[Python-Dev] Windows XP, Python 3.5 and PEP 11

[Tim Golden]

On 17/06/2014 04:08, Zachary Ware wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 4:12 PM, Victor Stinner
> <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I would like to know if Python 3.5 will still support Windows XP or
>> not. Almost all flavors of Windows XP reached the end-of-life in
>> April, 2014 except "Windows XP Embedded". There is even an hack to use
>> Windows upgrades on the desktop flavor using the embedded flavor (by
>> changing a key in the registry). Extracts of the Wikipedia page:
>
> This was recently discussed in the "Moving Python 3.5 on Windows to a
> new compiler" thread, where Martin declared XP support to be ended
> [1].  I believe Tim Golden is the only resident Windows dev from whom
> I haven't seen at least implicit agreement that XP doesn't need
> further support, so I'd say our support for XP is well and truly dead
> :)
>
> In any case, surely anyone stuck with XP can be happy with Python 3.4.
> I'm perfectly fine with 3.2 on Win2k!
>

I think we're justified in dropping XP support, for all the reasons 
others have given. Like most people, I suppose, I'm support WinXP in 
various ways (including embedded) because "not supported" != "not 
working". But those are all running 2.x versions of Python.

It'll be good to be able stretch a little on the Windows API front 
without having to double-think about where a particular API came in.

TJG