Win 7 ESU - Feb onward updates SCCM Deployment issue - windows-7

My question is regarding Win 7 ESU and updates since Feb 2020. we have installed and activated ESU MAK key on 10000+ PCs. Now for some reason Feb update*(2020-02 Security Only Quality Update for Windows 7 for x86-based Systems (KB4537813)* is showing that it is only required on 13 machines. please tell me if my understanding is wrong that this update should be required on all the machine that has ESU licence key activated?
this update >> 2020-02 Extended Security Updates (ESU) Licensing Preparation Package for Windows 7 for x86-based Systems (KB4538483) is a prereq for ESU, but this update is required on only 228 and installed on 434. And if it is installed on 434, those 434 machines should receive Feb onward updates.....shouldn't they?
we are using Config Manager 1910.

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Difference between 10.0.19041 and 10.0.22000 SDK

while understanding the differences between 10.0.19041.0 and 10.0.22000.0 SDK ,I encountered
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/windows-sdk/ this page. After looking into it , I understood 10.0.22000.0 is mainly for windows 11 applications .
If we select 10.0.019041 as the package and build the application, won't it run on windows 11.
If we want our application to be run on windows 11 do we need to choose 10.0.22000.0 over 10.0.19041.0.
Please correct me if my understanding is wrong.
Thanks for the help!
TLDR: No, your understanding is wrong. You can likely use whatever version you want and your application will run on both, Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Long with details:
It's true, the 10.0.19041 SDK is for Windows 10.
It's also true, 10.0.22000 SDK is for Windows 11.
Let's have a look from a user perspective:
When you download software, how often do you need to select the correct operating system? Not very often. So, somehow, the SDK version does not seem to be very important.
Let's have a look from a Microsoft perspective:
Does Microsoft want all developers require a rebuild of their Windows 10 programs once they release Windows 11? Certainly not, because this would mean that with the release of Windows 11, there wouldn't be a single application which runs on Windows 11. Microsoft couldn't even perform inhouse tests for multi-million-user software such as Adobe Reader.
Let's have a look from a technical perspective:
The Windows SDK provides the API definitions of Windows. The Windows API is very old. And since Microsoft does not want developers to rebuild and, even worse, let them fix breaking changes, Microsoft keeps that API incredibly stable. They will not change the API, they will only add new API methods.
The chance that the Windows API you use already existed in Windows 10 and still exists in Windows 11 is almost 100%. So your application compiled for Windows 10 will still work on Windows 11.
Likewise, if you compile with the Windows 11 API and don't use the most recent fancy API, your application will still work on Windows 10.
Example
Let's say you developed an application that manages Fonts. You have used the interfaces IDWriteFontSet, IDWriteFontSet2 and IDWriteFontSet3. With Windows 11, Microsoft has added IDWriteFontSet4. As long as you don't use that interface and stick to the previous 3 interfaces, your application will run fine. Once you start using IDWriteFontSet4, your application may crash on Windows 10 (potentially only if the user invokes the functionality, not so sure).

How can my app distinguish between Windows 10 and Windows 11?

I use Windows 11 but all apps I install report that I am running Windows 10. How can applications read the correct OS data for Windows 11?
Windows 11's version number is very similar. It's still major version 10, minor version 0. The difference between "Windows 10" and "Windows 11" is the build number being larger 22000. See this blog post.
Basically, unless the application was updated to know about Windows 11, it's going to think it's Windows 10.
It's also important to note that for application compatibility between major versions of Windows, many existing applications are subject an automatic "shim" that lies about the version number in any case. For more, see this blog post.

SCCM 1606 & ADK 1607

So l’m kind new to SCCM’s OSD and I’ve been assigned to do an upgrade for Windows 7 workstation to Windows 10 v1703.
I read online that the maximum ADK supported by SCCM 1606 is v1607, lucky I also read some posts online saying that it worked fine with Windows 10 v1706 although Microsoft does not support it.
Now, my questions is our environment has an older ADK version that I don’t wish to remove if that possible. Can I just install the new ADK + upload new images to console + use new USMT Package for user data migration? Or must I upgrade the whole winPE to the new ADK environment? And if so, is there is any easier way then using scripts to update image and adk level ? ( older SCCM versions don’t have the option of reloading boot images)
If anyone can guide me please, I’m supposed to start the upgrade as soon as possible as windows 7 is going to be out of support in 2020.
The old ADK has to be removed then we could install the latest ADK. Otherwise, we would see the following error message.
Manually updating the boot image in the SCCM, we need to copy the latest wim file to the location used in the SCCM and run a script to update it. Refer to the following link to get the detailed steps.
https://www.scconfigmgr.com/2014/02/28/default-boot-images-was-not-updated-after-a-configmgr-2012-r2-upgrade/
Best Regards,
Ray

Maintaining binary compatibility with previous versions

Apologies if this is more Server Fault than SO, but it is related to coding so here goes...
I have someone else's code that I am trying to compile on RHEL 7 but will run (for the moment at least) on RHEL 6. I've written my own RPM spec file to build and output an RPM file. The RPM builds fine on both RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 but when I build it on RHEL 7, does not produce an RPM which can be installed on RHEL 6 due to versions of GLIBC.
Is there a simple switch I can add to the build somewhere which will allow the resulting binary to be satisfied with an earlier version of GLIBC and be able to be installed on RHEL 6?
To be clear, I don't actually need a RHEL 7 binary at present, I'd just like to be able to compile for RHEL 6 on a RHEL 7 dev box.
You can use mock (sadly only in EPEL) to create a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 chroot on your Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 system. If you use only libraries with Tier 1 ABI compatibility, your application will continue to run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 without recompilation. Building on the oldest supported release (from the application point of view) is really the only way to do this. If you need a more recent C++ compiler and that's the reason why you are building on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, consider using Developer Toolset (DTS) instead.
Tier 1 libraries are described in the Application Compatibility Guide. There is supposed to be a PDF attachment with the previous list of packages, but I cannot access this right now.

Can you develop Windows 8 applications on Windows 7 PC and remote debug on a Windows 8 device?

I am trying to work out the least disruptive way of beginning to experiment with Windows 8 development. I currently have a Windows 7 Ultimate PC (plenty of disk space, RAM and i7 CPU), and I have a copy of Windows 8 (not 8.1).
I have considered various options:
Convert my whole machine to Windows 8. (Not ideal right now, as I am in the middle of other work, but I may have to do this eventually).
Dual boot Windows 7 & 8. (Can't get this to work. Windows 7 is already installed, and though I can get Windows 8 to install on the second HD, I can't get its boot menu to see Windows 7. I suspect this would be easier if I installed Windows 8 first, but that would be a huge pain.)
Run either OS using a virtual machine. (I haven't looked into this yet, and I have no idea what is involved.)
As a final option, I wondered if it is possible to develop Windows 8 applications on a Windows 7 PC and remote debug on an attached Windows 8 device? (I'd prefer to do this, as it is a way I have worked often in the past while doing console development.)
Does anyone have any experience of any of this - positive or negative? It takes ages to experiment with this stuff, with the constant threat of recking my existing work environment. I'd really appreciate any advice or pointers to articles that deal with any of this stuff.
Microsoft do their loyal developers no favours. I've paid hundreds for modern hardware, Windows versions and Visual Studio, and still it seems difficult to say the least to develop for their latest OS.
Kind wishes ~ Patrick
Option 4 is not possible. In similar situation I went with option 2 and gratually migrate myself completly to windows 8.
If you have problems with boot try to ask on superuser.com or better search the web for guideline.
If you want to develop applications for Windows 8 don't go with option 3.Please see this post on installing Visual studio in VM.
Regarding option 2,verbatim from Microsoft
You must install the older operating system first, and then install the more recent operating system. If you don't (for example, if you install Windows Vista on a computer already running Windows 7), you can render your system inoperable. This can happen because earlier versions of Windows don't recognize the startup files used in more recent versions of Windows and can overwrite them.
But as #Antonio said there may be roundabout for option 2.

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