Are we sure Windows Vista is properly supported?
I wanted to play Hedgewars on an old PC with Windows Vista x64 but the newest game would not work any more. I got an error:
'This application failed to start because it could not find or load the Qt platform plugin "windows" in "".
Available platform plugins are windows.
Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.'
I tried installing version 0.9.25 again but it didn't work.
I read somewhere that installing different versions side-by-side wouldn't make a problem, so I started trying older versions:
Installing version 0.9.24.1 gave the same error.
But after installing 0.9.23 the game worked again.
Could it be that Qt changed something and it doesn't work with Vista any more?
Here I found someone else complaining about the same problem:
https://www.hedgewars.org/node/6907
But also without a solution.
On https://www.hedgewars.org/node/6923 it is said that Windows XP isn't supported any more. But how about Vista?
Actually, digging more into this myself, I may have found the answer.
It is only since version 0.9.24.1 that the installation has a subfolder named 'platforms' that contains a dll file: qwindows.dll. Version 0.9.23 does not have this.
That dll looks related to the Qt framework. I guess that this framework is in use or otherwise it has upgraded to a newer version of this framework since Hedgewars version 0.9.24.1.
On the Qt documentation website Windows Vista seems not listed as a supported platform:
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/supported-platforms.html
So, I am guessing that support for Vista has really been dropped, but the Hedgewars download page still reads: Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10 (in error).
So, what Qt currently supports shouldn't matter for hedgewars builds. Someone actually built a version of Hedgewars 0.9.25 with XP support, just because one of the Qt5 releases, the LTS one I believe, explicitly supported XP.
So really what matters is what versions of Windows were supported in the version of Qt that the windows binary exe installer that unc0rr packaged.
I thought Vista was on that list. Will have to ask him when he gets back from vacation.
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev
https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-5.6/supported-platforms.html
Qt version 5.6 still supports Vista.
https://doc.qt.io/archives/qt-5.7/supported-platforms.html
Qt version 5.7 does not support Vista any more.
Someone here : https://www.hedgewars.org/node/6906 suggested the support for Windows XP was dropped because the 0.9.24.1 package was build with Qt 5.10.
Looking at the properties of the qwindows.dll, it is version 5.10.1 at the moment.
I would say it was overlooked that support for Vista has been dropped too.
Qt version 5.6 is indicated to be "Supported until Mar. 16, 2019"
So I guess it makes sense not to build using this older framework version.
I might try to build it myself: https://www.hedgewars.org/kb/BuildingOnWindows.
Instructions are outdated, but trying couldn't hurt.
Will be looking at that later...
If you have any updated text for the building on windows instructions, feel free to post it
As for hedgewars itself, we're most certainly not targetting the latest Qt5 - if anything the extensive deprecation of stuff we were using made moving to Qt5 pretty painful (still relying on private header for the physfs)
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev
I just tried installing the Qt 5.6 framework, but this options is not available. Qt 5.9 is the oldest available version. That means it will be impossible for me to even try to build against this framework. The only solution I can think of is to stay with HW v0.9.23.
Someone did in fact compile Qt 5.6 for purposes of making an XP build.
Could maybe get them to offer a link to it on the forums. I believe it was Wohlstand. I'll ping him.
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Oh, what the heck. 1PLXzL1CBUD1kdEWqMrwNUfGrGiirV1WpH <= tip a hedgewars dev