly.