PSA - Free42 no longer supports Windows XP

[Thomas Okken]

That is correct, and to add a bit of background...

I've been working on "compensated dot products" for DOT, INVRT, DET, SIMQ, and matrix multiplication and division. The algorithm I'm using requires FMA support, which the compiler I was using, Visual C++ 2008, does not provide. So I had to upgrade, and as I usually do in cases like this, I went all the way for the latest version, Visual Studio 2019.

The runtime for VS2019 does support Windows XP, since it's the same as the runtime for VS2015 and VS2017, but the VS2019 build tools turn out not to support XP, unlike VS2015 and VS2017. I only found out about this last weekend, but I decided to stick with VS2019 anyway. I don't usually like dropping support for older platforms, but this is what makes me think I'm not putting Windows users through any great hardship:

Oldest supported OS version for each of the platforms supported by Free42:
Android 4.0, first released in October 2012
iOS 8.0, first released in September 2014
Windows Vista, first released in November 2006
MacOS 10.7, first released in July 2011
Ubuntu 12.04, first released in April 2012

I wouldn't even be writing to defend that decision if it weren't for this email that someone saw fit to send me, and send again when I didn't respond:

Quote:De: xxxxx@hotmail.com <xxxxx@hotmail.com>
Enviado: domingo, 12 de abril de 2020 0:44
Para: thomasokken@gmail.com <thomasokken@gmail.com>
Asunto:WINDOWS XP...???

windows XP, abandonado...UFFF...con 2.5.18...UFFFFFF

I thought I'd head any additional complaints off at the pass.

The great irony is that the compensated dot products ended up not making it into 2.5.18 because they're still too buggy. No telling when they will get done at this point. C'est la vie.