Re: Clarifying Windows support

[Aaron Hill]

On 2022-02-14 1:47 pm, Jean Abou Samra wrote:
> [...]
> it, and we have little to no testing resources for that. So I'd
> propose to say 'For Windows 10' with a footnote: 'While earlier
> versions of Windows may be able to run LilyPond, they are not
> officially supported.  Usage is at your own risk.' or something like
> that.
> [...]
> Thoughts?

The main limitation I see is the move to 64-bit, which will exclude 
users running on older hardware.  I do not recall if there was ever a 
public 64-bit build of Windows 2000, but XP64 was quite rare to find in 
the wild.  And even though Vista encouraged 64-bit, it was not uncommon 
to find users of Windows 7 still using the 32-bit version.

Saying LilyPond is "for Windows 10" implies it (or one of its 
dependencies) are relying on functionality within the newer OS.  
Certainly, if that is all we are testing, then perhaps there is little 
harm in the implication.  But I think the focus on CPU architecture 
rather than Windows version is more important to stress.  For all we 
know, LilyPond might run on XP64.


-- Aaron Hill