Cygwin 3.6 on Windows 8?

[Brian Inglis]

On 2025-03-10 18:56, Dan Shelton via Cygwin wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Mar 2025 at 21:24, Brian Inglis via Cygwin wrote:
>> On 2025-03-10 04:35, Martin Wege via Cygwin wrote:
>>> On Fri, Mar 7, 2025 at 3:42 PM Dan Shelton via Cygwin wrote:
>>>> Did anyone test whether Cygwin 3.6 will still work on Windows 8? I
>>>> know, Win8 is unsupported, but apparently it is still needed
>>
>>> https://cygwin.com/ front page says "The Cygwin DLL currently works
>>> with all recent, commercially released x86_64 versions of Windows,
>>> starting with Windows 8.1. For more information see the FAQ."
>>
>> FAQ is outdated as 1.2 still says Windows 7, and Server 2008 R2, which ended
>> support in 2020.
> 
> OK, but Cygwin 3.6.0 works fine on Windows 8.1/x86-64.
> Please just update the docs that the minimum version is now Windows
> 8.1 // Windows Server 2012 R2 (Windows Server Blue).
> 
> Or is there any technical reason why someone wants to pull the plug in
> Win 8.1 // Windows Server 2012 R2 support?

This is usually because some extended API features are required to support newer 
functions, and those API features are unsupported on legacy versions, increasing 
the work required to implement the functions on those versions.

>>> Whether Windows 8.1 is really still supported for Cygwin 3.6, that
>>> only Corinna can answer.
>>
>> As usual, unsupported versions are likely to be dropped on final release, as 8.1
>> Extended Support ended in 2023, as did Server 2012 R2, although ESUs are
>> available until 2026[-10], so ?
> 
> Not quite correct: Windows 8.1 Industry/Embedded is still supported,
> for companies who still have active support contracts.
> Win 8.1 server counterpart Win Server 2012 has ESU support until 2026,
> and support contracts running until 2032.
> 
> Also, if you pull the plug on Windows 8.1 support, then Cygwin on
> ReactOS is in serious trouble. There is still ongoing work to get
> Cygwin 3.6 running on ReactOS properly, no need to make it harder.

Really?
There appear to be considerations for related projects such as Wine, Msys2, 
Mingw64, etc.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher  but when there is no more to cut
                                 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry