Vips stopped working on Windows 7

[sergeevabc]

Aggrrhh! This has been happening since version 8.15.2.

Fortunately, Vips 8.15.1 still works fine.

$ ver
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]

$ vips --version
vips-8.15.1

I encountered this error in other projects and usually the solution involves changing the build script by lowering the minimum required OS version, Please do this, and I will be happy to test the binary.

[kleisauke]

Rust 1.76 raised the minimum supported Windows version to Windows 10, which I believe is the cause for this. See:
rust-lang/compiler-team#651

After that, they use WaitOnAddress and WakeByAddressSingle without delay load for the *-pc-windows-gnu* targets. While Rust does offer *-win7-windows-msvc targets, they only work when compiling with MSVC, not when cross-compiling as we do.

I'll see what I can do, but keep in mind that this is done on a best-effort basis (just like Windows XP - libvips/libvips#2292), as Windows 7 reached end-of-life 5 years ago. Additionally, Pango and GTK also requires Windows 10 now, see commits:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pango/-/commit/a8084420d0f03d47bbe670b3f08fd4ba7c340a4c
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/commit/b8d24d0259f4de255d687b5ffaed8e48378d61a1

[sergeevabc]

@kleisauke, I am not a developer myself, but you mentioned the keyword cross-compilation and this is what I found about Rust and Windows 7 cross-compilation.