RE: LilyPond-2.22.2 does not work on Windows XP

[Dag Bergman]

Thanks again Werner for your reply.

You stated in an earlier email: "You are trying to use a 64bit program in a 
32bit environment, which
always fails."

I thought I had downloaded the Lilypond file from the list that you mentioned, 
but to make sure, I repeated the download and made sure I downloaded 
(lilypond-2.22.2-1.mingw.exe) from the list you suggested for 32 bits systems.  
Unfortunately, I had the same result as the first time:

Error message: "The system cannot execute the specified program."  

Accordingly, it appears that if your latest statement (*All* versions given in 
my link are 32bit versions) is correct, I cannot have tried to use a 64bit 
program in a 32bit environment, as far as I can see, so there would have to be 
a different reason for that error message.

Thanks for all your kind help.

Dag



-----Original Message-----
From: Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> 
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2022 15:17
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


> How do I know which of the versions listed and offered for download
> are for 32 bits or 64 bits systems?

*All* versions given in my link are 32bit versions.  Recent 64bit
versions are provided on gitlab.  Note that we no longer provide 32bit
versions.


    Werner





-----Original Message-----
From: Dag Bergman <dag.bergman@orinst.ox.ac.uk> 
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2022 15:02
To: Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org>
Cc: lilypond-user@gnu.org
Subject: RE: LilyPond-2.22.2 does not work on Windows XP

Thanks Werner for your quick and elaborate reply.

I guess you are correct that the error messages I received are due to changes 
in the syntax between versions of Lilypond.  The problem is that using 
`convert-ly` would probably only work if running an old script with a later 
version of Lilypond.  In my case, I was running a script that was made with a 
later version of Lilypond than the one I had installed, so I guess `convert-ly` 
would not solve that problem.  I tried to solve it by installing a later 
version of Lilypond, but that was when I got the error message: "The system 
cannot execute the specified program."

If you are right that the file I downloaded from the list you mentioned is for 
64 bit systems, the question still is:

How do I know which of the versions listed and offered for download are for 32 
bits or 64 bits systems?

My old version, Lilypond 2.10.25, does work, so 32 bits versions have been 
created and offered in the past, so how to find the latest of those?

Thanks for your kind help.

Dag




-----Original Message-----
From: Werner LEMBERG <wl@gnu.org> 
Sent: Thursday, 13 October 2022 06:35
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


> 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 guess this is mainly due to syntax changes in more recent LilyPond
versions.  Normally, you would run `convert-ly` (which is a Python
script) to update your the source code.

> 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?

You are trying to use a 64bit program in a 32bit environment, which
always fails.

> What to do about it?

To get the most recent version I guess you have to compile LilyPond
*and all its dependencies* by yourself - and I'm not sure whether this
is possible at all.  Contrary to MacPorts, which supports quite
ancient Mac computers, I'm not aware of a similar environment for
Windows XP that provides many Unix packages for Windows.

A fundamental problem is that the memory provided by 32bit
applications is often not sufficient for larger LilyPond scores.  This
is not a problem on Windows XP per se but with *all* 32bit versions of
LilyPond.  This is one of the reasons for no longer providing 32bit
binaries for LilyPond.

In general, AFAIK, we have never tried to build LilyPond directly on
Windows, not to mention Windows XP.  Instead, we always did (and still
do) a cross compilation on GNU/Linux.

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

Good question.  You might try the last 32bit binaries, which can be
found at

  http://lilypond.org/download/binaries/mingw/


     Werner