Sunsetting Studio support for Windows 7 and 8.1

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I’m sorry, but am I the only individual running Windows 11 who has had no issues with it? The only way I’ve crashed my desktop is by doing some unnecessarily intense ML model training on the CPU by accident (oops, got CUDA working with my 4060 really quick there). I say this as a person who has ran every major version of Windows from 7 up. I have also used Linux (specifically Ubuntu) and WSL.

Why is everyone moaning and complaining about the “horrible performance” of Windows 11? Performance is fine (great, even). I see no advertisements or bloatware issues that bother me. I have not had to use any 3rd-party devices or software to remove Microsoft software.

I think we need to keep in mind that systems that run Windows 7 are, on average, going to be older than systems running Windows 10 and Windows 11, and perhaps that’s why performance tanks so much in comparsion to 11? How many of these individuals have even tried Windows 11? Just a thought - seeing a lot of frankly unwarranted slander of the Windows line here is all

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@IxGamerXL

I get that you need to make updating Roblox easier, not having to worry about older OS versions, but there still exists a small portion of people who either cannot feasibly upgrade or won’t upgrade because later OS versions impede on their privacy, some of which are contributing to your platform.

You can fix this whole predicament of excluding people with old hardware by introducing Linux as an officially supported platform. It’s usable by almost any hardware and is guaranteed to be light compared to other systems, making it perfect for Roblox. On top of it all you’d keep any profits you would’ve lost by cutting off older versions of Windows, since most of those people would just go to Linux.

This argument is neglecting desktop share. Linux accounts for less than 5% of the market share of desktop operating systems. Windows accounts for 73% of it, of which less than 3% of users run Windows 7 and Windows 8.

Now that we’ve established that less than 8% of the entire desktop share runs either Linux or Windows 7/8, please explain why it’s in ROBLOX’s best interest to push significant resources and manpower towards supporting and/or continuing support of these operating systems. This isn’t even accounting for people who would want to run ROBLOX on these systems; if that were the case, I bet this number would be less than 1%, which gives ROBLOX even less of a reason to pursue supporting these systems.

[knightmb1 (KnightMB)]

@Negativize

please explain why it’s in ROBLOX’s best interest to push significant resources and manpower towards supporting and/or continuing support of these operating systems.

We don’t have any evidence that it takes “significant resources and manpower” to support the older OS. That’s not how that works anyway. When supporting an older OS, that doesn’t mean you re-write your game engine every release, it means the compiling libraries that you use need to be about to function under Win7, Win8, Win10, Win11, etc. The issue comes when you want to use some new feature under Win11 that won’t work under Win7. Normally (in my experience), you simply build a compatibility layer where, if the new feature is not vital, it is simply ignored in the older versions.

Highlights are a good example. How many years did they NOT function on mobile? It won’t break your game, but might be necessary for some game-play aspects that developers at the time would work-around with using fill colors or game arrows for mobile players.

The same can be said for Win7 to Win11 differences. I don’t think any “core” game-play mechanics breaks just because one user is on Win7 and the other is on Win11, but more than likely with Microsoft kicking Win7 to the curb, those compiling libraries are no longer going to be updated and thus Roblox is going to hit a wall in the near future when there is no way to get identical game-play across the older OS versions.

As I said in other post, I don’t blame Roblox for this, I feel it’s more being forced by Microsoft. They ended compiling support in 2020 for Win7 and thus Roblox has probably hit a wall somewhere for compatibility that Microsoft will NOT assist in helping to resolve. Coders do not like to throw away code for the heck of it. Even removing old code can be a chore because it might break something somewhere you didn’t think about.

[Visuile]

Why is everyone moaning and complaining about the “horrible performance” of Windows 11? Performance is fine (great, even).

You’re running a computer with the top latest hardware, which allows the developers at Microsoft to skip the “optimization” part of programming, because your thousand dollar flagship GPU and other hardware has well than enough firepower to shred through poorly coded React!

I see no advertisements or bloatware issues that bother me. I have not had to use any 3rd-party devices or software to remove Microsoft software.

Not sure if it’s how you made your sentence, but this doesn’t help your point at all. Looks like to me, you’re implying:

I’m not bothered by any advertisements I see on my system
I’m not bothered by any bloatware issues on my system
As a result, I haven’t needed to use any tools that specialize in removing these advertisements or attempt to cull these bloatware issues

How many of these individuals have even tried Windows 11?

Most of us can’t because of Microsoft’s hardware requirements. You can bypass it initially with Rufus, but as of recent, you can’t update to the latest release or else your entire install will be crippled (or even bricked) because they decided to implement something meant for TPM 3.0, putting you back at the start; using an outdated and “”“”“insecure”“”“” operating system.

Assume everyone here “upgrades” to Windows 10, at the very least. Support for that operating system ends in 2025! All of that effort spent upgrading from a sane operating system to that mess for nothing because every single software company follows Microsoft to a whim, apparently. I’d rather run an outdated OS that serves my needs instead of an outdated OS that doesn’t.

[DiferentGear (Zerdayeqqq)]

roblox studio used to run fine on linux until they dont work anymore since roblox dont like wine

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You’re running a computer with the top latest hardware, which allows the developers at Microsoft to skip the “optimization” part of programming, because your thousand dollar flagship GPU and other hardware has well than enough firepower to shred through poorly coded React!

Modern software does not require intense optimization for the sake of supporting older architectures and hardware that do not have sufficient power to run it. Businesses are not going to invest more and more resources into diminishing returns from optimization in an age where the average consumer will not notice it. I bought my desktop computer for performance, and I haven’t had to worry about performance. I’d rather not need to worry about the optimization as an end user, because that’s not my job!

Microsoft isn’t the only company that has sub-optimal programming. I’m willing to wager the majority of companies that develop software do not optimize to the largest possible extent.

Not sure if it’s how you made your sentence, but this doesn’t help your point at all. Looks like to me, you’re implying:
I’m not bothered by any advertisements I see on my system
I’m not bothered by any bloatware issues on my system
As a result, I haven’t needed to use any tools that specialize in removing these advertisements or attempt to cull these bloatware issues

My sentence was meant to imply that I literally have never seen advertisements nor have I noticed any “bloatware” on my machine (clean install of Windows 11, btw). The common consensus around debloating, at least from what I can tell, is that it is a useless endeavor on any relatively recent machine with a clean install of Windows. The majority of what people consider “bloat” on a modern Windows OS are links to installers, not applications themselves. Any non-uninstall method of removing “bloat” that requires you to a) run third-party applications or b) do something like edit the registry is going to come with its own risks for the average Windows user.

Most of us can’t because of Microsoft’s hardware requirements.

Mm, I agree that Microsoft’s hardware requirements are sketchy to say the least, but to knock a product’s performance and user experience without experiencing it does seem a bit silly to me. I believe Windows 10 and 11 have garnered a lot of hate w.r.t performance and user experience from people who do not use either OS for whatever reason, and that is okay, but I think that at least needs to be kept in perspective.

Assume everyone here “upgrades” to Windows 10, at the very least. Support for that operating system ends in 2025!

I’d rather run an outdated OS that serves my needs instead of an outdated OS that doesn’t.

Windows 10 debuted in 2015, and Windows 11 in 2021. Windows 7 and 8.1 users have had almost ten years to upgrade or obtain a device that can handle it. I’m not saying Windows 10 and 11 are perfect (because they are far from) but knowingly not upgrading your computer to a newer OS or newer hardware then complaining about a lack of compatibility when your device approaches obsolescence, planned or unplanned, is absurd. Running an outdated machine with outdated hardware runs whatever risk associated with that lack of compatibility, and ROBLOX’s refusal to continue support for Windows 7 and 8.1 catching this many people unawares is a direct consequence of that.

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We don’t have any evidence that it takes “significant resources and manpower” to support the older OS. That’s not how that works anyway. When supporting an older OS, that doesn’t mean you re-write your game engine every release, it means the compiling libraries that you use need to be about to function under Win7, Win8, Win10, Win11, etc. The issue comes when you want to use some new feature under Win11 that won’t work under Win7. Normally (in my experience), you simply build a compatibility layer where, if the new feature is not vital, it is simply ignored in the older versions.

This was mainly targeted towards support for Linux rather than the Windows series - should have been less vague about that - and I’m aware a total rewrite per OS isn’t required for all of this stuff (I never said it was anyways!), but the issues arises when these “compatibility” layers are built for an increasing number of operating systems. Clearly to ROBLOX, it’s in their best interest for whatever reason (again, probably financial or technical) to discontinue support rather than pursue compatibility for a minority userbase. We should not pretend like supporting multiple operating systems for a product is not at least a somewhat intense undertaking, at least w.r.t parity, functionality, etc… I feel like it’s at least somewhat reasonable that this would take some effort on ROBLOX’s part to accomplish.

As I said in other post, I don’t blame Roblox for this, I feel it’s more being forced by Microsoft. They ended compiling support in 2020 for Win7 and thus Roblox has probably hit a wall somewhere for compatibility that Microsoft will NOT assist in helping to resolve.

This is clearly a Microsoft move and ROBLOX is just rolling with the punches here, but I feel like people do not understand that Microsoft does not owe ROBLOX nor anyone else help with maintaining compatibility once Windows 7 (or any other product) is EOS. There is only so much infrastructure a team can support at one time period, no matter its size or scope, and the culling of older infrastructure is unfortunately sometimes the only way to progress.

Coders do not like to throw away code for the heck of it. Even removing old code can be a chore because it might break something somewhere you didn’t think about.

I’m aware there’s a reason I don’t like refactoring my old projects!