Hi, On Sat, Feb 03, 2018 at 01:16:08PM -0800, blz wrote: > > Vista is currently in full support for 2.4.4. WinXP is being phased out > > when > > 2.3 hits "Old stable support". But we can certainly discuss the value of > > supporting Vista when Microsoft does not officially support it. I'd be in > > favour of supporting only Win7 and newer. > > > > Also compare this to our Linux support strategies. We dropped RHEL5 support > > once Red Hat dropped the support officially too. > > Artificially limiting what Windows version a binary release of a general > win32 program can be used on is a trend I I really wish would stop.
We're not "arbitrarily" limiting things, but at some point the effort to maintain old versions is just not worth our unpaid time. Like, XP is not supported in 2.4 not because we think XP must die (it should) but because 2.4 will use newer APIs to implement block-dns which are not present in XP - and to add more #ifdef and build two different installers is not something reasonable. As David said, we build 2.3 installers for XP, but eventually that train will be "end of life" - if someone wants a new feature on XP, they're free to take the source and build their own installer, but we're not going to do it. As for Vista, we're not going to actively *break* it - but if some other change (like, moving from an API that MS considers legacy and that are broken in newer windows versions to something new and fully supported) breaks Vista, it will not stop us from moving forward. > Not > everyone has the luxury of using a newer OS version for various reasons. > I do understand there is a need to move on, but I know many people who > are still using Windows 2003 Server as well as XP for various legitimate > reasons. There are lots of reasons to do so, but these machines should not be connected to the public Internet. So there is no reason to run VPN software on them. Put a WRT router next to them, with openvpn/recent on it, and a strong firewall, if you want VPN access to or from an XP or Windows 2003 box. > Iif a program is still capable of being built and run on an > older Windows if the right compiler configuration is used, then it > should be used. You don't have to provide full support, just allowing it > to run and putting a prominent disclaimer stating that support and > testing for XP/2003/Vista is very limited or non-existant should be enough. > > I can understand completely dropping support for XP/2003/Vista if one is > making universal/metro or newer .NET programs, etc, but not really for > regular ol' win32 (winapi) based programs. There's not a "single" winapi. Especially the network related DLLs have various levels, and support for some things starts with Vista, and for others, with Win8. The WFP firewall layer is not available on XP, for example, and to make our code conditional on that is a major pain (read: either you have one binary that tries to open the DLL at runtime, loosing compiler checks for API calls - or you build two different binaries, one with the WFP stuff #ifdef'ed out at compile time). gert -- now what should I write here... Gert Doering - Munich, Germany [email protected]
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