After the initial happiness on reading about the new graphic rendering method in Windows, I’ve just turned sad again due to some bad issues.
Here are some cases you may want to check and subscribe:
SmallSystem font size 0 is rendered like System 0
<https://xojo.com/issue/46151>
Graphics.DrawPicture fails on Windows with 2016r4
<https://xojo.com/issue/46152>
Windows font drawing use different font baseline
<https://xojo.com/issue/46153>
Xojo 2016r4 flickers more on Windows and slowner on drawing
<https://xojo.com/issue/46155>
I add:
Trasparency is not respected in drawing commands (except when you draw a picture where it is respected)
<https://xojo.com/issue/46285>
With Xojo 2017r1 I still see basically no improvements on this:
Xojo 2016r4 flickers more on Windows and slowner on drawing
<https://xojo.com/issue/46155>
which has now renamed as
Trying to draw a picture in the background of a Listbox flickers on Windows
but without a good reason due the problem I have for everything, including Canvas.
Now this is really problematic for us, due we have to still use 2016r3, so no 64bit, no IDE improvements (i.e. working back button), etc. 
Why not providing the Direct2D drawing as an option as it was for GDI+ and as it was done for the printing in 2017r1, as stated in the release notes?
Since 2015, every new version of Xojo has launched with ‘great new feature’
Immediately followed by a slew of posts - ‘but its unusable due to x,y,z’
As a result I haven’t upgraded since 2015.
Im worried that the longer this goes on, the more impossible it may become to take my existing projects and get them to work with newer versions.
I hate to admit it, but right now, I’m not upgrading to a new version because:
Huge increase in size due to text features I didn’t need in Windows
DLL Hell returns - due to the extra Microsoft DLLs which are now required and hard to install reliably.
Direct2D breaks drawing.
Upgrading frankly sounds like a downgrade.
Is anyone using current Windows Xojo for release software?
@Jeff - yes, and actually works fine. Nearly all of the oddities that we find are specifically windows related - we develop on Mac and Win (same project file, edited alternately on the two OS depending on where we are), and ship to Win, Mac and Linux customers. My only show-stopped in the last year has been today, and even then it really just means that we still ship with 2016.4.1 compiled apps for a while…
I’m not so drastic about not being able to upgrade. We work and maintain a lot of (all related) applications for both Windows and Mac, currently 100+ and growing, and we always found workarounds for some new issues.
This time however, moving to 2017r1 would be really handy but at the same time is a painful step back on the Windows part, so not possible.
Thats what Im getting at.
On Mac, the new Xojo is fine.
Windows, though… compiled app will be double the size it used to be (I do not want to hear about how big drives have become… theres a reason why they are needed!) and graphics isn’t up to scratch.
I ought to add my stuff is all graphics work… if I needed a business app with a handful of text boxes, buttons, and a lot of database work it wouldnt be that much of an issue.