[monstermonster]

Actually no.

You can take a program from the "MSDOS Encyclopaedia" which contains a windows 2.0 programming section, type it out in notepad on a windows 8.1 box, compile it and it will run now like it did in 1988. I tried it. It works.

That's what I'm talking about.

The kernel and CLR are irrelevant. Proof: the same program works on Wine on Linux after it is compiled.

[scholia]

And a bran new Intel Core-M chip will execute an antique x86 instruction. So obviously that proves nothing has changed ;-)