OpenRCT2 v0.5.1 "Swamp Castle" released Last version to support Windows 7 | Hacker News Reader

OpenRCT2 v0.5.1 "Swamp Castle" released Last version to support Windows 7

openrct2.io

33 pointsjandeboevrie30 comments

What is the issue with building for Windows 7 target on Windows 10/11 host? Not that the team is obligated to support ancient OSes, but I am not following their justification. If it is just the fact that they can't properly test if the build works on 7, then they could call it "best effort" support.

but then if it's untested how is it different from saying build it yourself? spending effort on making sure the windows 7 build runs without actually knowing that the build result works seems pointless

Slightly related: does anyone know why it's being deprecated on brew? https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/openrct2

You can follow the link to the cask code on GitHub and the line disabling will (usually) leave a clear reason. In this case, because of Gatekeeper/codesigning because that costs money https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/issues/15879?utm_source...

Isn’t there some guy who goes around compiling these games with his codesign?

If there is and that works in a way the OpenRCT2 team keeps full control of their automated build/release pipeline it might be worth getting them in touch! Another option would be someone donate for it.

He has the adhoc signed one on his site: https://www.macsourceports.com/game/rct2

I remember when the Dolphin emulator dropped Windows 7 a few years ago. The absolute consternation, whining and even threats(!) against the developers was utterly sickening

Even as someone who enjoys "retro tech" far more than anything modern anymore, I'm hardly going to berate people to bend over backwards to keep supporting my ancient systems with modern software.

If someone wants to backport newer software as a hobby (such as Cameron Kaiser with TenFourFox, and the many downstream derivatives that spawned over the years) it's a welcome delight. But it should never be an "obligation"

Many (all?) of the people using windows 7 as their only OS at this point are zealots. It’s not surprising that some would respond that way. It’s largely a group of people who will never willingly change their habits and any removal of support is an assault. There were many valid reasons to not upgrade to 10 but the rational people have given up and upgraded or migrated to Linux/mac over the past decade.

Why as their only OS? I assume many people connect their old PC to their TV and install a bunch of emulators. I suppose Linux could be an alternate solution for those machines.

A PC like this that doesn’t support Windows 10 is so outdated that even a $50 investment would get you a massive improvement.

The only reasons to keep Windows 7 are for niche SW/HW that only work on it and have no replacement, or because you want it out of principle. Neither of these are reasons to expect everyone else to bend over backwards to accommodate you.

Other than needing more RAM, all the hardware that works for Win 7 will work with Windows 10 and 11. Most software should as well.

Windows 7 drivers are compatible with windows 10 and 11 so there really isn't a reason you couldn't continue using basically any hardware after an upgrade.

I was thinking of the odd XP era PC which could run W7 but just barely. Those would be truly outdated machines with no reason to be around a livingroom.

I have netbooks which ran XP ok but W10 is a pain to run on them, or tablets with more modern Atom CPUs which ran W10 ok at the beginning but by the latest update they became close to unusable.

"Only OS" is the caveat here.

Yeah, I’m not sure who else would be raging about dolphin dropping support. Not talking about people who keep an extra w7 box around for legacy software which Dolphin is not.

They are committed. I found this kernel extensions project: https://github.com/i486/VxKex

Perhaps that'd be the OpenRCT2 fanatics' salvation.

These sort of windows users have been drawing lines in the sand at every version of windows thusfar, when push comes to shove they always fold and accept the new thing they resisted for years, declaring that to be their new line in the sand. They come up with all manner of innane cope like "every other version of windows is good", but take a step back and its obvious they're getting slow boiled. The ones dying in a hill for Windows 7 now were once dying on a hill for 2000 or XP, refusing to use 7, and in a few years they'll be dying on a hill for windows 10 or 11.

These aren't serious people. Serious people have either gotten off windows, or have made peace with sleeping with microsoft. Those clinging to the past can't bring themselves to do either, and therefore must not be taken seriously.

> These aren't serious people. Serious people have either gotten off windows, or have made peace with sleeping with microsoft.

I am one of those people. I am serious, as are most of the other people resisting updates. It's just that most of them are not technically competent enough to switch to Linux or oppose sleeping with microsoft in an effective way. I think it's very ignorant of you to not consider them serius.

I fought to keep every version of the old OS since Win98, as each version since that was worse than the one before.

I'm using Win7 now, isolated from the internet without a DNS or a valid route out. Access is via filtering proxy server from Firefox only. Fortunately Firefox uses its own proxy settings, separated from the rest of the OS. This is how I fight sleeping with microsoft.

I am prepared for the future. I know I can't win the fight. I have a Win10 ready to go, for that time when most websites stop working with FF 115. Just in case that doesn't work, I have a Linux machine with Gentoo and Firefox that I can run via VNC and then I can go back to at least WinXP. I'm using it now for Discourse forums (Discourse devs, I hope you all rot in hell!).

I never understood how devs could accept this kind of crap on their machines. You of all people should know better and fight harder. Maybe you get indoctrinated by your education buzzwords like "engagement", "metrics", "telemetry" and you can't think straight anymore?

> Due to GitHub upcoming lack of support to Windows7/8 action runners, this will be our last release officially supporting those platforms. As they have been unsupported for years by Microsoft, we recommend you upgrade to play OpenRCT2 for security reasons!

Those "security reasons" start more and more to look like "think of the children". The biggest entry point for exploits nowadays is the web browser, yet nobody cares about it (just look at the list of CVEs fixed at every browser release).

On the website, their joke has some formatting: “we recommend you upgrade <strikethrough>to play OpenRCT2</strikethrough> for security reasons!”

If that is supposed to be sarcasm, I didn't get it.

I think it’s throwing shade on Microsoft, which is urging people to upgrade to W11 for “security reasons.”

Since Microsoft owns GitHub, their decision to shut down Windows 7/8 action runners is a sneaky way to help drive customers toward Windows 11.

While I agree that there are lots of problems around security communication, I don't feel like the number of CVEs fixed is a good proxy for bad security, I would assume it's more the opposite. Like the more incident reports an airline company has, the safer it tends to be - the unsafe ones don't care to file them.

There actually used to be a time using outdated browsers was a massive issue. The thing is that portion of the problem is solved now, every browser auto updates at an extremely high pace and it has become accepted. Auto update of evergreen operating systems is still extremely unpopular and occurs at a much lower pace. All things involved have massive piles of CVEs getting fixed all the time, it's still an improvement to consume them.

Where are all the stories of these Windows 7 users getting hacked due to memory corruption CVEs or whatever? Whenever I hear hacking stories nowadays, it's from simple password reuse or SIM-swapping, stuff like that. Or Ransomware, sometimes, but you can counteract that with backups.

You might say, well the stories aren't there because of how many people upgrade their OS's nowadays, but apparently enough people are on Windows 7 to make a stink (rudely, unfortunately) when Dolphin dropped Windows 7 support. And we all know how bad the Android OS upgrade situation is.

The remaining Windows 7 users (at least the intentional ones) will loudly make a stink in various niches on occasion when they want to be heard but they individually have no reason to harass anyone about how they are still using Windows 7 if it turns out badly for them. And, honestly, the person who knows enough to be able to care about being attached to Windows 7 probably has better general understanding of security & attacks than the average non-tech aware user as well. That doesn't imply using Windows 7 is great security advice, it's just part of the selection bias of who cares to stay.

If you wait long enough much of the modern malware becomes incompatible though :D.

> The remaining Windows 7 users (at least the intentional ones) will loudly make a stink in various niches on occasion when they want to be heard but they individually have no reason to harass anyone about how they are still using Windows 7 if it turns out badly for them.

Yes, I want to be absolutely clear that I'm not defending this behavior! (Really, there is no reason to harass anyone ever.)

> And, honestly, the person who knows enough to be able to care about being attached to Windows 7 probably has better general understanding of security & attacks than the average non-tech aware user as well.

I agree but that's why I find a lot of the messaging about "we're dropping X for your own good" to be really frustrating.

Again, to be clear, if they want to drop it that's their prerogative. Just don't claim you're doing it to protect people.

Analogous to this: if you drop OS support, please don't be hostile about it. This includes: please document the removal and the last working version, please don't autoupdate the working version to a version that won't run with no way to disable the autoupdater, and please don't go out of your way to sabotage forks that add back support. I'm not familiar with legacy Windows but I'm extremely familiar with legacy macOS, and there are specific apps which have done these things, often in the name of protecting people.

(And even if the developer is hostile, that's still not a reason to harass them, just to say that again.)

It only sounds like propaganda to the ones intentionally & knowingly staying who, in turn, only become the majority once the average users have already been pushed off by such things. In net, dropping official support claims for unpatched targets is a good even if it annoys users who already understand the situation clearly. But yeah, nobody should be going into someone else's computer and force deleting an app "for their own good" or something - that'd be pretty hostile.

And, again, it's only just part of a joke here. The entire debate about how a subset of Windows 7 users could be annoyed if it had really pushed this support reasoning message seriously is all theoretical from the comments section. It's exactly the type of "a minority of users might get really worked up about any perceived sleight around the topic" kind of thing one finds in this area - you can't even make a joke involving it being a better reason than playing a game without resulting in discussion and someone technical bringing up how hostile it is to make such a mention.

At least they aren't intentionally breaking Win7 support by using some random later version API function unconditionally.

Some developers seem proud doing that, somehow feeling that extra 5-10 lines of code for backwards compatibility is too much.

ကျွဲဂိမ်းစလော့

Reply on news.ycombinator.com