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Unicode: Replace TargetMinimalOS with?

36 posts

Anders#
Originally Posted by Damian Kohlfeld View Post
As far as unicode, yes yes yes. But, support win2k, perhaps in a separate branch, whatever.
The exehead stubs are already using TCHAR and the minimum target is NT4 or 2000, the hold up is the compiler, not the code running on the end-users system...
JamesB7#
I like your original suggestion "Unicode yes/no".
Unicode support wouldn't hurt for software that requires an NT OS, though I have to admit I haven't felt a great need for the feature. From my perspective, built-in timestamp+code sign for installer/uninstaller would be handier. I do it with conditionals and a batch file presently...

Please don't break compatibility with Windows 9X.
If you already have the code there, there is no technical reason.
It'd require me to keep two versions of NSIS. Older software still needs patches/support, and honestly, any decent developer should make their software run on the widest range of Windows versions compatible with their economics. Don't force my users to upgrade for an installer's sake of all things. Even new software, if it doesn't *need* a recent OS feature, why *choose to fail*?

For those talking about "even Win2K doesn't work in VS2010", Google EncodePointer Win2K and see for yourself how trivial the fix is.

I'd encourage you to ignore those with an upgrade fetish.

Lastly, Damien, for .NET... My Mono 2.10.8 install, it doesn't seem to have an EncodePointer dependency so probably runs on Windows 2000. Mono for Windows works quite well and lacks the conflicts of interest that cause .NET's minimum OS to keep going up and up. You can fit the necessary runtime for a WinForms application in about 4MB compressed, and won't even need admin access as the executables are relocatable and do not use registry entries.
Anders#
Originally Posted by JamesB7 View Post
Please don't break compatibility with Windows 9X.
We will break 9x compatibility...for makensis.exe (because this thread really is about the compiler). It will be Win2000+ probably.
JamesB7#
Oh ok, my bad, I'd thought you were discussing the resulting executables. 🙂
On the compiler side, yeah, seems unlikely anyone is still *developing* from a 9X machine.
Yathosho#
btw, would be interesting to get some insights on the usage stats. do you run any sort of analytics software on the nsis website?
Anders#
Originally Posted by Yathosho View Post
btw, would be interesting to get some insights on the usage stats. do you run any sort of analytics software on the nsis website?
Stats of what? The admins have access to Piwik. There are public download and commit stats on SF...