Minimum Supported Windows Version

[marler8997]

Today I realized that zig build no longer works on Windows 7. The standard library is now using features that were not introduced until Windows 8. Microsoft has officially dropped Windows 7 support earlier this year (2020), however, according to some "googling", Windows 7 appears to hold a desktop share of 18%. Because of issues with Windows 10, many users continue to use this older version of the OS. I propose that because of it's apparent high market share, Zig continues to officially support Windows 7.

Windows 7 market share has been steadily declining over the years. Windows 10 finally overtook it around the beginning of 2018. Based on these numbers, Windows 7 will probably drop it's usage into the single digits sometime in 2022. Based on these estimates, extending support until 2022 could be a reasonable cut-off date.

[squeek502]

Just for information purposes, here's where Windows 7 stopped working: #5993 (comment)

[Mouvedia]

…it shouldn't be too difficult to add a switch/if on Windows version and fallback to a different query value than FileNormalizedNameInformation. In fact, AFAIK ReactOS and Wine both use a generic NtQueryObject to query the path.

If that's all it takes, it should be done. Since Windows 7 is not supported yet, it's not urgent though.
It's worth it.

[andrewrk]

This is the kind of thing I mean by "non invasive". Even without explicit support, non invasive patches to widen support are welcome. They won't be tested by the CI though and will be maintained on best effort, but without mandatory testing.

[Prince213]

Is Windows 7 support going to be added back?

[11dim]

@andrewrk

Our customers tend to keep using their base 24x7 systems longer than Microsoft EOLs. They expect us to keep their systems running with our latest enhancements.

Supporting an older windows platform gives some sort of trust the end solution will work on new platforms under certain conditions. It also keeps Multiplatform developer's VM's small/�fast.

In our case we try to ship as much as possible 32-bit versions of our solutions to keep compatibility with working 32-bit third-party components as well.

Already created a small utility using zig 0.9 dev under windows 7 64-bit and Apple M1.

Thanks again for the zig language, I really think you will succeed in a better C! Looking forward to keep using it !

Hello,
i'm also getting this error please solve this error i want to use zig please

[squeek502]

I am able to build the latest master branch on Windows 7 using Option 2 here: https://github.com/ziglang/zig/wiki/Building-Zig-on-Windows