[windows] require Windows 8.1 as minimum version

[Rechi]

Motivation and Context

• Windows 7 is unsupported since January 14, 2020
• Windows 8 is unsupported since January 12, 2016

Types of change

• [ ] Bug fix (non-breaking change which fixes an issue)
• [ ] Clean up (non-breaking change which removes non-working, unmaintained functionality)
• [ ] Improvement (non-breaking change which improves existing functionality)
• [ ] New feature (non-breaking change which adds functionality)
• [x] Breaking change (fix or feature that will cause existing functionality to change)
• [ ] Cosmetic change (non-breaking change that doesn't touch code)
• [ ] None of the above (please explain below)

Checklist:

• [x] My code follows the Code Guidelines of this project
• [ ] My change requires a change to the documentation, either Doxygen or wiki
• [ ] I have updated the documentation accordingly
• [x] I have read the Contributing document
• [ ] I have added tests to cover my change
• [x] All new and existing tests passed

[DaveTBlake]

Deprecating Kodi on Win7 seems premature to me given the number of old laptops out there used as media centres. Do we have new functionality that Win7 cannot support? Any reason to follow Microsoft's support EOL policy dates?

If v19 continues to work on Win7 why not continue to allow it, drop it for v20 (givng users fair warning)? Only drop it for v19 if there is a new feature that Win7 actually prevents.

[dvidebaek]

I’m supporting this move 100%. But why not go all the way and require Windows 10 at a minimum? Windows 8.1 is like ~2% of the Windows marketshare. There has been alot of work getting HDR working in kodi on Windows 10. By not having to worry about older versions of Windows, those developers may have a easier time getting HDR working correct. Maintaining/supporting legacy OS’s (and the code) takes alot of time away from innovating new features... just my 2 cents.

[dvidebaek]

Deprecating Kodi on Win7 seems premature to me given the number of old laptops out there used as media centres. Do we have new functionality that Win7 cannot support? Any reason to follow Microsoft's support EOL policy dates?

If v19 continues to work on Win7 why not continue to allow it, drop it for v20 (givng users fair warning)? Only drop it for v19 if there is a new feature that Win7 actually prevents.

HDR is a good example why not supporting Windows 7 is a good thing. HDR dosn’t work in Windows 7. So the developers has to make alot of workarounds to get it to work on Windows 10

[lilgandhi1199]

Steam statistics indicate that there was 22.7% of all steam users on Windows were using Windows 7 but more conservatively it's probably about 15% which is 1/7 people.

That is interesting though in regards to HDR that is all I researched for the past 4 or 5 hours before I even stumbled across this thread.

Do what you will with these statistics but the only people changing that have stuck with Windows 7 for all these years are changing because they're being forced to with minimum requirements like these. I just installed and used the hailed HDR upgrade for kodi and it ran on Windows 7 no problem https://github.com/fandangos/Kodi-HDR-Edition/releases

If these coders are having to work around Windows 7 just to make Windows 10 work (which I hardly believe in the first place) then it looks like they've already done it since November through his recent update 13 days ago! All it would take to make it work is as simple as the flags being implemented in this code change. "Am I on Windows 10? True" and off to the races with the amazing new HDR code.

The type he selected was accurate "Breaking Change"

[nonJon]

Well... this is a big fu to what will still undoubtedly be a substantial contingent of the kodi user base come k19's release. Is fair warning forthcoming? Users of iOS 32bit were afforded this common courtesy:

https://kodi.tv/article/kodi-19-welcomes-tvos-says-goodbye-ios-32bit

And, FYI, while support for Windows Update(TM) has indeeed sunsetted, MS has committed to providing virus engine/signature updates to MSE through 2022.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17150/windows-7-what-is-microsoft-security-essentials

[fuzzard]

You do realise this doesnt suddenly stop existing kodi installs, or even downloading/using kodi <19 ?

[nonJon]

@fuzzard Edited my post for clarification. Basically. I agree with @DaveTBlake and @lilgandhi1199 that this change is an untimely and disruptive rush to bury a body that's still warm.

[fuzzard]

and meanwhile we have community members pushing forward with features like HDR for windows that relies on updated API's unavailable. So to ever have that mainlined, they would then need to provide all the ifdeffery around that for an OS that is considered obsolete by the vendor?

Thats insane, and if i were a community member taking on that challenge, it would almost be a blocker for ever trying to actually mainline the work.

The world moves on, and the joy of OSS software, you can stick to using any version you choose to suit your particular use case. Why hamstring other users who want new features that are supplied by the OS Vendor in their maintained current OS?

These opinions are mine, and mine alone. I dont speak on behalf of Team Kodi by any means, and im only very new to the team. But i know considerable effort has been made on other platforms to get away from unmaintained kludges, and specific hacks. I dont see windows as being any different in this case.

[nonJon]

Last word... according to Net Market Share, nearly half of windows users are still on win 7 as of 3-2020.

Win 10 - 57.34% Win 8.1 - 3.69% Win 7 - 26.23%

https://netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?id=platformsDesktopVersions

[fritsch]

Yeah. According to our internal stats out of those guys, three kodi users. One might be you?

[jjd-uk]

More importantly zero Team members use Windows 7 which makes finding & fixing Windows 7 only issues problematic. Anyway the internal Team consensus seems to be Windows 7 should be dropped in v20 and not v19 in order to give people plenty of time to update their systems if they want to continue using latest versions of Kodi.

On a security point, yes you are right that MS will continue to provide virus definitions for Security Essentials until 2023, however they will not be providing any security updates/patches for the OS itself if any new exploits/vulnerabilities were to appear. So it is really not a good idea to run Kodi which requires an internet connection to grab all the rich metadata from online sources, on a system not receiving security updates.

[jenkins4kodi]

I've made some formatting changes to meet the current code style. The diffs are available in the following links:

• PR17255-0003-e256fb8ae5-windows-require-Windows-8.1-as-min.diff
• PR17255.diff

For more information please see our current code style guidelines.

[dvidebaek]

Microsoft is ending support for Windows 8.1 on january 10th 2023. Therefore shouldn't we change minimum requirement to Windows 10?

[jenkins4kodi]

I've made some formatting changes to meet the current code style. The diffs are available in the following links:

• PR17255-0003-b07e348d6e-windows-require-Windows-8.1-as-min.diff
• PR17255.diff

For more information please see our current code style guidelines.

[thexai]

Also unlocks progress to Python 3.11...

[fuzzard]

Thanks @Rechi for maintaining this for so long;