Loss of support for older version of Windows

[josborne]

Hi all,

I was wondering if all you experts have some advice on dealing with the phase-out of older version of Windows.  My company sells LabVIEW-based built applications (executables).  And perhaps not surprisingly, we have a lot of customers who are still using Win7.  It wasn't too long ago that I even got tech support calls from people using 32bit versions of Win7 or even WinXP. 

I noticed in LV2021, NI stated they will no longer support 32bit OS-es or anything older than Win10 (see here).  I am curious:

• How are others dealing with the transition to requiring a minimum of Win10 64bit?
• Will the LV2021 run-time engine even allow itself to be installed on Win7 or Win8?  
• If LV2021 allows itself to be installed on older Windows versions, do you think that applications will still work, even though they are "unsupported"?  I know this is risky, but I am curious if anyone has experience here.
  
  

This limitation, plus the change to subscription-based pricing, is making me reluctant to upgrade for now.

[santo_13]

Counter question - why would you need to use LV2021 on a decade-old OS (Win7 or XP)? if you would want to use like LV14 or something, it makes sense.

[josborne]

To answer the counter-question:  

Because newer versions of LabVIEW have lots of very useful features.  And we are still developing and updating and supporting our application.  So our applications are constantly improving and newer versions get released, but my users still sometimes install them on older operating systems.  And for simplicity sake, I don't want to build multiple installers.  

[santo_13]

This is kind of like trying to install Google Chrome or MS Edge on Win7 or XP or even on 98/95. 

There are a lot of technical difficulties to support many of the older OS due to architecture level changes that Microsoft made.

[wiebe@CARYA]

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@josborne wrote:

And for simplicity sake, I don't want to build multiple installers.  

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It's not LabVIEW, but the package manager that causes this.

From NI Installer Fails on Windows 7/8 and Windows Server 2008/2012 - NI:

The following steps apply mainly to MSI-based distributions built from LabVIEW, LabWindows™/CVI, TestStand, and Measurement Studio. NI does not officially support or guarantee that your deployment installer will always successfully run upon the following modification.
1 Open the setup.ini file located in your built deployment installer folder.
2 Search for the VersionNTMin=10,0,0,0,0 line.
3 Modify this line to VersionNTMin=6,1,7601,1,0.
4 Save the setup.ini file.

This will change the minimum supported OS version for the deployment installer to Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit).
Note: you will need to repeat these steps every time you build a new deployment installer.

Of course this doesn't add support from NI, but you can (to some extend) support installing your software on older systems.

[Yamaeda]

Unsupported = "We don't test it, you're on your own"

Will it work? The differences between Win7 and Win10 are very small, so most probably, but no guarantees.

I've used unsupported combinations many times, like LV2011/2014 in Win10, i wouldn't stress it. 🙂

[RTSLVU]

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@josborne wrote:

• How are others dealing with the transition to requiring a minimum of Win10 64bit?

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The vast majority of computers sold with Windows 7 are capable of running Windows 10 and are still eligible for the FREE upgrade. 

In the past month I upgraded a couple old computers in our ATE systems using the Windows 7 serial number from the sticker on the PC to activate Windows 10 without any issues.

[josborne]

These are good tips.  Thanks.  I wonder if I should taks NI's own approach and say that our applications are "unsupported" on Win7/8 with the understanding that it will probably work, but at your own risk.

And to do that, I'll just need to follow the advice of wiebe@CARYA so that my installers will still function.  

[rolfk]

That works only forthe MSI based installers. The newest LabVIEW versions want to create nipkg installers and there you are pretty out of luck to create installers that still can be installed on anything but 64-bit Windows 10.

[Hooovahh]

I think your options are pretty clear.

1. Stick with older versions of LabVIEW that still support the OSs your users use.
2. Update to the newer versions of LabVIEW and tell your users that the OSs supported has changed.
3. Come up with a work around, installing the newer runtime engines, on the older OSs knowing there isn't NI support.  This means installing the runtime engine and supported tools without NIPM.

I'd lean toward 1 until there are features in LabVIEW you need.  I mean Maps and Sets are great, but if it means cutting out a significant percentage of your users you can probably avoid it.

Personally I haven't used a 32-bit OS in probably 10 years.  XP and 7 aren't supported by Microsoft, so we don't have them in our building anymore.  Computers that started as 7 have been upgraded to 10 for free, and we are running trials on upgrading those PCs to 11 for free.  I'm fortunate that my users are all under similar demands from their IT departments that these older OSs can't be used.