523268 - Allocate a Windows XP VM, for tier-2 (unit test) monitoring

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Release Engineering :: General, defect)

Description

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

+/- same as bug 488847, but on WinXP.

{
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

Desktop Operating Systems	Date of General Availability	Direct OEM and Retail License Availability (end date)	System Builder License Availability (end date)

Windows XP Professional	December 31, 2001	June 30, 2008	January 31, 2009


http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?p1=3223&LN=en-us

Products Released	General Availability Date	Mainstream Support Retired	Extended Support Retired	Service Pack Retired	Notes

Windows XP Professional	12/31/2001	4/14/2009	4/8/2014	8/30/2005
}

Hopefully, it's not too late (and easier) to do this one,
especially as we have talos winxp boxes.

(Fwiw, I was reminded of this by recent reference platform moved to Windows 7 SDK, bug 515545 comment 14 and other cases.)

Mike, do you agree?

Comment 1

[John Ford [:jhford] CET/CEST Berlin Time]

We already do testing on Windows XP on Talos and our builds + unit test jobs on Win2K3 which is very similar to Windows XP.  Are you asking for duplicate infrastructure or is this something that we can worry about when we stop using Win2K3 and Windows XP in our main production pool?

Comment 2

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

It wouldn't be an exact duplicated infrastructure:

*one box should be able to do all (FF, SM, TB, ...) m-1.9.x trees.
 (More boxes if wanted/needed.)
*unit tests on WinXP don't exist, afaik.
*'Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK' builds don't exist, afaik.
*I'm used to VC 8 Express, but maybe that box should use VC 7.1.

The point is to add minimal coverage of the lowest/oldest configurations.

This would also be a kind of workaround for the missing Win2K box ... which apparently we worried about too late...

That's said: I'm just making a suggestion.

Comment 3

[John Ford [:jhford] CET/CEST Berlin Time]

I don't know how much value there is in continuing to test the build process on outdated platforms, but we are going to be running unit tests on Windows XP when bug 463262 is resolved.  The plan right now is to have nightly unit test runs on the older platforms.

In any case, we wouldn't be rebuilding for these builds for older OSes, as that wouldn't catch errors in shipped products that are run on old platforms.

Comment 4

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(In reply to comment #3)

> I don't know how much value there is in continuing to test the build process on
> outdated platforms,

VC 7.1 and 2003 SDK are still officially supported by
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Developer_Guide/Build_Instructions/Windows_Prerequisites
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Windows_SDK_versions

I believe there would be a (small but actual) value in having at least one box building with them.
Such a box could be a slightly modified Win2K3 ref image if that's easier...

> but we are going to be running unit tests on Windows XP
> when bug 463262 is resolved.

That will solve the test part of this bug :-)

Comment 5

[Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie)]

(In reply to Serge Gautherie (:sgautherie) from comment #4)

> VC 7.1 and 2003 SDK are still officially supported by

Bug 610936 requires SP1 of VC8 EE to build.
Bug 699385 removed support for pre-Windows 7 SDKs.

> > but we are going to be running unit tests on Windows XP
> > when bug 463262 is resolved.

This is now done, on Firefox.

V.WontFix