Dropping Windows XP Support
Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 8:24 pm
Oolite has always aimed at running optimally on as many platforms as possible, regardless of their age. This has been no different for the Windows port, which is confirmed to run fine also on older, low-end systems, with older, low-end versions of the Windows operating system, like WinXP, the current minimum OS requirement.
There comes a time, however, when we need to move on. Technology is advancing and so is the game. New APIs become available and, while they offer new capabilities for doing things that were not considered possible before, they may or may not work acceptably (if at all) on old systems. Trying to remain compatible with what has been long obsoleted means that we may not be able to achieve what we are aiming for and we don't want that; we want to see the game progressing.
Some of the features inserted after the release of version 1.84 have already arrived at this junction. Our recent implementation of secure downloads for the Expansion Pack Manager is already using functionality that is available only post-Windows Vista. Furthermore, even if the game can still run on earlier OS versions despite the presence of those new programming interfaces, we cannot confirm or otherwise test it, because there is nobody in the team with access to a working Windows XP box. As you know, Windows XP reached officially its End of Life on April 8 2014 and Microsoft has not been updating it for more than two years now, which means that, apart from drivers for new hardware etc. being unavailable, XP is not considered at this point a secure operating system to use.
For all these reasons, we are forced to drop Windows XP support for Oolite. This does not necessarily mean that the game will stop running on XP tomorrow. However, we will not be considering compatibility with XP anymore as new features are developed and sooner or later there will come a time when XP systems will not be able to run the game. When this happens, we will not attempt to fix it and the only advice that we will be able to give to any XP user with problems running Oolite will be to upgrade.
The last game version supporting WinXP is 1.84. From now on, the minimum supported OS version for running the game on Windows is Windows Vista Service Pack 2.
There comes a time, however, when we need to move on. Technology is advancing and so is the game. New APIs become available and, while they offer new capabilities for doing things that were not considered possible before, they may or may not work acceptably (if at all) on old systems. Trying to remain compatible with what has been long obsoleted means that we may not be able to achieve what we are aiming for and we don't want that; we want to see the game progressing.
Some of the features inserted after the release of version 1.84 have already arrived at this junction. Our recent implementation of secure downloads for the Expansion Pack Manager is already using functionality that is available only post-Windows Vista. Furthermore, even if the game can still run on earlier OS versions despite the presence of those new programming interfaces, we cannot confirm or otherwise test it, because there is nobody in the team with access to a working Windows XP box. As you know, Windows XP reached officially its End of Life on April 8 2014 and Microsoft has not been updating it for more than two years now, which means that, apart from drivers for new hardware etc. being unavailable, XP is not considered at this point a secure operating system to use.
For all these reasons, we are forced to drop Windows XP support for Oolite. This does not necessarily mean that the game will stop running on XP tomorrow. However, we will not be considering compatibility with XP anymore as new features are developed and sooner or later there will come a time when XP systems will not be able to run the game. When this happens, we will not attempt to fix it and the only advice that we will be able to give to any XP user with problems running Oolite will be to upgrade.
The last game version supporting WinXP is 1.84. From now on, the minimum supported OS version for running the game on Windows is Windows Vista Service Pack 2.
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