1322646 - Bump subsystem version to 6.01 to block Firefox from running on Windows XP/2003/Vista

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox Build System :: General, defect)

Description

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

to unblock some bugs that will break WinXP.

Comment 1

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Attachment: Bug 1322646 - Bump subsystem version to 6.01 to block Firefox from running on Windows XP/2003/Vista.

Review commit: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/97848/diff/#index_header
See other reviews: https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/97848/

Comment 2

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Note: crashtest failures are unrelated to this bug (see bug 1319318).

Comment 3

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Also, MozReview claims 3 failures from excluded jobs due to bug 1321953.

Comment 4

[Vangelis]

 With utmost respect, why can you not let Nightly-53.0a1 die a dignified death under Vista SP2? 
For starters, VistaSP2 != WinXP, but rather VistaSP2 ~ Win7; you may have already modified 
"firefox-53.0a1.en-US.win32.installer.exe" so as to not install on Vista (last one that does is 
for BuildID=20161122030216), but I'll have you know that every single "zip" version since then 
has been running flawlessly on VistaSP2; here's a shot from latest one at the time of posting: 

http://i.imgur.com/4TEK8OX.jpg

I realise that further down the 53.0a1 cycle you may introduce code that is truly 
incompatible with Vista (e.g. one that makes API calls to functions not present in the 
Vista kernel, or some other type of incompatibility), but then it would be death by 
natural causes; artificially disabling Fx-53.0a1 beforehand, denying it the ability 
to even try to run, is not "killing" Vista support, but "murdering" it before its time...

I bet you if you set subsystem version to 6.00 you'll be able to "unblock your bugs 
that will break WinXP", but at the same time allow advanced users/testers on Vista to 
enjoy Nightly for (much?) longer... 
And despite all that's been posted already, I still can't grasp the reason XP and Vista 
were put together on the same sinking ship :-(

Comment 5

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

AFAIK no official decision has been made with regards to dropping XP support. While I appreciate the eagerness to code these patches so they are ready for when we do, given the velocity of changes to the build system lately (especially configure), I think it's best to hold off reviewing them.

Comment 6

[Vangelis]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #5)
> AFAIK no official decision has been made with regards to dropping XP support.

Hello Gregory; AFAYK? Let me bring you up to speed: 

bug 1130266
bug 1303827
bug 1315083
bug 1310836
bug 1312085
bug 1315153
bug 1305453
bug 1317569
bug 1317716
bug 1317780
bug 1318025
bug 1318671
bug 1318920
bug 1318921
bug 1318922
bug 1319162
bug 1319164
bug 1319167

and possibly many more that I am not aware of :-( . What pains me the most is that even 
in this case, you (Mozilla Organization) had to ape Google Chrome in every single aspect 
and carry VistaSP2 along with XP; you do have a fancy name for that, too, it's called 
"chrome parity" !
I begin to sound as if I am ranting, I know better than that, so apologies...

Comment 7

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

pdol: can you please give guidance for build system support for various Windows versions? We need to know which versions of Windows we're expected to support in mozilla-central.

Comment 8

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #5)
> AFAIK no official decision has been made with regards to dropping XP
> support.

What is the definition of "official decision"? The system requirements page already says "From Firefox 53 planned for April 2017, Windows XP/Vista/Server 2008 are no longer supported."

Comment 9

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

I was looking for a mailing list or blog post outlining things. But from all the other linked bugs, it's apparent change is happening. I just need to know what support (if any) the build system needs to retain for XP. And pdol can answer that.

Comment 10

[Vangelis]

(In reply to Gregory Szorc [:gps] from comment #9)
> I was looking for a mailing list or blog post outlining things.

Please read

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform/W6pUpP_FbZY

Comment 11

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

The first post says "tentative" and https://chuttenblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/firefox-windows-xp-exit-plan/ says "pending approval." This language doesn't meet my standards for action to nuke all XP support from the build system. I have a trust anchor in bsmedberg and he says to ask pdol. So that's what I've done.

Comment 12

[Peter Dolanjski [:pdol]]

Sorry for the lack of an official answer (just waiting on a blog post to be published).
The answer is that XP/Vista users will definitively be moved to ESR52 and will be supported until September, 2017 at a minimum on that branch.

Comment 13

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

So the build system does not have to support XP/Vista at all on mozilla-central (currently 53). Let's move forward.

Comment 14

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

If other parts of Firefox/Gecko are explicitly dropping compatibility with XP/Vista, then it makes no sense for the build system to retain support for XP/Vista. If this assumption about others parts of Firefox/Gecko is true, then my opinion as build module owner is we should remove all build system code related to supporting XP/Vista.

Comment 15

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

I'm going to add changes to drop compatibility. But many of them require build system changes (bug 1317569 and 1318025, for example). And :glandium said we should not add such changes until at least this bug is fixed. Circular dependence :(

Comment 16

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

Bug 1324183 has landed (that is, dom/media, a part of Firefox/Gecko explicitly dropped the compatibility with XP/Vista). Already one person complained about that Nightly broke on an anyway-unsupported platform (see bug 1324183 comment #15). We should not pretend to passively "support" XP/Vista any longer.

Comment 17

[Mike Hommey [:glandium]]

Comment on attachment 8817625 [details]
Bug 1322646 - Bump subsystem version to 6.01 to block Firefox from running on Windows XP/2003/Vista.

https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/97848/#review100558

Comment 18

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/b354f4a88fe1
Bump subsystem version to 6.01 to block Firefox from running on Windows XP/2003/Vista. r=glandium

Comment 19

[Carsten Book [:Tomcat]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/b354f4a88fe1

Comment 20

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Masatoshi, what is the user experience when a Windows XP or Vista user tries to run a firefox.exe build with subsystem version 6.01?

Comment 21

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

(In reply to Chris Peterson [:cpeterson] from comment #20)
> Masatoshi, what is the user experience when a Windows XP or Vista user tries
> to run a firefox.exe build with subsystem version 6.01?

A message box will be shown with the following message:
"<C:\path\to\exe>\firefox.exe is not a valid Win32 application."
(<C:\path\to\exe> is an install location.)

Comment 22

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Will this impact machines that are running Firefox in compatibility mode? If so, do we know how many users on supported machines have compatibility mode enabled and have it set to a now unsupported Windows version?

FWIW, when I deployed a Firefox update hotfix extensions ~2.5 years ago, 0.7% of users had compatibility mode enabled (https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/firefox-dev/2014-July/001997.html). Unfortunately, I'm not sure which Windows versions(s) those were set to or if the data is still around or valid.

It /might/ be worth conducting a metrics experiment to see how many Windows 7+ users may inadvertently lose Firefox access if this commit locks out compatibility mode users.

needinfo bsmedberg so he's aware of the potential issue. (Someone please cancel it if this change doesn't impact compatibility mode.)

Comment 23

[Masatoshi Kimura [:emk]]

No, compatibility mode does not affect Windows loader. I verified the latest Nightly run with compatibility mode enabled on Windows 7 and Windows 10.