RE: LilyPond-2.22.2 does not work on Windows XP

[Dag Bergman]

Thanks David for your comments.

As I said to Werner, I will probably have to do Lilypond work on the Windows 10 
machine, albeit inconvenient.

Best regards
Dag

-----Original Message-----
From: David Wright <lilylis@lionunicorn.co.uk> 
Sent: Friday, 14 October 2022 05:10
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 Fri 14 Oct 2022 at 00:16:39 (+0000), Dag Bergman wrote:
> > 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.

If "by code" you mean LilyPond source code, then no, it doesn't
matter, because the program doesn't start running, so it doesn't
even open the input file.

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

That's probably something you will have to determine for yourself.
The way in which the mingw binaries are built appears to have changed
over the years, so I'd be wary of jumping straight from 2.10.25
to 2.22.2.

At the very least, I'd try installing 2.10.33, which appears to be
the final version of 2.10. That will test whether your error message
is merely caused by trying to run a downloaded file without performing
some essential step first (perhaps concerning Virus protection,
unblocking downloads, etc). After all, you might have forgotten what
you had to do, long ago when you installed 2.10.25. Googling "the
system cannot execute the specified program" yields various problems
and solutions that just might be relevant.

If you can run 2.10.33, then I'd try 2.18.2, which was the stable
version of LP for a long time, and is therefore well tested. It's
a version you could probably live with for a while.

If that runs, then try 2.22.2 again, particularly if you've discovered
any step that was necessary to get the previous versions to run. The
goal at this stage is to get "GNU LilyPond 2.22.2 Processing …"
emitted, regardless of what follows, error messages or otherwise.

> > > What is the reason for this?

My reasoning for using the versions mentioned is merely that I've
observed differing structures between these binaries. I know
nothing about mingw, and my observations could be no more relevant
than a suggestion to try tasting red, yellow or green tomatoes just
on the basis of their colour.

> > > What to do about it?

That depends on whether you get different behaviours of the system
using these versions of LilyPond. Step one is checking whether you
can run /any/ downloaded lilypond file at all, regardless of version.

All the above assumes that you're sticking with your old XP machine
(I don't know how important LP is among its mix of tasks).

Cheers,
David.