Windows 2000 support broken

[historic_bruno]

Currently, the game doesn't run on Windows 2000 due to using the ​SList API, which is only available on XP+, in our Windows POSIX emulation (see waio.cpp​). The reported error is:

The procedure entry point InterlockedFlushSList could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.DLL

Of course there may be other problems even if that is fixed (any libraries built with VC++ 2010 probably won't work, for instance). So we should decide if we can fix that, or remove all references to Win 2000 as one of the game's supported OSes.

[Jan Wassenberg]

Using other libraries for lock-free lists is possible (try ​http://mintomic.github.io/lock-free/), but I am very curious who still uses or cares about Win2k? Seems like other features/functionality would be far more important.

[historic_bruno]

Replying to jan:

I am very curious who still uses or cares about Win2k?

I really don't, for one thing supporting it is kind of an obstacle to using newer compilers for the autobuilder. And since there haven't been any reports of it not working in the last 3 years, while it couldn't have even started as explained above, maybe it's safe to assume nobody cares? (at least not enough to tell us about it)

Usually I like to support as old hardware and OSes as possible; I've been stuck using old systems before, and it's extremely annoying when software no longer works on them. In this case, it may be time to stop pretending we care about Win 2000 support :)

[Jan Wassenberg]

Agreed. It's annoying when fairly recent stuff breaks, but Win2k is now 14 years old. More than OK to draw the line there :)

[historic_bruno]

Ok, at least this is documented, I will remove references to Win2K support and close this ticket.