Last Rust version supporting Windows 7 is 1.77.2 — any chance of future support?"

[dzdzdzd123]

Hi, thanks for maintaining Rust and the toolchain!

I noticed that the last version of Rust that still runs on Windows 7 is 1.77.2. Later versions seem to have issues or crash due to Windows 7 being officially unsupported.

I'm wondering: is there any plan or possibility to reintroduce Windows 7 support in future versions?

I understand that Microsoft has ended support for Windows 7, but some legacy systems still rely on it.

Any clarification would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance!


[zachs18]

There are separate targets for continuing Windows 7 support (i686-win7-windows-msvc and x86_64-win7-windows-msvc, and -gnu), that are at the Tier 3 level (i.e. no official support or prebuilt artifacts, but the code is there and someone is named as a maintainer for it). (platform support docs for the -msvc targets, and for the -gnu ones)

(I definitely have no authority over any such decisions, but) I don't think it is likely that these targets will reach a higher tier (though this may change if there is significant interest in maintaining them), or that the existing Tier 1 Windows targets will re-add Windows 7 support in the future.

[jieyouxu]

These Windows 7 targets are mostly likely going to always remain in Tier 3 status at most. Infra wise, there are no free runners available for windows 7 targets, and it seems extremely unlikely for there to be investment for paid runners given how fringe the market share of Windows 7 is. Furthermore, even the OS vendor themselves dropped support for Windows 7.

After 10 years, security updates and technical support for Windows 7 ended on January 14, 2020. We know change can be difficult, but we’re here to help you take the next steps with ease.

Having to account for Windows 7 quirks in compiler/standard library/tools at any higher "support level" is also a lot of maintenance burden.

For the Tier 1 Windows targets (be it -gnu or -msvc), not supporting Windows 7 is a feature not a bug, because they may then assume a much more recent baseline (e.g. which system APIs may be assumed available, which problems that they need or need not account for).

For more context, you might be interested in rust-lang/compiler-team#651 which dropped Windows 7/8 support for more rationale.

[jieyouxu]

TL;DR:

is there any plan or possibility to reintroduce Windows 7 support in future versions?

Not beyond Tier 3, and those Tier 3 Windows 7 targets are maintained by interested target maintainers.

[dzdzdzd123]

There are separate targets for continuing Windows 7 support ( and , and ), that are at the Tier 3 level (i.e. no official support or prebuilt artifacts, but the code is there and someone is named as a maintainer for it). (platform support docs for the -msvc targets, and for the -gnu onesi686-win7-windows-msvc``x86_64-win7-windows-msvc``-gnu)

(I definitely have no authority over any such decisions, but) I don't think it is likely that these targets will reach a higher tier (though this may change if there is significant interest in maintaining them), or that the existing Tier 1 Windows targets will re-add Windows 7 support in the future.

That is to say, even if I use the latest version of Rust and combine it with x86_64-win7-windows-msvc, can it still support Win7 as well as Rust 1.77.2 after packaging? Even better than 1.77.2 supporting Win7?

[ChrisDenton]

It could be made tier 2 without host tools (I.e. you have to run rustc from a newer OS but the binary will work on win7).

However, for it to be made tier 2 we need to have enough maintainers and at least one of those maintainers need to start the process of promoting to tier 2 by filling out a Major Change Proposal (MCP) describing how it fulfills the tier 2 requirements. https://doc.rust-lang.org/rustc/target-tier-policy.html#tier-2-target-policy

[workingjubilee]

That is to say, even if I use the latest version of Rust and combine it with x86_64-win7-windows-msvc, can it still support Win7 as well as Rust 1.77.2 after packaging? Even better than 1.77.2 supporting Win7?

Yes, the support should still be adequate in that case. The Windows 7 support is somewhat "frozen in time" but most of the Rust language's implementation has moved on, so for the parts that don't relate directly to system APIs, they will have improved.

[workingjubilee]

This thread is mostly reiterating these two pages:

• https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/target-tier-policy.html
• https://doc.rust-lang.org/nightly/rustc/platform-support.html#tier-3

So I will close it, as it seems to have served its purpose.

[Fenex]

I built Rust 1.90.0 with host tools for Windows 7. Toolchain binaries (1.90.0-x86_64-win7-windows-msvc) can be downloaded here: https://github.com/Fenex/rust-win7/releases/

[jack6th]

Rust 1.90.0 with host tools for Windows 7 is 64 bit.
Please provide a 32 bit version.

Go has go-legacy-win7. It can compile every go source on Windows 7 32 bit OS.
Rust cannot compile source which need compiler version above 1.77.2 on Windows 7 32 bit OS.
User need another machine to compile the source for Windows 7 32 bit OS.
And then copy the executable file back to the Windows 7 32 bit machine.
It is too inconvenient.
i686-win7-windows-msvc target should be supported on Windows 7 32 bit OS.