[PATCH setup] Show a MessageBox warning if running on a deprecated Windows version

[Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty]

On 16/01/2022 13:46, Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 12:45:06PM +0100, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>> On Jan 14 10:54, Adam Dinwoodie wrote:
>>> On Fri, 14 Jan 2022 at 09:05, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
>>>> On Jan 13 15:13, Jon Turney wrote:
>>>>> Show a MessageBox warning if we are running on a Windows version which
>>>>> we have deprecated Cygwin support for:
>>>>>
>>>>> - Windows 6.0 (Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008)
>>>>> - 32-bit Windows
>>>>>
>>>>> This warning can be disabled with '--allow-unsupported-windows'.
>>>>> ---
>>>>>
>>>>> Notes:
>>>>>      Not sure if this is needed, or maybe this is just annoying to the ~3% of
>>>>>      users who are running effected OSes.  But maybe we want to annoy them
>>>>>      into doing something about it?
>>>>
>>>> Question is, how often should setup show this message?  Every time might
>>>> really be a bit annoying.  Some kind of "I saw it, now leave me alone,
>>>> at least for a while" kind of function would be great.
>>>
>>> Eh. The installer tries to add icons to my desktop every time I run it
>>> unless I provide a command-line argument every time. This behaviour
>>> seems no more or less annoying to me, and I think having users see
>>> that warning is much more important than adding a desktop icon.
>>
>> Point.
> 
> Perhaps more constructively: I've become inured to the bits of setup's
> behaviour that I find annoying, and I've created my own workarounds
> (specifically, a bash function that wraps setup and automatically
> provides a bunch of arguments, including `-d` to avoid adding icons I
> don't want).  I expect most people who are using setup have also become
> inured to these annoyances, and I don't think adding this additional
> warning is a significant additional annoyance.
> 
> That said, just because I've become inured to these annoyances, doesn't
> mean we* couldn't do better.  In particular, I think a lot of the parts
> of the setup UI you have to go through every time could more usefully be
> hidden after a user has gone through them once, and only displayed again
> if (a) the user requested that with a command-line option, (b) the
> options have legitimately changed, or possibly (c) the user clicks (say)
> an "Advanced mode" button on the first page of the installer.
> 
> In particular, I expect the installer would be that bit friendlier to
> most users if the default behaviour were as if `-Mn` were specified by
> default every time after the first run.
> 
> This is obviously well outside the scope of the immediate conversation,
> but I thought it worth revisiting the topic with a more constructive
> view, rather than my initial slightly grumpy reaction.
> 
> Adam
> 
> * I say "we" here; I sadly do not have the bandwidth for committing to
> working on even small enhancements to setup's usability.  The perennial
> open source issue: someone has to do it, and I have far too many other
> things to spend time on...
> 

This reminds me: It's probably useful for me to support 32-bit even 
after Cygwin no longer does for my commercial project(s). Which probably 
means I should release said package soon (I couldn't get the rebase to 
work on 32-bit before, will ask another question soon. Are all the 
32-bit packages going offline after support ends or will it remain as a 
kind of graveyard?

Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty