LibreOffice 25.8 Slams the Door On Windows 7 and 8.x (nerds.xyz) 106
BrianFagioli shares a report from NERDS.xyz: LibreOffice 25.8 has landed, and while it packs in new features and speed improvements, the biggest headline is who just got left behind. If you are still running Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1, this is the end of the road. LibreOffice will not run on those systems anymore, and there are no workarounds. The suite has slammed the door shut.
For years, LibreOffice kept older Windows users afloat while Microsoft and other developers moved on. That lifeline is gone. Anyone stubbornly clinging to Windows 7 or 8 now has two choices: upgrade or stay stuck on outdated software. LibreOffice has made it clear that it will not carry dead platforms any further. And the cuts do not stop there. 32-bit Windows builds are on their way out, with deprecation already in place. On the Mac side, 25.8 is the last release that runs on macOS 10.15. Starting with LibreOffice 26.2, only macOS 11 and newer will be supported. In other words, if your computer is too old to run modern systems, LibreOffice is walking away.
For years, LibreOffice kept older Windows users afloat while Microsoft and other developers moved on. That lifeline is gone. Anyone stubbornly clinging to Windows 7 or 8 now has two choices: upgrade or stay stuck on outdated software. LibreOffice has made it clear that it will not carry dead platforms any further. And the cuts do not stop there. 32-bit Windows builds are on their way out, with deprecation already in place. On the Mac side, 25.8 is the last release that runs on macOS 10.15. Starting with LibreOffice 26.2, only macOS 11 and newer will be supported. In other words, if your computer is too old to run modern systems, LibreOffice is walking away.
So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, in most cases, you could just install Linux on the same machine and then keep using updated native versions of LibreOffice.
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Interesting)
To be honest, the people who can't admin their PC themselves get Linux Mint from me. It works out of the box, it is easy to troubleshoot, remote support via SSH is simple and one doesn't have to deal with the different Windows oddities and viruses. These people use the Browser, a music player (if they don't use Spotify), rarely simple tasks in office programs (if they don't use GDocs) and may want you to install them the dropbox client. I don't think they even see much need for me to upgrade their LTS every two years, because things just work without thinking about them, but on the other hand aren't there great differences with new versions that beginners would mind. Mint and Cinnamon are pretty usuable for people who don't want to think about how to use the PC.
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:5, Insightful)
If you upgrade a person's computer to Windows 10 then you risk that it is your fault that it is now slow and that you get a lot of annoying Windows support tasks. I found who has a strong opinion about what OS to use (and that's fine) is usually capable of maintain it themselves.
I don't want to sit next to them when they reinstall Windows yet another time because it allegedly fixes the performance issues, but I also don't want to be the person who needs to be called each time they installed too much crapware to come and make the PC fast again. I see that there are reasons to use Windows for some people, but I'm mostly done with being the supporter for that.
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing in practice is if you upgrade Windows and it does not work, people blame Microsoft and live with it, or ask around for solutions. If you upgrade linux and it does not work, people blame You and Your weird OS choices, and You need to support them.
I personally support 1 linux machine of an older relative. It has given zero work as their needs are very simple. (Also helped by choosing a bug-free linux distro :-)
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If you upgrade a person's computer to Windows 10 then you risk that it is your fault that it is now slow and that you get a lot of annoying Windows support tasks.
And this brings us circle back to my original post. What I mean by "haven't seen a computer yet that could run win7, but could not run win10 with an ssd and possibly ram upgrade" is that I haven't seen a computer that was not slow on win7, but somehow was slow on win10 after the ssd/ram upgrade. It just doesn't happen.
As to the people who can install windows and/or crapware themselves... They are not the people who need help with any of what we are talking about. If you don't want to sit next to them when t
Re:So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:4)
I must say I don't even understand the Stockholm syndrome with Windows 10. Windows 10 is bad from its first version on. Yes, it was better than 8. Windows 95 was also better than 8. But just because Windows 11 sucks, that doesn't mean 10 was good. Seven is the last acceptable version. Afterward it was time to upgrade to Linux. You can't keep telling yourself "If I am one version behind I at least do not have the worst version", you need to find the point to change something when Microsoft keeps making things worse.
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10 is rather okay I find. It took them about 5 years to get there, it sucked bad in the beginning indeed, but they did get there. Neither XP nor 7 were too good from the start either. Now for computers where it is an option, we wait to see whether 11 ends up anything good or not. Most probably it will be 12 though, as the pattern is one good, one bad. If you can stay away, good for you.
95 and 98 were revolutionary in UI back then, but remind yourself of the amount of bluescreens they gave you, and you'll re
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Seven is the last acceptable version.
Vista introduced a type of kernel level DRM. It was so very non-performant, that Vista died an early death. Windows 7 implemented a more performant variation, but I could still feel the hesitations for user level responses.
XP64 was the last awesome OS from Microsoft. It was utter and absolute heaven. I could look through the task manager and identify every single process and what it was doing. Many people found the 64 bit stuff difficult to deal with, so in their eyes, Windows 2000 was the last great OS rel
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9x was fine, but it just had no solid memory management one would expect today. If a program can crash the OS you have a problem. I think since XP things were fine, but I hated the default theme. I didn't use much Vista but didn't get the hate for it either. Then 7 came and was fine. With 8 Microsoft failed at convergence between mobile and desktop systems. And for 10 I guess they had a few good kernel improvements, but they ruined the UI and added a lot of telemetry crap and other hard to disable anti-feat
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I still use Windows 7 but with a suite like Libreoffice, with how long its been out, how many changes need to be made? The new versions are not all that different from the Staroffice or Openoffice that came before it. At some point is the software "done" ? I'll be honest, I use Windows 7 and I don't update to the newest version
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XP64 had the problem that 64 bit was too new back then.
And was it Vista when signed kernel drivers started? I think that killed a lot of tinkering people were able to do before.
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If you upgrade a person's computer to Windows 10 then you risk that it is your fault that it is now slow and that you get a lot of annoying Windows support tasks.
I think you missed the point. It's not a matter of having a perfect system, it's a matter of you supporting it rather than him. Windows being ubiquitous means help comes from virtually anywhere. This is not good for you, you're the one now sitting next to the bloke, but the GP wiped his hands clean of the problem
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Totally get it, however, we're talking about Windows 7 + LibreOffice users here. Twenty years ago, installing GNU/Linux on someone's computer meant replacing the supported OS that everyone got with an unsupported one, and everyone got it, even people whose first experience with a mouse was to hold it in the air and point at the screen with it.
Things have... changed in the last 18 years. Computers have gone to crap. Normal users no longer know what a file is. Microsoft Office has changed its UI so learning i
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I prefer ChromeOS for that. I didn't bother setting up remote access because I get zero tech support queries after the first week, when people need a little help setting their basic preferences like how sensitive the mouse/touchpad is.
It's the only OS I've ever found that really does Just Work (TM). At most a reboot fixes any issues.
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I'm a professional. I won't touch your computer where it's bathing suit covers unless you are paying me.
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As opposed to ATFF (Ask The Fine Forums) when something in Windows breaks these days, which happens about every time Windows updates. Thanks, but I'll have RTFM over that any day of the week.
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No, the problem with "updated latest versions of LO" is that they cannot resist the temptation to change the UI, and I don't have time to deal with learning new pointless changes. Whatever new frobs they add, I don't need them.
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Don't worry, Microsoft has you covered. In a couple of months, Windows 10 will also be EOL. And there are millions of computers that could run Windows 7 or Windows 10 but can't run Windows 11.
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I'm guessing W10 IoT Edition has features missing. Will it run games? If all you need to run is LibreOffice, you don't need Windows in the first place.
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I don't think that's entirely accurate.
Win10 LTSB/LTSC still has telemetry same as normal editions, with the option to choose between "basic" and "full".
Like normal editions, LTSC (enterprise Win10) requires quite a bit of tweaking to minimise data collection, either through policy edits / regedit / task scheduler / etc.
Even then, to further minimise data being harvested by Microsoft, one needs PiHole or other firewall; but I've heard that Microsoft gets around that by transmitting directly to IP addresses.
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If you wouldn't have to add ... with an upgrade, your position would be interesting, but this way it reads "Of course you can update libreoffice, just switch to a completely new windows version after you bought two new components" ... I guess you have the money, but some people may not "just" upgrade a SSD and RAM.
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Of course you can update libreoffice, just switch to a completely different operating system?
Now don't get me wrong, I'm a linux guy through and through for 20+ years already. Doesn't mean I have to solve every problem with my favourite hammer.
There's more to the issue than just the money of the hardware. There's also the time the user has to put into learning the new os. And there's the time I have to put into figuring out their needs and setting everything up, and the time I need to put into teaching them
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Yeah and now look at the user. No money, no time, no expertise. What do they do? They stick to Windows 7 and an outdated libreoffice version.
And for most people this is reasonable. Software being insecure because of lacking updates is an abstract risk, buying an SSD a real cost and upgrading operation systems work they are not used to and requiring getting used to the changes in the new version. And is there a good reason not to support Windows 7 anymore? You can install an oldoldstable Debian and compile a
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The reason to not support windows 7, like any other outdated os, is that it takes time, work, and money that is hard to justify. Not just that you need code, build and test for it. You also need to support your users and explain to them that their problems are caused by not your software, but their old os, and they are still going to blame you anyway.
Yes you can install debian oldstable, but can you browse the web on it? You'll need a newer version of openssl, and your old software will not compile against
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So you tell people to just invest £50. Saying that's not much is a privileged perspective. I think most people here can say that, but that's just a sampling bias. In out there are *many* people for which £50 is a lot of money they'd rather invest into something different than their PC.
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Re: So if current LibreOffice version works...NP (Score:2)
Most of the windows 7 era dells (finally being replaced due to win 11) at my work were limited to 4gb memory modules. But they also had 4 slots, so 16 gb fit no problem.
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It took me more than a solid week of work to upgrade one of my several identical machines from win 7 to win 10, because every normal attempt to do so failed in inscrutable ways. (The other machines are trivial by cloning the updated one, since they are identical.) What does win10 offer me that win 7 did not? Absolutely nothing, other than the ability to run programs that won't run on win 7, while breaking programs that used to run on win 7.
As for LO, I ditched it looong ago due to endless bugs and unwill
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I don't know you nor your computers, so I cannot comment much on your week-long troubles. Shit happens though, and sometimes it's you that has to eat it.
As to what can win10 offer you other than running programs that win7 cannot... I dunno about you, but for most, running programs is the purpose of an operating system. In that sense, win10 can only offer you.. everything that you would want from an operating system. Which of course you know already, because otherwise you would not have went through that wee
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On the plus side, haven't seen a computer yet that could run win7, but could not run win10 with an ssd and possibly ram upgrade.
That's like saying "On the plus side, I haven't seen a person yet that could get a common cold but could not also get herpes".
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So if current LibreOffice version works
LibreOffice is far from perfect and still has plenty of bugs in it that get addressed and improvements with every release. It would be pretty painful to be stuck knowing none of the problems get fixed.
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Two options, not two choices (Score:1, Troll)
Two options, you fool. One choice.
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Two options, you fool. One choice.
If you choose to be a condescending pedant, you might wish to do some research first: https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com].
The second definition from that link reads: "power of choosing : OPTION : you have no choice". So a choice is also an "option", and the word "choice" was used correctly by GP.
Yes, I'm aware that the usage in question raises the awkward prospect of "choosing a choice". That's English for you - awkward mutations 'r' us. It invites pedantry even as it lays traps for pedants. (Please excuse m
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>Two options
Actually, there are lots of options. Here is my list:
1) Continue to use that last LibreOffice version for the platform, just like you have continued to use an old/unsupported OS.
2) Upgrade your MS-Windows OS, (if that is even possible on such old hardware)
3) Switch to Linux, which is far more likely to work on ancient hardware (depending on distro).
4) Buy a new laptop/desktop computer and use whatever current OS you want to tie your wagon to.
5) Stop using computers and go hide under a rock.
I
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2) Upgrade your MS-Windows OS, (if that is even possible on such old hardware)
I've got Windows 10 running on my wife's 2006 Thinkpad T60 with a Core 2 Duo CPU. Upgraded the RAM to 16GB and put in a 2.5" SSD. It boots to a usable desktop in 30 seconds tops. Other than video playback on Youtube being a bit shit above 720p due to using Intel onboard graphics it does everything just fine for typical web browsing, listening to Spotify, editing documents and she even runs an old version of Photoshop and Coreldraw on it too for making signs as she's a signwriter.
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6) Run latest LibreOffice in a linux VM in Windows 7.
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There are actually lots of options:
- Keep using the current version
- Switch to OpenOffice, which at the time of writing supports Windows XP: https://www.openoffice.org/dev... [openoffice.org] LibreOffice is a fork of the latter, and now OO is owned by the Apache Foundation the original justification for LO is obsolete.
- Switch to Windows 10
- Switch to a GNU/Linux based OS. I recommend Debian with the Mint desktop, you may need someone to handhold you for the initial set up but once it's set up you'll never want to go back.
-
Re: Two options, not two choices (Score:2)
Complaining about Microsoft is part of my culturak heritage and you can never take that away from me!
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It might make sense if these 2 choices choices were quantum superposition states. But Win7/8 don't run on general-purpose quantum computers, which don't exist yet, and may never exist.
"There is no workaround" (Score:1)
Okay, just narating to an "IT-Crowd"!
It's just a check in the fckn! sourcecode, the API usage is still the very same!
And btw. a message to some "turds" letting it still install and run,
does not carry any need for "active" support, nor effort just to block any bugfix request stating Windows 7/8
These offensive actions of retro-OSes are a fckn disgrace!
Just let them be!
Performance improvement of calc with big files (Score:5, Informative)
It has been mentioned here that LO calc is not currently usable as a replacement for MS Excel in particular due to being very slow on big files.
Apparently this problem is being addressed. Multiple changelog entries report great performance improvements in opening or rendering files with lots of conditional formatting/graphical objects/custom formatting/comments https://wiki.documentfoundatio... [documentfoundation.org]
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But for the many of us who don't use massive Excel files with lots of complex stuff, LO Calc is fine.
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It's not just Excel files, it's massive files in general. A lot of engineers use Excel for handling CSV files, and Calc isn't a great replacement for that. It chugs quite badly on large but simple (no conditional stuff) data sets. Graphing is particularly bad.
I'm looking forward to these improvements.
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This is mystifying to me. Excel is terrible at handling large volumes of data (sure LO is even worse, I can very well believe that). I have repeatedly encountered engineers and scientists struggling with Excel who will not learn another package.
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Excel isn't great, but LO is far, far worse.
I use an old tool called KST for graphing. A lot of the little utilities I wrote create the metadata files to graph CSVs in KST.
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My personal experience with charts for long sets of data: Excel starts going slow after I cross the magic 16K lines threshold - LO Calc basically becomes unusable when I cross the magic 10K lines threshold. Delete few hundred lines - and performance is back. Put them back - and the slowness (Excel)/the unusableness (LO Calc) is back.
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I mean for many people just running notepad and using a desktop calculator is fine too, that doesn't change the underlying problem for others.
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I'm super glad to read this, because I have mentioned it a bunch of times because Calc has failed me in relation to large complicated files a bunch of times. That's the last thing I still use Excel for and I can flush my Mickeysoft Office-hosting VM if this is addressed. (I can go ahead and suffer with the non-live pivot tables, since I don't use them often, although I do hope they implement live ones eventually.)
Waiting for the time when... (Score:2)
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That may happen sooner than you think.
Why maintain a 'native' Windows experience past the date when and if the *nix version runs seamlessly in Windows 11 under WSL.
At which point the installer on Windows becomes simply a minimal Linux distro to bootstrap LibreOffice.
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Most likely MS will slam the door on Office running on Windows well before Libreoffice does. And that is unlikely to happen for a very long time.
... or stay stuck on outdated software (Score:2)
Anyone stubbornly clinging to Windows 7 or 8 now has two choices: upgrade or stay stuck on outdated software.
I may not have a PhD in thinky stuff, but someone running Windows7 is on outdated software even if their word processor is current.
"Grocery store in the arctic goes out of business. Residents now have two choices: move or live in harsh conditions."
Upgrade? (Score:1)
I go years between updating LibreOffice as I never see any difference.
Re:Upgrade? (Score:5, Informative)
It's great you don't see any difference, it means they managed to maintain consistency. The improvements are subtle. This time, a lot of work is related to the hyphenation and word spacing algorithm. It shouldn't be visible for you except if you need pixel to pixel compatibility with MS Office. The very very long version is https://numbertext.org/typogra... [numbertext.org]
Nothing in the release notes https://wiki.documentfoundatio... [documentfoundation.org] and announcement https://blog.documentfoundatio... [documentfoundation.org] explains the reason for the deprecation. Which makes me guess is a resource question. LO is free to use, has no ads, does not include telemetry nor resell user data, so it has no revenue stream. Any revenue for Collabora (the main sponsor) comes from any corporate contract for their cloud offer, and none of their customers have any use for of a build for Windows 7.
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I would be less concerned about feature updates and more concerned that being "stuck" on a deprecated version would be the end of any future security updates.
Re: Upgrade? (Score:2)
Also, OpenOffice supports back to Windows XP, so you could just switch to that version instead of the libre fork
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So what? (Score:5, Informative)
>"If you are still running Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1, this is the end of the road. LibreOffice will not run on those systems anymore, and there are no workarounds."
Um, the current version will still run on ancient MS-Windows machines (which have less than 5% of MS-Windows desktops). It just won't be newer versions. There is no license that will expire. No servers or cloud crud that will stop you from using it. Talk about an over-the-top headline.
>"LibreOffice has made it clear that it will not carry dead platforms any further. [...] if your computer is too old to run modern systems, LibreOffice is walking away."
No, LibreOffice has made nothing of the sort clear and no such statements. This wasn't an ideological move, it was a technical one. For example, they are moving to 64 bit builds only. MS-Windows 10 is soon to be a "dead platform" and there is nothing that indicates they will drop it, like so many commercial systems have already indicated.
Meanwhile, Firefox stopped new versions for 7/8/8.1 at version 115 and will stop updating that old version at the end of the year or so https://support.mozilla.org/en... [mozilla.org] Chrome dropped support for those over two and a half years ago.
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"LibreOffice has made it clear that it will not carry dead platforms any further. [...] if your computer is too old to run modern systems, LibreOffice is walking away."
No, LibreOffice has made nothing of the sort clear and no such statements.
So only computers are allowed to do inference now?
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No, LibreOffice has made nothing of the sort clear and no such statements. This wasn't an ideological move, it was a technical one. For example, they are moving to 64 bit builds only.
What technical one would that be? Windows 7 is also 64-bit. "For example" fails to provide relevant evidence to support your assertion. LibreOffice is part of a switch to Linux desktop campaign https://endof10.org/ [endof10.org] which is very much ideological in nature.
Meanwhile, Firefox stopped new versions for 7/8/8.1 at version 115 and will stop updating that old version at the end of the year or so https://support.mozilla.org/en [mozilla.org]... Chrome dropped support for those over two and a half years ago.
Not only is this irrelevant to LibreOffice your own link doesn't even say what you assert it does. It says nothing about stopping updating.
"Mozilla will provide security updates for Firefox 115 ESR until at least 115.27.0esr in August 2025, when the p
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>"What technical one would that be? Windows 7 is also 64-bit. "For example" fails to provide relevant evidence to support your assertion."
It is another target to have to compile, test, debug, etc. That represents a drain on their limited resources. Also, old libraries and bugs in an ancient OS require work-arounds.
>"LibreOffice is part of a switch to Linux desktop campaign https://endof10.org/ [endof10.org] which is very much ideological in nature."
Yes, that is ideological based on freedom and openness. Not base
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It just won't be newer versions.
If it were perfect then that would be fine. Unfortunately every edition of LibreOffice still very much improves, better performance, bug fixes, etc. If we were talking about an end product that is just re-arranging deck chairs I'd be with you, but I don't want to be in a situation where the current LibreOffice is as good as it gets.
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>"If it were perfect then that would be fine."
No project as huge and complicated as LibreOffice will ever be perfect. Even setting aside that one person's definition of perfect can be very different from another's.
>"I don't want to be in a situation where the current LibreOffice is as good as it gets."
Well, you shouldn't have to. I doubt you are someone that is going to continue to use an ancient/obsolete OS on your machines. Security concerns alone would be shocking, meaning such a machine should
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Maybe perfect is the wrong word. Simply requiring it not to shit itself doing certain tasks would be a good start. I was too strong. It's not that Libre Office isn't perfect, it's that it is FAR FAR from perfect, so far from perfect that every so often I'm forced to reboot into Windows and fire up Word or Excel.
It keeps getting better. But I don't consider the current setup to be "production ready" - maybe that's a better word than perfect. I simply expect not to need to revert to Microsoft every so often.
Well, you shouldn't have to. I doubt you are someone that is going to continue to use an ancient/obsolete OS on your machines.
W
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>"It keeps getting better. But I don't consider the current setup to be "production ready" - maybe that's a better word than perfect. I simply expect not to need to revert to Microsoft every so often."
At work I have hundreds of users running Linux + LibreOffice daily. So for us, it has been production-ready for many years (OpenOffice prior to that, StarOffice prior to that... we have been into it for quite a long time). It is not without some quirks, but that can be said for most software I have ever s
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I can at least understand people wanting longer support for things they paid for. In Libreoffice's case they should ask for a refund.
There is also a case for key software like Windows 10 continuing to work simply because of the environmental impact of sending so many machines to landfill. Equally though it could be argued that there has been a general failure by the tech industry and open source community to offer a viable alternative for that hardware. Not a very good argument perhaps, but I suppose what I
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>"I can at least understand people wanting longer support for things they paid for. In Libreoffice's case they should ask for a refund."
Yeah, really. The amount of entitlement by people is sometimes a bit surprising.
>"Equally though it could be argued that there has been a general failure by the tech industry and open source community to offer a viable alternative for that hardware. "
Well, there is a viable alternative for older hardware, especially for home, and it is Linux (like Mint). Any OS upgr
Windows 8? Seek help. (Score:2, Insightful)
If anyone's still running Windows 8 at this late date, please seek professional help. There is no need for you to continue to suffer like this.
If for no other reason than any number of Linux distributions can run readily and well on that same hardware, and we know you're not tethered to needing Microsoft Word around.
Re:Windows 8? Seek help. (Score:5, Interesting)
I 99% agree with you, and I have moved on (Except for a VM) but Windows 8 is the first version of Windows with the Desktop Duplication API, and the last version to not have telemetry ship with the OS. If someone is still running a game that won't function on Linux due to Windows-only kernel DRM, there is at least some logic to using Windows 8 if it supports their hardware.
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and the last version to not have telemetry ship with the OS
The fuck you talking about? Windows 7 has OS level telemetry as well unless you've not applied even the updates that were available to it. Are you suggesting running ... the first build of Windows 8? I feel like you were in a coma during that period of history. That OS was barely functional, buggy to the point of borderline un-usability. It would be 8.1 before that epic dinosaur turd of an OS would stop self-destructing for completely unknown reasons, and by that point it had all the telemetry patches as we
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and the last version to not have telemetry ship with the OS
The fuck you talking about? Windows 7 has OS level telemetry as well unless you've not applied even the updates that were available to it.
Oh good, you can read. Not very well, but enough to work with.
Are you suggesting running ... the first build of Windows 8?
I give to you: remove_crw.cmd [github.com]. Are you new?
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Oh if you want to fuck around with custom scrips just install Windows 11 and do the same thing. No need to be a complete masochist and than back out when the dominatrix shows up.
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Oh if you want to fuck around with custom scrips just install Windows 11 and do the same thing. No need to be a complete masochist and than back out when the dominatrix shows up.
There are other things wrong with Windows 11, but most importantly for this conversation, the telemetry isn't added by updates so you can't remove it so trivially.
I have windows 7, 8, 10, and 11 in VMs and bring them up on a non-routed network. I then mostly ruin this by allowing them access to the web via a proxy, but I can turn that off if I wish. I scarcely ever use any of them, but that's OK, I have plenty of disk space.
If I were running Windows on the metal, it would be Windows 10 LTSC, and I would be
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Updating my Windows 8.1 bootcamp partition just to run my EPROM burner is more suffering than it's worth.
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The last time I check there was a considerable amount of software applications that ran on (pick a version) of MSWindows, but did not run on Linux. (And conversely, of course.) This can make switching difficult for some users. I was once stuck on Mac OS 7.?, because I needed an application that wouldn't work on any later version.
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Support for Windows 8.1 ended in January 2023. Not all that long ago.
My Linux distro is probably as old as that.
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If anyone's still running Windows at this late date, please seek professional help. There is no need for you to continue to suffer like this.
FTFY.
If I was in charge of LibreOffice (Score:3)
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They did ACS
https://thehackernews.com/2015... [thehackernews.com]
Theres also Xenix ..
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They need to develop a regular desktop workstation Linux distro if Microsoft wants to remain relevant, Win_11 seems to be so severely enshitified that a lot of users are switching to Linux and some to MacOS, or is Microsoft going to make another blunder like when they missed the boat in the smartphone market?
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MSFT is unlikely to do that (but they might), their idea of relevance is getting the user to rent their computer in the cloud, they're just waiting for tablets/phones to get to the point where that's ideal for them.
Windows 10 and 11 are just stopgaps until they get there.
I always felt that MSFT didn't give a moment's thought to the loss of revenue through serial key sharing, as they wanted revenue from Office, but charging for Windows by the month, or other software like Photoshop (bulk of revenue going to
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If you create software, and you want people to use your software, you have to meet them where they are. That means that you support the operating systems that people actually use, even if that OS isn't the one you *wish* were king of the hill.
If you are trying to make a philosophical point with your software, then you should only support the operating systems that you agree with philosophically. You'll have a much smaller user base, but you get to pick what you think is important.
Most software makers look a
If you can't use windows 10 (Score:2)
If you can't use win10 but have to use latest libre office then Linux systems would be the best strategy. Libre office has a good compatibility record so it's unlikely the reason would be compatibility, unless with ms office I suppose.
No funny? (Score:2)
But not really a complaint. Not a great target for humor as stories go. This time I just peeked because I had to install it recently and I was annoyed at how large it has become...
Too bad the alternatives seem more evil or insufficiently functional?
32-bit support? (Score:2)
Are there really more people running 32-bit Windows 10 than running Windows 7 and 8?
Why does anyone run 32-bit Windows 10?
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To play Civilization II ?
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To play Civilization II ?
32-bit apps generally run on 64-bit Windows 10. Is there something special about Civilization II ?
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It's 16-bit AFAIK.
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That's interesting.
I have a 16-bit Windows application that I have been running on WINE because the last Windows version that ran it was NT.
I see claims on Google that 16-bit apps run under 32-bit Windows and may be supported on 64-bit, with some tweaks, but I am skeptical.
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16-bit windows applications run on any 32-bit Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/7/8/10 in the general case. But to run them on 64-bit Windows, 3-rd party software is needed, like various hacked NTVDM versions.
However, some 16-bit programs exist that only run under a specific Windows version, due to direct hardware access, or other tricks.
Re: 32-bit support? (Score:2)
To keep applications from using more than 2GB of RAM. It makes it possible to get by on a system with only 6GB installed. (PAE36 means your 32-bit kernel can still see more than 4GB of address space)