[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Steve Dower]

Change by Steve Dower :


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resolution:  -> fixed
stage: patch review -> resolved
status: open -> closed

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Ken Jin]

Change by Ken Jin :


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nosy: +kj
nosy_count: 14.0 -> 15.0
pull_requests: +25026
pull_request: https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/26429

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Alexey Izbyshev]

Alexey Izbyshev  added the comment:

> If we had a dedicated maintainer who was supporting Win7 and making releases 
> for it, then we (i.e. they) could support it. But then, there's nothing to 
> stop someone doing that already, and even to stop them charging money for it 
> if they want (which they wouldn't be able to do under the auspices of 
> python-dev). So I suspect nobody is really that motivated ;)

That's totally fair.

> (Also, a "little bit of complaining" here is totally worthwhile, as it helps 
> us gauge community sentiment. Without it, we're limited to trawling forums 
> and Twitter - especially without conferences to actually meet and hear 
> directly from people - and so our inputs are biased. Having polite, informed, 
> discussion on the tracker is a great way for us to see and capture these 
> positions.)

I agree. In my comment, I only intended to contrast "complaining" with stepping 
up to do the work. I didn't mean to imply that it's inappropriate per-se.

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Steve Dower]

Steve Dower  added the comment:

> not sure about the strategies here but maybe a better approach would be to 
> kill support for unsupported version of windows in a major release

We do, but the "major" release is the second field of the version number (you 
can think of the first field as the "series" or "product" number).

Yes, this is not SemVer. Sorry. We pre-date SemVer.

Python 3.8 and earlier are just as supported for Windows 7 as our volunteers 
can handle, which is all that has ever been offered here. If people need better 
support than that, I'd suggest paying someone.

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Mitja kocjančič]

Mitja kocjančič  added the comment:

not sure about the strategies here but maybe a better approach would be to kill 
support for unsupported version of windows in a major release
since I guess python 3 was a complete rewrite of python2 (at least the low 
level side I assume it was) 

and it would be easier for people to remeber (eg, if I have to rewrite my app 
because python4 has a major language differences I might as well drop support 
for older OSes in it), eg, python2 works on XP, python3 works on vista and up, 
python4 works on windows 10

for instance, I didn't even know you can run python3 on XP, I always thought 
that python2.7 is the last version that would run there

and since the code to support windows 7 is still present (almost, just the 
installer change would need to be rolleed back and some compiler declaratives: 
https://github.com/python/cpython/commit/0b72ccff56fb47e14f7b1f6590eafff8d104c229
https://github.com/izbyshev/cpython/commit/6a65eba44bfd82ccc8bed4b5c6dd6637549955d5

I see no reason to touch it (it probably just stays there serving its purpose) 
and when python4 comes along (if its a rewrite then windows 7 hacks (would just 
not be written anymore)

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Steve Dower]

Steve Dower  added the comment:

FWIW, the installer change was only to forcibly warn naive users that they need 
to stick with the previous version, so I wouldn't read much into it. It's 
easily rolled back.

The real issue is that we need to decide how to drop support _somehow_, and 
following the company that has the most to gain/lose from declaring support for 
one of their platforms makes the most sense.

If we had a dedicated maintainer who was supporting Win7 and making releases 
for it, then we (i.e. they) could support it. But then, there's nothing to stop 
someone doing that already, and even to stop them charging money for it if they 
want (which they wouldn't be able to do under the auspices of python-dev). So I 
suspect nobody is really that motivated ;)

(Also, a "little bit of complaining" here is totally worthwhile, as it helps us 
gauge community sentiment. Without it, we're limited to trawling forums and 
Twitter - especially without conferences to actually meet and hear directly 
from people - and so our inputs are biased. Having polite, informed, discussion 
on the tracker is a great way for us to see and capture these positions.)

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Alexey Izbyshev]

Alexey Izbyshev  added the comment:

> If Win8-only calls are not used, then presumably it should still build and 
> run on Windows 7, presumably with the flag flipped back to Win7. And if there 
> are Win8-only calls used and the flag is set to Win7+, I assume that the MSVC 
> compiler will catch any instances of Win8-only calls at build time? Is this 
> understanding correct?

It's the latter. In the patch, calls to functions like PathCchCanonicalizeEx(), 
which had previously been conditional on runtime availability of those 
functions, were made direct. Those functions are not from UCRT (so you can't 
just distribute it to regain Windows 7 support) and are not available in 
Windows 7.

There was also another patch that adds a check to Python 3.9+ installer that 
prevents installation on Windows 7 (but again, even if you take the Windows 
"embedded" distro instead of the installer, it won't run due to Win8-only 
functions).

> If the latter is true, its very likely a lost cause. However, if the former 
> is the case, then at least devs using Python 3.9+ on Windows 7 will be able 
> to easily build their own versions with support, though that could change at 
> any time.

For now, it's not entirely lost cause in the sense that the number of 
Win8-specific patches and their size is very small (I'm not aware of anything 
not already mentioned, but I may be not up-to-date). So an interested party can 
probably revert them locally without much hassle.

> For those in the know, have there been a lot of reports/discontent 
> surrounding the dropping of support in Py3.9, by anyone aware of that? 

I semi-casually follow the bug tracker and remember only bpo-41412 and 
bpo-42027.

Personally, I do consider tying of Windows support in CPython to arbitrary 
support periods set by Microsoft unfortunate, and it's also true that 
Win8-specific changes I'm aware of are not critical and don't remove any 
significant maintenance burden. For now, both relative and absolute usage of 
Windows 7 is huge and hard to ignore, so developers who use CPython in their 
own software are faced with an unpleasant choice of sticking to 3.8 or dropping 
Win 7. (I'm one of them since software I work on has to run in build 
environments setup for other projects, and such environments routinely stick to 
old OS versions due to breakage on updates). But this is what we have according 
to PEP 11, and a little grumbling here certainly won't change that :)

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[C.A.M. Gerlach]

C.A.M. Gerlach  added the comment:

In my limited understanding, all PR #15951 does is set a compiler macro to 
allow use of Win API calls present on >=Win8 instead of >=Win7. If Win8-only 
calls are not used, then presumably it should still build and run on Windows 7, 
presumably with the flag flipped back to Win7. And if there are Win8-only calls 
used and the flag is set to Win7+, I assume that the MSVC compiler will catch 
any instances of Win8-only calls at build time? Is this understanding correct?

If the latter is true, its very likely a lost cause. However, if the former is 
the case, then at least devs using Python 3.9+ on Windows 7 will be able to 
easily build their own versions with support, though that could change at any 
time. If the upside to supporting the latest Python versions on an EoL platform 
that is no longer receiving security updates but still has significant use is 
greater than the (seemingly pretty small) benefits of dropping support, then I 
imagine it would at least be conceivable to switch the flag back, though it 
probably is a lost cause now that a major version has been released without 
support and the buildbots have been presumably retired. At least third parties 
should be able to easily release patched versions, for now.

For those in the know, have there been a lot of reports/discontent surrounding 
the dropping of support in Py3.9, by anyone aware of that? 

However, I don't think it should be tied to the ESU date at all, as opposed to 
real-world usage of bleeding-edge Python on that version; ESU is a paid-only 
service for large corporate customers; if they're willing to pay through the 
nose for updates to their EoL OS and also need the latest bleeding-edge Python, 
surely they can fund the pittance required for maintenance or building it 
themselves.

All that said, I'll hold off on doing anything further until there's consensus. 
I'd think whatever we do it should be consistent, at least in the docs and 
installer; if dropping support in the code itself is more risk and pain than 
benefit, then that needn't be done.

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Mitja kocjančič]

Mitja kocjančič  added the comment:

doh, thats unfortunate I was too late to complain, and now its all gone
oh well, I guess people will not roll back commits now, I hoped windows 7 
supported could be kept at least til python4 (or when microsoft completly 
abandons  win7 (when the API will change as well, just like with python3 there 
was python2.7 which was like a LST release for ubuntu)

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Alexey Izbyshev]

Alexey Izbyshev  added the comment:

As far as I understand, commit [1] explicitly prevents CPython from running on 
Windows 7, and it's included into 3.9. So it seems to be too late to complain, 
despite that, according to Wikipedia, more than 15% of all Windows PCs are 
still running Windows 7 [2].

[1] 
https://github.com/izbyshev/cpython/commit/6a65eba44bfd82ccc8bed4b5c6dd6637549955d5
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Mitja kocjančič]

Mitja kocjančič  added the comment:

I have to agree with msg389225, I use windows 7 on my dev machine as well as I 
use some programs and devices that unfortionatly do not work on windows 10 so 
update is not possible, now it would be realy anoying that I would loose python 
support as well since I use one device with python that does not work on win10

so I am in favour that python keeps the workarounds and fallback code for 
Windows 7 at least until ESU supports ends (since if its a dead code why would 
you remove it just leave it in, if it works well and you don't touch it often 
it does no harm)

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nosy: +veso266

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Antoine Pitrou]

Antoine Pitrou  added the comment:

As a data point, my Windows development VM uses Windows 7.  It would be a major 
annoyance for me to reinstall a new development VM from scratch (going through 
the usual hurdles to have a usable development environment would probably be a 
full day of work, perhaps more).

--
nosy: +pitrou

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[issue32592] Drop support of Windows Vista and Windows 7

[Gregory P. Smith]

Change by Gregory P. Smith :


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title: Drop support of Windows Vista and 7 in Python 3.9 -> Drop support of 
Windows Vista and Windows 7
type:  -> enhancement

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