Windows XP Support

Windows XP Support

[Herbert Stocker]

Hi,

i have read that beginning this month Cygwin wants to drop support
for Windows XP.  Though the home page and FAQ entry 12 do not talk
about this. Are they out of date or is WinXP still supported?

Although there are better OSes now, WinXP is still a good OS.
Especially for virtual machines, because of its low memory foot print.
Only just 220 MiB for the OS!

So while i feel it's not fair to beg you to go through all the
complexities of still supporting it, i want to ask:

- If there is no support anymore for Win XP (SP3), is there a reposi-
   tory around, where one can download the last version of Cygwin that
   supported WinXP (SP3)?

- If not, how can i do it by myself? Will i have to create a mirror
   and not update it? Or would i have to download the current version
   somehow?


Thank you very much for the great work.
Cygwin makes Windows complete if you ask me.

Herbert

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Terry McCarty - WA5NTI]

Hello -

I am also new to the LINUX world and would like very much to see XP 
"live forever".

I still use XP as my main "go to" machine. 

But ... Microsoft's continuing "march to bigger and better" and my 
reluctance to be forced to repeatedly buy new bigger and faster 
machinery to accommodate the new windows systems has nudged me out of my 
complacency - I am now using Cygwin and learning LINUX.

If Cygwin continues to support XP, it will continue to serve as "that 
bright city on a hill", giving us old Microsoft Ludditess a comfortable 
"stepping stone" that encourages us to switch to LINUX.

-- 
     Terry McCarty
    3t3@comcast.net
        wa5nti



Herbert Stocker wrote:

> Hi,
>
> i have read that beginning this month Cygwin wants to drop support
> for Windows XP.  Though the home page and FAQ entry 12 do not talk
> about this. Are they out of date or is WinXP still supported?
>
> Although there are better OSes now, WinXP is still a good OS.
> Especially for virtual machines, because of its low memory foot print.
> Only just 220 MiB for the OS!
>
> So while i feel it's not fair to beg you to go through all the
> complexities of still supporting it, i want to ask:
>
> - If there is no support anymore for Win XP (SP3), is there a reposi-
>   tory around, where one can download the last version of Cygwin that
>   supported WinXP (SP3)?
>
> - If not, how can i do it by myself? Will i have to create a mirror
>   and not update it? Or would i have to download the current version
>   somehow?
>
>
> Thank you very much for the great work.
> Cygwin makes Windows complete if you ask me.
>
> Herbert
>
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>
>

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez]

No software version can live forever, specially if it is a security
programs (OpenSSL, LibreSSL, GnuPG, ...) or programs and applications
that need the first ones, and that includes Operative Systems and Kernel.

And that's not a Microsoft thing, Linux as well has it.

Linux Kernel LTS support is 2-3 years, for Debian is 1 year after
release of next stable version, Ubuntu is 5 years and 9 months for STS
and both LinuxMint and Trisquel 5 years as well.

At least Windows XP got 13 years of support and since Windows Vista its
10 years.

On 2016-01-10 at 23:32, Terry McCarty - WA5NTI wrote:
> Hello -
> 
> I am also new to the LINUX world and would like very much to see XP
> "live forever".
> 
> I still use XP as my main "go to" machine.
> But ... Microsoft's continuing "march to bigger and better" and my
> reluctance to be forced to repeatedly buy new bigger and faster
> machinery to accommodate the new windows systems has nudged me out of my
> complacency - I am now using Cygwin and learning LINUX.
> 
> If Cygwin continues to support XP, it will continue to serve as "that
> bright city on a hill", giving us old Microsoft Ludditess a comfortable
> "stepping stone" that encourages us to switch to LINUX.
> 

-- 
Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez

GPG Keyfingerprint:
5A91 90D4 CF27 9D52 D62A
BC58 88E2 947F 9BC6 B3CF

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Erik Soderquist]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 6:52 PM, Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez wrote:
> No software version can live forever, ... <snip>

Personally, I have to disagree with this statement, or at least offer
an amendment...

I have some things still running in DOS 5 in a virtual machine because
that is the most effective environment to run them in, and I don't
expect any future OS to change that.  Does this mean I have these
accessible to the outside world?  Absolutely not.  So while I do see
use cases for very long outdated packages, I will also agree these use
cases are not mainstream by any means, and if your use case does
warrant an old package, appropriate measures to isolate the old
packages also need to be taken.

That said, I will be making an internal mirror for my XP stations
before XP support is dropped as well.  I can certainly understand not
maintaining backward compatibility for an old system that should no
longer be placed in a position where it can be attacked.

-- Erik

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Re: Windows XP Support

[cyg Simple]

On 1/11/2016 12:05 PM, Erik Soderquist wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 6:52 PM, Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez wrote:
>> No software version can live forever, ... <snip>
> 
> Personally, I have to disagree with this statement, or at least offer
> an amendment...
> 
> I have some things still running in DOS 5 in a virtual machine because
> that is the most effective environment to run them in, and I don't
> expect any future OS to change that.  Does this mean I have these
> accessible to the outside world?  Absolutely not.  So while I do see
> use cases for very long outdated packages, I will also agree these use
> cases are not mainstream by any means, and if your use case does
> warrant an old package, appropriate measures to isolate the old
> packages also need to be taken.
> 

Arguments like this is the reason I had to spend years searching through
COBOL code for 2 digit years.  Old habits seem hard to die.  Either
upgrade or forever pay the penalty yourself to keep the old code running.

-- 
cyg Simple

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Erik Soderquist]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:59 PM, cyg Simple wrote:
> Arguments like this is the reason I had to spend years searching through
> COBOL code for 2 digit years.  Old habits seem hard to die.  Either
> upgrade or forever pay the penalty yourself to keep the old code running.

Actually I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I I'll make my own
frozen mirror, and deal with whatever happens after that myself.
Since these environments are frozen and isolated, I have not had any
problems.  This is also something I only do for my own personal
environments; I won't consider it for public production.

-- Erik

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Peter A. Castro]

On Mon, 11 Jan 2016, Erik Soderquist wrote:

> Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016 15:26:39 -0500
> From: Erik Soderquist
> Subject: Re: Windows XP Support

Greetings, Erik,

> On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 2:59 PM, cyg Simple wrote:
>> Arguments like this is the reason I had to spend years searching through
>> COBOL code for 2 digit years.  Old habits seem hard to die.  Either
>> upgrade or forever pay the penalty yourself to keep the old code running.
>
> Actually I agree wholeheartedly, which is why I I'll make my own
> frozen mirror, and deal with whatever happens after that myself.
> Since these environments are frozen and isolated, I have not had any
> problems.  This is also something I only do for my own personal
> environments; I won't consider it for public production.

I believe Corinna mentioned (and I will re-interate here) that the
"Cygwin Time Machine" is at your service.  It contains every(*) snapshot 
(circa) release of Cygwin, should you happen to need something from the 
past.  I don't tend to advertise this much, but it is publicly available. :)

(*) well, as far back as v1.3.12-4 (2002/08/13/043102)

> -- Erik

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Warren Young]

On Jan 10, 2016, at 4:52 PM, Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez <juanmi.3000@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> No software version can live forever

Indeed, not even Linux.

There’s a thread over on the CentOS mailing list right now started by someone who’s trying to get something working on CentOS 3, which is about three years younger than Windows XP, but which dropped out of support in 2010.  The answer is the same: no one’s going to help you, and if it breaks, you get to keep the pieces.

And CentOS (RHEL, really) is the longest-supported open source Linux OS distro available.  SLES matches it, but there is no open source rebuild like CentOS is to RHEL; openSUSE only has a 3- or 4-year support cycle for its Evergreen releases.

Theoretically, some group of motivated developers could fork CentOS 3 and continue to maintain it indefinitely, but I haven’t seen the idea suggested on the mailing list.

My point is that even when the sources are freely available, it’s practically impossible to get developers to support ancient code.  There has to be a motivation, which is the support contract length in the case of the LTS Linuxes.  Once that runs out, the software developers are retasked.

The same is true over in Redmond.  The only difference is that there isn’t an open source version of Windows, so we can only speculate whether a sufficiently strong developer community could form around it to support it past the EOL date.

I suspect that’s the real reason Microsoft refuses to open source Windows: they’re worried that such a maintenance effort could form.  If there were a community-supported version of Windows XP, they’d have an even harder time getting people to adopt modern versions of Windows.  It would effectively fork the Windows platform.

Bottom line: it’s long past time to get off XP.  The Cygwin developers should not be expected to expend any additional effort to maintain XP compatibility.

> Linux Kernel LTS support is 2-3 years, for Debian is 1 year after
> release of next stable version, Ubuntu is 5 years and 9 months for STS
> and both LinuxMint and Trisquel 5 years as well.

RHEL/CentOS and SLES both have 10 year support cycles.

> At least Windows XP got 13 years of support and since Windows Vista its
> 10 years.

XP support was supposed to run for 10 years, too, but got pushed back twice due to customer base foot-dragging, IIRC.

Windows 8.1 extended support is scheduled to run for 10 years.  If you want to add in 8.0, that comes to 11.

Windows 10 is also scheduled for 10 years of extended support.

You can’t hold back the tide.
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Re: Windows XP Support

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, Warren Young!

> On Jan 10, 2016, at 4:52 PM, Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez wrote:
>> 
>> No software version can live forever

> Indeed, not even Linux.

> There’s a thread over on the CentOS mailing list right now started by
> someone who’s trying to get something working on CentOS 3, which is about
> three years younger than Windows XP, but which dropped out of support in
> 2010.  The answer is the same: no one’s going to help you, and if it breaks, you get to keep the pieces.

It all nice and dandy from a blind standpoint.
But if you open eyes, you'll see, that if a new release makes environment
unusable, no amount of pushing and arguing would make people accept it.
This is what happened to Win8. This is what happened to Unity.
And to many other smaller programs.


-- 
With best regards,
Andrey Repin
Tuesday, January 12, 2016 08:12:19

Sorry for my terrible english...

Re: Windows XP Support

[Mike Brown]

I've been using cygwin on XP (SP2 and then SP3), both 32 bit and 64 bit,
for ages now.  I actually tried upgrading once, but had to go back to what I
am currently running because cron was broken.  It refused to start, no matter
what.  After returning to the previous install, it started right up.

The main pieces that I use, zsh, cron and the basic commands (like ls and ps),
are all that I need.  I've written several z-shell scripts to do the things
that I need.

So, even if XP support is pulled, I'm good.

Cygwin has been really great for making the two XP boxes worth running.
I've been a Unix/Linux user/admin for decades.

MB

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 05:32:21PM -0500, Terry McCarty - WA5NTI wrote:
> Hello -
>
> I am also new to the LINUX world and would like very much to see XP "live 
> forever".
>
> I still use XP as my main "go to" machine. 
> But ... Microsoft's continuing "march to bigger and better" and my 
> reluctance to be forced to repeatedly buy new bigger and faster machinery 
> to accommodate the new windows systems has nudged me out of my complacency 
> - I am now using Cygwin and learning LINUX.
>
> If Cygwin continues to support XP, it will continue to serve as "that 
> bright city on a hill", giving us old Microsoft Ludditess a comfortable 
> "stepping stone" that encourages us to switch to LINUX.
>
> -- 
>     Terry McCarty
>    3t3@comcast.net
>        wa5nti
>
>
>
> Herbert Stocker wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> i have read that beginning this month Cygwin wants to drop support
>> for Windows XP.  Though the home page and FAQ entry 12 do not talk
>> about this. Are they out of date or is WinXP still supported?
>>
>> Although there are better OSes now, WinXP is still a good OS.
>> Especially for virtual machines, because of its low memory foot print.
>> Only just 220 MiB for the OS!
>>
>> So while i feel it's not fair to beg you to go through all the
>> complexities of still supporting it, i want to ask:
>>
>> - If there is no support anymore for Win XP (SP3), is there a reposi-
>>   tory around, where one can download the last version of Cygwin that
>>   supported WinXP (SP3)?
>>
>> - If not, how can i do it by myself? Will i have to create a mirror
>>   and not update it? Or would i have to download the current version
>>   somehow?
>>
>>
>> Thank you very much for the great work.
>> Cygwin makes Windows complete if you ask me.
>>
>> Herbert
>>
>> -- 
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>>
>>
>
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Re: Windows XP Support

[Corinna Vinschen]

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On Jan 10 13:12, Herbert Stocker wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> i have read that beginning this month Cygwin wants to drop support
> for Windows XP.  Though the home page and FAQ entry 12 do not talk
> about this. Are they out of date or is WinXP still supported?

So far, nothing has changed, XP is still supported.  I intend to pull
the plug at one point this year, but it also depends on how much time I
have.  Continuing support for XP and Server 2003 is really becoming a
burden.  It requires to code and maintain workarounds which are not
required anymore in newer OSes, so I really would like to get rid of
that stuff.

> - If there is no support anymore for Win XP (SP3), is there a reposi-
>   tory around, where one can download the last version of Cygwin that
>   supported WinXP (SP3)?

Not yet, but the Cygwin time machine might be what you're looking for
in future:

  http://www.fruitbat.org/Cygwin/index.html#cygwintimemachine


Corinna

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Re: Windows XP Support

[wilson]

> On Jan 10 13:12, Herbert Stocker wrote:
> 
>> Hi, i have read that beginning this month Cygwin wants to drop support 
>> for Windows XP. Though the home page and FAQ entry 12 do not talk 
>> about this. Are they out of date or is WinXP still supported?
> 
> So far, nothing has changed, XP is still supported. I intend to pull
> the plug at one point this year, but it also depends on how much time I
> have. Continuing support for XP and Server 2003 is really becoming a
> burden.

The Cygwin support for XP is very much appreciated as the latest Windows 
releases are not really ready for prime time office work yet.  Windows 
10 is making some headway in this respect.

I'd like to say a sincere thank you to Corina (and the rest of the team) 
for supporting XP for this long, and I hope she stays so busy the issue 
of removing XP support never becomes a priority. :)

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Erik Soderquist]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 9:38 AM, wilson wrote:
> I'd like to say a sincere thank you to Corina (and the rest of the team) for
> supporting XP for this long, and I hope she stays so busy the issue of
> removing XP support never becomes a priority. :)

I rather expect it will more be a matter of a bug fix or enhancement
that would require significant additional coding to maintain XP/2003
support will be the trigger for cutting off XP/2003 support.

-- Erik

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RE: Windows XP Support

[Jon Beniston]

Windows XP still accounts for about 10% of desktop users... Similar to the total number of Mac users.

Maybe some browser OS stats from cygwin.com would be illuminating.

Jon



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Re: Windows XP Support

[Warren Young]

On Jan 11, 2016, at 4:52 AM, Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
> 
> Continuing support for XP and Server 2003 is really becoming a
> burden.  It requires to code and maintain workarounds which are not
> required anymore in newer OSes, so I really would like to get rid of
> that stuff.

I seem to recall you saying that Vista added a fork-like facility to the kernel which might let Cygwin implement a copy-on-write fork(2).  Would dropping XP support allow that?

If so, that would probably speed Cygwin up quite a bit in many common use cases: running autoconf configure scripts, Makefiles, etc.
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Re: Windows XP Support

[Corinna Vinschen]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1335 bytes --]

On Jan 11 09:25, Warren Young wrote:
> On Jan 11, 2016, at 4:52 AM, Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Continuing support for XP and Server 2003 is really becoming a
> > burden.  It requires to code and maintain workarounds which are not
> > required anymore in newer OSes, so I really would like to get rid of
> > that stuff.
> 
> I seem to recall you saying that Vista added a fork-like facility to
> the kernel which might let Cygwin implement a copy-on-write fork(2).
> Would dropping XP support allow that?

Unfortunately not.  Effectively I begged for it on the Windows MSDN
forums and in private communication with Microsoft, but to no avail
for technical reasons.

The fork-like function (called RtlCloneUserProcess) does not work
reliably with Win32 processes.  The problem is not the function itself,
but the way certain Win32 DLLs are initialized at startup.  The DLL
initialization code won't do the right thing anymore in the child
process and thus stuff doesn't work in the child.  E.g., the connection
to the console Window is broken in the child and no AllocConsole or
AttachConsole call will resurrect it.


Corinna

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Re: Windows XP Support

[Warren Young]

On Jan 10, 2016, at 5:12 AM, Herbert Stocker <hersto@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
> WinXP is still a good OS.

That was only true while Microsoft was maintaining it.  Now there are many known security vulnerabilities which will never be patched.

I expect there are other problems with it, too, like incorrect time zone support in parts of the world that have changed their time zone rules since the discontinuation of support.

> Especially for virtual machines, because of its low memory foot print.

No argument, but memory and disk usage can’t be the primary concern.  If that’s all we’re concerned with, we’d still be running Windows NT 3.51.
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