RE: LilyPond-2.22.2 does not work on Windows XP

[Dag Bergman]

Hi David,

Thanks for your reply.

I run Windows 10 on a rather powerful Dell-Precision with an i7-7700HQ CPU and 
32.0 GB RAM.

I run Windows XP on an old computer because I love that operating system as it 
has a superior user interface to Windows 10.  XP makes much better use of the 
screen surface.  It has much better design of windows with a color pattern that 
makes it easy to see where one window ends and another window begins.  In 10, I 
very often click on the wrong thing because I don't see where the border is.  
There are many other user interface related reasons,  including the waste of 
time having to relearn how to do things or even never manage to figure out how 
to do things in 10 that were very easy to do in XP.

Other important reasons include that my expensive and well working side 
hardware (such as expensive scanners and printers) don't work with 10.

Finally, many of my favourite programs (that I know very well how to use) do 
not work on 10.  Some may have a later version that works on 10, but then at a 
cost to purchase and an even higher cost to learn to use, and often with loss 
of useful functionality.

I also failed to set up a virtual computer with XP on my Windows 10 computer.  
I have succeeded to run the Windows XP computer from inside the Windows 10 
computer, but...

I can't easily transfer files between my two computers, and have to use a 
USB-stick, as Microsoft has done everything it can to prevent easy sharing of 
files over a local network as I used to be able to do.  Accordingly, I wish to 
do my Lilypond work on the computer where I do my other related work on music.

Best regards

Dag




-----Original Message-----
From: David Wright <lilylis@lionunicorn.co.uk> 
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2022 17:25
To: Dag Bergman <dag.bergman@orinst.ox.ac.uk>
Cc: lilypond-user@gnu.org
Subject: Re: LilyPond-2.22.2 does not work on Windows XP

On Wed 12 Oct 2022 at 23:51:22 (+0000), Dag Bergman wrote:
> 
> I have a Windows XP computer with Lilypond 2.10.25.  It works fine with 
> simple program codes and advanced code developed with earlier versions of 
> Lilypond.  It does not work so well when I try to use a newer program 
> developed with a later version of Lilypond, as I get many error messages.  I 
> therefore tried to install LilyPond-2.22.2, which is newer than the versions 
> of Lilypond the program were developed with.  It does not work at all, 
> however, and I get the error message: "The system cannot execute the 
> specified program."  It does not matter what code I try to run.
> 
> What is the reason for this?

Can I take a step back and turn your question around—why are you
running XP at all? Presumably there's some important reason, but
surely it can't mean that this is the only machine available to you
(which would imply that you connect it to the internet).

> What to do about it?

It may depend on your answer to the previous question, and what the
machine is—you haven't said.

> What is the latest version of Lilypond that actually works on Windows XP?

Whether that matters depends on your answers to the previous two …

Cheers,
David.