Deprecation, and future removal, of Windows 32-bit builds

I saw in the recent update notes that Windows 32-bit builds are going to be deprecated starting with 2024 R4.2, and will eventually be removed in a future update.

This is problematic. (a) Would have to move existing 32-bit applications to 64-bit builds and installations, along with any associated DLLs - and if THOSE are 32-bit only and come from outside sources, this won’t be possible at all. (b) Even without that potentially unresolvable problem, existing customers who are running Windows 10 32-bit won’t be able run Xojo 64-bit built applications and components. For those customers, this would be an unresolvable incompatibility.

This isn’t like the situation on the Mac, where there was historically no need (from 2007 onward) to build 32-bit applications, because all Intel Macs would transparently run either 32 or 64-bit applications. MacOS supported 32/64-bit as far back as 2007 with OSX 10.5 Leopard, running on the first Intel Core 2 Duo Macs from 2006.

There are still Windows 10 32-bit users in the world today who’d be unable to run Xojo applications once 32-bit build support is removed.

“Why” does this need to be removed?

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If you need to keep support for Win 10 32-bit you will have to keep a Xojo version that supports those builds.

EOL for Win 10 is drawing near Oct 2025

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I don’t think Windows EOL makes a real difference to the argument. Many people and businesses are still using 32 bit apps and 32bit OS’s.

While I have skin in this game, I do agree with OP’s position.

Tim

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I see the same from 2024r3 release notes:
https://documentation.xojo.com/resources/release_notes/2024r3.html

Usually the “why” is related to:

  • memory limits (only 4gb)
  • use of developer resources making sure 32-bit still works with new features
  • new features may only be 64-bit or only supported on a 64-bit OS

As said before, you should keep an eye on the last Xojo version that supports/includes 32-bit and use that to support 32-bit users. I don’t think Xojo has said which version will remove 32-bit. It could be next one or in a few months/years.

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@Tim_Seyfarth

Exactly why I made the suggestion of keeping a Xojo installation after 32-bit removal
Sure there are companies and business that are/will be using older OS’s and 32-bit , and if you want to support that you will have to use older version of Xojo when the time comes.

Of course an operating systems EOL has everything to do with it. If Microsoft is not supporting a operating system and especially 32-bit builds in newer OS’s, cannot expect Xojo to keep supporting them.

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How many clients do you have with 32bit applications?

How many of them need new versions in the next years?

I would expect Xojo carries 32bit as deprecated a few more years and then it disappears as nobody cares anymore.

@Christian_Schmitz
I would expect Win 32bit deprecation to be available in Xojo also for another couple of years.

I can only say that in my industry sector I’m working there are a lot of machines with Windows XP used to control and interface with machines and needs vertical solutions. I also don’t like actual file organization of Xojo’s 64bit windows app’s.
Instead of removing it from Xojo simply don’t give anymore support for it but invest more resources for Windows platform.

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And don’t forget that you can buy Windows 10 extended Update Support for at least 3 years.

There are a bunch of PCs for special industrial and medical uses still relying on windows xp and 10, especially when used with special controllers or drivers.

And if i’m correct TWAIN drivers are 32-bit only.

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… it is no problem at all to use an earlier version of Xojo for development on such systems.

IMHO: It makes perfect sense to get rid of old ballast if it is not needed by the majority of developers, as long as you can continue to use earlier versions of the development environment without any restrictions.

I really don’t see any problem there…

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But then you eventually come to a state where newest Xojo releases offer better/more functionality and supporting current systems and legacy ones would require to share the project between two IDE versions. Without the older IDE handling the project file properly, that’s barely doable.

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Xojo for Windows has now many problems that would be a shame not having new fixes available also for 32 bits versions

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I am developing a Xojo Web project that runs on Windows and relies heavily on 32-bit DLLs. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of Xojo Web I definitely would not be comfortable remaining permanently locked in an old version of Xojo. Lack of access to security fixes alone would scare me off the platform and that doesn’t even touch the growing feature set.

I suppose we can only hope that 32-bit support is deprecated the way API 1 is deprecated, that is to say it’s not encouraged but still remains implemented. I don’t want to run my business on blind hope though.

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Does this mean that Xojo would remove previous versions of Xojo that support Windows 32 Bit, or just stop supporting and updating new versions?

Could we just download and keep the old versions or download down the road if needed?

This.

They don’t update archived (old) versions.

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Having worked in IT for the manufacturing and medical fields, I really hope they don’t remove 32-bit building for quite some time as these industries (and others) are extraordinarily resistant to change. That said, deprecated means that 32-bit compilation will still be available, it just won’t be worked on. It may work and it may not. Personally, I’d always keep a version of Xojo installed just for compiling those projects.

I personally stopped building and distributing 32-bit builds of my software a few years ago and only did a maintenance 32-bit build on one application at the end of 2023 for a customer that specifically asked for it. If I relied on some plugin or other part that required 32-bit support, I’d be looking to update that code anyway just for future proofing.

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Old versions are always available for download, but they are never modified or updated. Which is the right approach; modifying old versions would be a mugs game.

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Having slept on this, and also reading all of the replies (thanks!), some other thoughts.

Nothing changes my thinking in my original post - Windows 32-bit compilation being removed will be more than just a minor annoyance.

Yes, I can keep 2 versions of Xojo around, one for building MacOS and the other for building Windows. But there are some serious inconveniences and other issues with doing this. (I’m building both Mac and Windows versions from the Mac only, never from the Windows IDE, and cross-debug onto Windows when necessary).

Instead of being able to do a single build for both platforms, with the same project loaded (and the same with debugging) in whatever Xojo version ID is the “standard” you’re using (maybe the most current, maybe not, depending on other factors), you’d need to quit one IDE and launch the other and reload everything. (I’m not thinking it’s realistic to keep 2 versions of the IDE running and hooked into the same source files just to do this, due to the memory footprint and other considerations). So this is, at best, awkward and time consuming.

Then, you’re building product(s) with different revs of the language itself, with Windows builds behind held back to the last 32-bit-buildingn rev, and Mac builds moving onward. This introduces more potential chaos and uncertainty in your code, development, and debugging because now “both things” are never going to be really the same. Taking advantage of new language features added in Xojo revs that don’t support building 32-bit Windows? You wouldn’t want to do this. There are already enough potential platform-specific conditionally compiled things you may need in your code, to take into account platform differences, even if a single rev of Xojo is being used to build both platforms. Having Windows x86 builds frozen at a certain rev of the IDE and language makes that even worse.

As others have noted, Windows 32-bit continues to be used and is not going away any time soon, regardless of Microsoft plowing on ahead slowly with Windows 11 (64-bit only, but of course fully capable of running x86 software) and eventually deprecating their own support for 32-bit. This doesn’t affect the universe of 32-bit installations still in use, in any kind of short or medium term timeframe.

As I said, moving software builds to 64-bit only, even in the case of “this is easy, I’ll just rebuild my target for 64 bit and it’ll just work”, is problematic, since those 64-bit builds are then fully incompatible with the sub-universe of Windows 32-bit systems still in existence. You can’t make a 64-bit build that could be used by all of your customers, without requiring THEM to be running 64-bit Windows. (on older systems, physically not possible; even on newer systems, they may have simply installed Windows 10 32-bit and there’s no way to simply update those systems to 64-bit, and even if there was, other factors may prevent them from doing that). And that’s the “easy” case where there aren’t any issues rebuilding your own software other than a simple recompile to a 64-bit target. If you have 32-bit non-Xojo components of your own (either homegrown or from other outside sources), you’re either out of luck (the latter) or potentially in for a lot of additional work and testing (the former).

Then there are Windows installers and related issues. InstallShield, for example, doesn’t let you make a single installer for both 32 and 64-bit software. You end up with even more complications; maybe you want to still build 32-bit for older systems and 64-bit for the rest, that support it. Then, you’re left with not only building from 2 different Xojo IDEs, but creating 2 separate installers, each for a different flavor of the Windows product).

There are 2 simple solutions to all of this, from a developer perspective.

  • Xojo keeps Windows 32-bit compilation around. Developer happy.

  • Xojo fully removes Windows 32-bit compilation in a future rev. Developer unhappy. Developer either has to “never” move up to later versions of Xojo, and stays stuck at the last rev to support Windows 32-bit; or has to figure out the best way to deal with all of the repercussions above, none of which are ideal in any way.

TLDR: ARGH.

This is a meaningless argument. We still have a couple Windows NT 4 and 2000 machines we keep alive because they run specialized software for which there is no modern equivalent and never will be.

We are running Win 10 on most of our workstations at the office that run it because they also run specialized software and I am not interested in spending all my days chasing OS, driver, and software updates. We have a business to run and we need the software to work when we expect it to. We don’t run Windows Updates, and we don’t use those machines on the internet. They are frozen in time, and they do what they were designed to do, day in and day out.

Lots of people don’t care if things go EOL because of these reasons, and I don’t think it’s a good argument for forcing people to upgrade if not necessry.

I have the same concerns as the original post, because there are a couple apps I’ve built for internal use on third party libraries for which there likely won’t be updates to 64bit any time soon.

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@Perry_Paolantonio
not an argument just the truth.

YES I know many have older systems in use, been there

Still doesn’t change facts.

Submit a new request asking Xojo to keep it, email Xojo asking to keep it

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