[Lazarus] Inno Setup no longer supports Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me

[Reinier Olislagers]

On 3-8-2012 10:43, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:
> On 2 August 2012 18:38, Reinier Olislagers <reinierolislagers at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Speaking for myself, after submitting a patch, I really don't want to be
>> told that Win9x/ME does things differently and that I should correct my
>> patch to incorporate support.
> 
> Welcome to the world of programmers. If my clients still run Windows
> 98, I can't force them to pay a fortune to Microsoft for a new OS, and
> force them to upgrade all there PC's because the latest OS doesn't run
> on a Win98 spec'ed PC.
> 
> And to answer your earlier question, our clients put together has over
> 2000+ PC's still running Win98. Would you like to tell them they must
> all instantly upgrade (and pay a fortune) when those systems still run
> perfectly for there purpose?
No, I won't.... but I think you're extrapolating about the need to
"instantly upgrade" etc.

As I wrote earlier, I didn't have the impression there would be many
users on Win98. Thanks for giving some real-life numbers.

I think the next questions would be something like:
1. do these clients then use Lazarus applications or others like fpGUI
2. can/should these applications be maintained by
2.1 Laz 1.0 (without new fixes)
2.2 a separate win9x branch supported by whomever wants to work on it
2.3 trunk Lazarus with fixes as usual but without any
testing/consideration for Win9x for any new code
2.4 the current way of doing things: patches that don't provide win9x
support sometimes get blocked

Even though the difference between some of these options may be small, I
think it merits a clear decision so everybody can plan and know the
consequences.

I think Bart suggested this discussion be moved to some private lazarus
developers list. No problems with that, I'm glad the topic is being
discussed so informed, timely (not abrupt) well-considered decisions can
be made.

Thanks,
Reinier