Closed Bug 604967 Opened 14 years ago Closed 10 years ago

Decide what the minimum Windows x64 version Firefox will support.

Categories

(Firefox :: Installer, defect)

Product:
Firefox
Component:
Installer
Platform:
x86_64
Windows XP
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

()

Status:
RESOLVED FIXED

People

(Reporter: robert.strong.bugs, Assigned: benjamin)

References

Details

When x64 support was added to the installer it was decided to make the minimum Windows version Windows Vista. There have been a couple of discussions and bug reports asking to lower the minimum version and this bug is for finalizing the minimum version.
Hardware: x86 → x86_64
Tested in XP64--It does run, but plugins crash it.  Is this the case for the 64-bit builds in general?  If it's all the same, why not lower the min version to 5.2?
The Windows x64 builds are not ready for official release yet and the plan right now is that there won't be an official Windows x64 release for Firefox 4.0. Chances are the plugin crash is due to recent changes that landed last week.

As for the minimum required Windows version for Firefox x64 it hasn't been decided as of yet and the current minimum is based in part on what we are able to test with our automated test infrastructure.
Any chance to get the public release of Firefox x64 on Windows 2003 x64?
Please add to the installer the ability to support Windows XP x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64 as well (the similar platform).

I was unable to install Nightly x64 build on XP x64 in normal way yesterday: installer refused to work; however, I was able to copy the full set of unpacked files manually to Program Files\Firefox and then run Firefox Nightly 6.0a1 without any problems/crashes (I use only Adblock+ addon right now). Moreover, internal update of Nightly works well in my XP x64 too. Only thing I lost is the ability to use installer for repairing/uninstall Nightly, which is indeed ridiculous.
I've been running the 64-bit trunk builds on XP64 since I posted a comment here in October.  They've run great, plugins and all.  The only thing that doesn't work right is the Google Earth plugin.  Everything else works.  There's a version of Flash specifically for the 64-bit FF builds, but even the one labelled "32-bit" seems to run fine.
Blocks: 326137
Please support WinXP64
I think minimum should be Vista. XP 64-bit only had like 1% of XP's overall market to supporting a basically non-existent market doesn't make sense. And XP's overall market share is slowly dropping as W7 is rising.
(In reply to comment #8)
> I think minimum should be Vista. XP 64-bit only had like 1% of XP's overall
> market to supporting a basically non-existent market doesn't make sense. And
> XP's overall market share is slowly dropping as W7 is rising.

I cannot agree. For 32-bit Firefox the platform Windows 5.2 x64 is counted as supported, why it should be unsupported for 64-bit version? Please note that lifetime of Windows XP x64 and 2003 is until 2014, and after that time the drop of support will have sense, but not before. I could understand the situation if 64-bit FF would have some specific features which require at least platform 6.0 and cannot be implemented on 5.2, but in such case 32-bit FF should also have the same features and be unable to work on 32-bit 5.1 (=Windows XP). Because the dropping of Windows XP support is not counted actual right now, the advanced features (like taskbar integration) are yet optional.

I can understand another reason: probably, developers don't have enough amount of 5.2 x64 testing machines and don't want to officially support the platform which is hard for testing. However, the same situation should be for 32-bit Firefox: if nobody tests the releases especially on 5.2 x64, there is no reason to specifically restrict the installation on this platforms. Let 5.2 will be not officially supported in the meaning of deep testing, but not restricted, i.e. installer should warn users about non-tested OS but not terminate itself. Later, with the end of 32-bit XP support, the support of 5.2 x64 can also be dropped (even though this platform is much better than 5.1).
...also keep in mind that 5.2 is not just XP64, it is also Server 2003, which is equally if not more common than XP64.  And definitely still supported by MS.
32bit Firefox on XPx64, Server 2003 x64, etc would still be completely supported for as long as XP is, I'd imagine.

I think the start of win64 builds would be a great opportunity for leaner builds - without the extra code required for NT5.* support.
I would like to see the install restriction removed as I have been using Nightly since 9.0a on XP x64 (currently 10.0a). It runs just as well as on Win 7 x64 and the x64 plugins all work. Only problem at the moment (besides the install restriction) is the lack of x64 plugins (i.e. Adobe Reader, Quicktime, .NET, etc...).
Adding LegNeato... Christian, I wondered if we could get a decision on this bug? The main issue as I see it is that there are some differences between XP and Vista x64 and we don't have automated testing of XP x64.
We haven't even decided to support *any* version of win64 builds. Any decision making about particular support candidates is premature.
At one time it was decided that we should only support Win Vista and above due to only having automated tests on Win Vista so we have made at least one decision. Also, the decision at this time specifically refers to nightly builds and I think what ever decision is made we would want people running nightly builds with the OS's supported earlier rather than later.
I strongly agree with Robert. Firefox support for x64 Windows should be Vista and above only.

XP is 10 years old!! It's too old to be supported. And there is too much effort and costs to evolve with so old supported system.
I strongly disagree about age as a qualifier.  Check the numbers and please reconsider: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

Even if usage dropped off at 2% a month until next October, XP users may still outnumber Mac users.

The main reason I latched onto this bug was for XP64/2003 support.  According to several pages on Microsoft's site: "...[users of XP64] will continue to be eligible for support and receive updates until April 8, 2014."  I hardly call that an "unsupported" OS.

According to wikipedia, support for XP with SP3 ends on 4/8/14 as well.  Microsoft's own page leaves support and open question, since they state the date is 24 months from the SP release and they have not definitively stated that there will be no more service packs (although I'll concede that another SP for XP has near zero odds.) http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/?LN=en-us&x=12&y=12&C2=1173

In any case, it's an OS currently supported by Microsoft, it's creator, and it still (as of today) has nearly 40% of the market, according to most sources.

Maybe it'll be gone in a year.  But I doubt that it will be completely gone for a long time.  And it will probably still maintain a chunk of the market larger than Mac OS (which Moz supports!).

And exactly what evolution is limited by the OS?  Moz software is designed to be agnostic to platform, no?  What OS features does any Moz software use that is part of every OS but XP?

If the problem is a lack automated testing, shouldn't the solution be to create it?

If the argument against is that XP will evetually go the way of the Dodo...well that's poor, because it's true of all the current OSes.  Most so of Vista, which appears to be supported.  Vista will surely evaporate before XP or Mac usage.
Can you get a hold of numbers for XP x64? Thanks
...I'm not finding reliable numbers, but the number I do find are quite low, probably less than server 2003.  (Steam reports around a half percent +/- for each)  However, isn't the issue min version?  If one were to lower the min version, wouldn't xp64/2003 be included by default?  Or would you want to arbitrarily exclude it?
I'd say don't officially support XP/2003x64 but don't block installation either. Just allow third party development and support for it. Focus on 32bit support for XP/2003 and leave it at that. Warn the users that are using XPx64 that Mozilla doesnt offer support for the browser on their platform if installing an official firefox build.

The main reason I say this is that the additional manpower full support for XPx64 needs. Instead of having another platform to test for, the manpower could be used to focus on better functionality for 64-bit in Vista, 7, and Mac.
It's obvious - Windows XP *IS* dying.
January 2011 - 45.3%
January 2012 - 31.4%

And MOST of Windows XP IS 32 bit
64 bit version of Win XP are *VERY RARE*

So -> Vista, 7, 8, ...
Maybe Win 2003 (but who is using server to browse internet...?)
Windows XPx64 is built on the Windows 2003 platform (Version 5.2) and they share the same build numbers (Build 3790). Win XPx64 is essentially Windows 2003 workstation.
(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg  [:bsmedberg] from comment #14)
> We haven't even decided to support *any* version of win64 builds. Any
> decision making about particular support candidates is premature.

What is stopping official win64 releases?
Your guess is as good as mine. If you look at the history of the other bug here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558448 You can see that they originally had a Q1 2012 timeline on their whiteboard but for whatever reason, when that timeline passed, they decided to drop it when they were pressed for an update on it. If that means that there was specific discussion to drop 64-bit support as a release priority or if it just "accidentally" fell off the radar, I'm not privy to those internal conversations. I imagine that's why you're asking here since this is the development bug tracker?
(In reply to Alan K. from comment #24)
> I'm not privy to those internal conversations. 

Most of the discussion happened in the open, on the newsgroups (bugzilla is primarily for implementation work, rather than policy discussion):
* https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.planning/Mrba6hvl5-w/discussion
* https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.planning/aeTXSZ_WFAs/discussion
* https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mozilla.dev.planning/Giij-AZfUAM/discussion
From what I've heard Vista x64 is the minimum version that was decided on. I suppose in that case we could close this bug.
Flags: needinfo?(benjamin)
We are not going to support xp/64 or server2003/64.

I think for now, Vista/64 is ok, although if we find any bugs, we may decide to bump the minimum to win7/64 before release.

What happens if we attempt to install Firefox/64 on an older OS? Does it show a reasonable error message?
What happens if we attempt to launch Firefox/64 on an older OS? Does it show a reasonable error message?
Flags: needinfo?(benjamin) → needinfo?(robert.strong.bugs)
(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg  [:bsmedberg] from comment #27)
> We are not going to support xp/64 or server2003/64.
> 
> I think for now, Vista/64 is ok, although if we find any bugs, we may decide
> to bump the minimum to win7/64 before release.
> 
> What happens if we attempt to install Firefox/64 on an older OS? Does it
> show a reasonable error message?
Yes. This was added a long time ago and was ui+ by Firefox UX.

> What happens if we attempt to launch Firefox/64 on an older OS? Does it show
> a reasonable error message?
I've never seen code that checks versions on launch and iirc in the past we've only prevented installation.
Flags: needinfo?(robert.strong.bugs)
I would suggest that we preemptively bump it to Win7/64.  I don't think supporting Vista gets us much, and there were enough changes between Vista and 7 that we could reduce code paths by requiring 7+ (e.g. if on a 64-bit windows build, we should be able to assume certain APIs exist and similar).  Very few (none?) of our developers use Vista, and even Microsoft really wants it to die out quickly.
Blocks: 1093740
(In reply to Vladimir Vukicevic [:vlad] [:vladv] from comment #29)
> I would suggest that we preemptively bump it to Win7/64.  I don't think
> supporting Vista gets us much, and there were enough changes between Vista
> and 7 that we could reduce code paths by requiring 7+ (e.g. if on a 64-bit
> windows build, we should be able to assume certain APIs exist and similar). 
> Very few (none?) of our developers use Vista, and even Microsoft really
> wants it to die out quickly.

Adding chad and javaun in case I'm having a moment of stupidity (doubtful, when I'm agreeing with Vlad) but fwiw I concur.
No longer blocks: 1093740
ok, let's do that. Win7/64 it is!
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 10 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Blocks: 1093740
Blocks: 1093741
Hello,

I would like to understand what the motivation is to disable the installer from installing on anything other than Vista (And now I read you're upping that to 7)?

What's the point when the zipped archive will run fine on XP x64, and the limitation is artificial, since it is being implemented in the installer and not in Firefox itself?

All I'd have to do is find a way to modify [nsis].nsi to get around this limitation and re-pack it with the setup...

In which case please consider my request for the following:
On anything other than Win7 x64, make a warning that says something like "ATTENTION!  Firefox x64 Builds are only supported on Win7, continue at your own risk"...

If you could implement that, instead of forcing me to continue using Chrome (yuck!), I'd be very appreciative.  I just moved to WinXP x64 because of a new system build, and I'm looking for a way to take advantage of the 8GB RAM and the new quad-core CPU.

Thank you.
I am running the nightly since years on 2003 x64. It gets 3 updates a day, runs with addons like flash,vlc,java, and hundreds of tabs without crashing. Please don't stop it !
Yes, it runs just fine and dandy in XP x64.  I think I'll go on the Nullsoft forum to see if someone will help me bypass the routine you use in the Nullsoft Installer to prevent it from installing...
Blocks: 1094012
Blocks: 1094013
Blocks: 1094016
(In reply to Benjamin Smedberg  [:bsmedberg] from comment #27)
> What happens if we attempt to launch Firefox/64 on an older OS? Does it show
> a reasonable error message?

Optimistically, something about missing symbols in a dll. AFAIK, we don't make any efforts to show a nice message in that case, and it's already a possible issue when running on XP < SP2, or, let's be crazy, 2k, for that matter.
Sorry, missed bug 1093740.
Life cycle of Windows XP has ended as of April 8, 2014. It's no longer supported by anyone.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle
There is no point in supporting such old OS - it'll be a lot of additional work-arounding all of the features just to get them working properly on old unsupported OS

For Vista end date is April 11, 2017 - which makes it debatable if this OS should or shouldn't be supported. But I would stand for not supporting it anymore.

For all of You who don't want to switch to the Win7+ - go for Linux! :) (I'm not from Mozilla to be clear!)
There is x64 version too. And Linux use much less RAM and CPU power.
We're not saying it should be officially supported...  It already works perfectly.  We're just asking for the ability to install it.
(In reply to Mike Hommey [:glandium] from comment #36)
> Optimistically, something about missing symbols in a dll. AFAIK, we don't
> make any efforts to show a nice message in that case, and it's already a
> possible issue when running on XP < SP2, or, let's be crazy, 2k, for that
> matter.

Compatibility mode might be helping people here, there are also some system hacks that people use to get the 32-bit version running on 2k. Power users will find a way to do this, but we don't have to concern ourselves with that use case.

(In reply to mockingbird from comment #35)
> Yes, it runs just fine and dandy in XP x64.  I think I'll go on the Nullsoft
> forum to see if someone will help me bypass the routine you use in the
> Nullsoft Installer to prevent it from installing...

Please see comment 11, we will continue to support the 32-bit version of firefox on 64-bit versions of Windows XP SP2 and up for a while. The discussion here is about a new release of firefox that is 64-bit.
As a product support decision this is clear. Support for Windows XP is solely for existing users of Firefox, and new product lines like Firefox/64bit have no good reason to support obsolete operating systems and the compatibility requirements that would require.

Let's not continue the discussion about the merits or support cycle of vista/64 or winxp/64.
Assignee: nobody → benjamin
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