Just run the game under your current Windows version and see what happens. Either it works flawlessly (great!), it glitches (not so great), or it fails and gives you an error message, which usually provides more clarity on which exact Windows version it needs.

Or better still, run it on Linux with Wine or Proton, since that often has better support for older Windows games than modern versions of Windows do. 🙂

It's because half the time, the people producing the software don't even realize - they just use Visual Studio's default target which uses a windows 10 SDK, making the output program incompatible with anything earlier.

Check the release date of the game or software (version) and see which versions of Windows were still supported by Microsoft at that time. Unless specifically stated, assume it only works on those versions.

It sucks, but I think the reason is many devs don't maintain or have access to historical versions of Windows, and can only guarantee it works on the version they have.

The underlying problem is Microsoft doesn't really care about backwards compatibily, and regularly (temporarily) break older software, or no longer support older development stacks.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2025-04-23, 07:47:

Just do not understand a new game or source port that works well with a 15 year old mediocre computer, but somehow needs Windows 10, even if it has a 32bit executable.8 and not everybody is using Windows 10/11.

Often this is because of dependencies, some library requires the latest windows version and not the game's code or compiler.

Developers are often called lazy and incompetent for requiring the latest hardware and software for a game that was possible on ancient hardware, commonly by people who almost managed to write a bugged calculator in a uni class at best, but the reality is a bit different. Unless you explicitly target old platforms, it makes sense for today's software to run on today's computers without re-inventing the wheel. So I think it's correct practice to use the latest, more secure and more likely to continue working in the future version of the library you need.

That said, of course there is plenty of bad code and practices. I just wanted to make the point that it's not always the case when the requirements seem excessive.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2025-04-23, 07:47:

But at least if even Windows 7 64bit is not acceptable runtime, inform it in your home page. Nobody owns Windows 8 and not everybody is using Windows 10/11.

Microsoft ended Windows 7 support five years ago, and Windows 10 has been out for a decade. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that if someone is running a modern-ish computer, it's most likely on Windows 10 or 11.

I wouldn't hold it against software publishers for not spelling this out.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-04-23, 13:25:

Cyberdyne wrote on 2025-04-23, 07:47:

But at least if even Windows 7 64bit is not acceptable runtime, inform it in your home page. Nobody owns Windows 8 and not everybody is using Windows 10/11.

Microsoft ended Windows 7 support five years ago, and Windows 10 has been out for a decade. It's perfectly reasonable to assume that if someone is running a modern-ish computer, it's most likely on Windows 10 or 11.

I wouldn't hold it against software publishers for not spelling this out.

True, but it would still make sense to state the minimum version required.

They can also have the program do a check at startup for the Windows version and if below the required version, it gives a popup stating the minimum version required.

That is a super simple check and it is really annoying running programs and it crashing with a useless error or just not doing anything at all or it running and nothing comes up and it has to be killed through task manager.

Not catching errors is poor programming practice and a blatant bug IMO.

The Win7 regressioning started to happen from 2019 with new kernel path functions, same old tactic to kill XP and 98/ME.

"but win11 is literally free" is a horrible excuse. There's also some classism at play in all of this as well.

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-04-23, 14:25:

They can also have the program do a check at startup for the Windows version and if below the required version, it gives a popup stating the minimum version required.

That is a super simple check and it is really annoying running programs and it crashing with a useless error or just not doing anything at all or it running and nothing comes up and it has to be killed through task manager.

Not catching errors is poor programming practice and a blatant bug IMO.

It's not that simple at all. Most of the time, trying to run a program designed for a later version of windows results in unresolved imports which means the program doesn't even get to begin execution. Working around this requires a significant amount of effort to resolve the imported functions at execution-time rather than load-time.

jmarsh wrote on 2025-04-23, 15:23:

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-04-23, 14:25:

They can also have the program do a check at startup for the Windows version and if below the required version, it gives a popup stating the minimum version required.

That is a super simple check and it is really annoying running programs and it crashing with a useless error or just not doing anything at all or it running and nothing comes up and it has to be killed through task manager.

Not catching errors is poor programming practice and a blatant bug IMO.

It's not that simple at all. Most of the time, trying to run a program designed for a later version of windows results in unresolved imports which means the program doesn't even get to begin execution. Working around this requires a significant amount of effort to resolve the imported functions at execution-time rather than load-time.

So you have a launcher executable that doesn't require anything special. Super simple to set that up.

Just do a version check. If it passes, it launches the actual program. If not, then it pops up the message about version requirements.

It could even be done with a simple batch file:

ver is the command.

All you have to do is compare against the required version.

Yes, pretending that "Windows" is one single thing, or even being unaware that it is not a single thing, is quite lame. It's also pretty lame when games are listed (eg. on wikipedia) as having been released for "PC" or "Windows" when said games were only released on the Steam DRM platform.

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-04-23, 15:53:

Just do a version check. If it passes, it launches the actual program. If not, then it pops up the message about version requirements.

This is actually not good at all. Devs routinely include checks like this, and also get it wrong. The program can run on an unsanctioned version, but only after the check is defeated. I can't tell you how many times I had to fool with a disassembler to find out why a thing was refusing to run so I could trick it into running.

Devs mostly don't understand dependencies very well. That's part of the reason that dependency hell exists.

posted from Windows 2000 on a Ryzen 3500X 😀

jmarsh wrote on 2025-04-23, 08:14:

It's because half the time, the people producing the software don't even realize - they just use Visual Studio's default target which uses a windows 10 SDK, making the output program incompatible with anything earlier.

that's it - a standard build will package in stuff that isn't really needed for the applications stated functionality but becomes dependent on Win 10/11 nevertheless

in other cases it might be done deliberately just to be within a currently supported win version, just as a way to avoid having to respond or debug anything on an 'old' windows

>acquire rights to DOS game
>bundle with DOSBox
>list on Steam
>set system requirements to "Windows 11, i7-12700 or better, 32GB RAM, RTX 2080 or better"

bakemono wrote on 2025-04-23, 19:12:

Yes, pretending that "Windows" is one single thing, or even being unaware that it is not a single thing, is quite lame. It's als […]
Show full quote

Yes, pretending that "Windows" is one single thing, or even being unaware that it is not a single thing, is quite lame. It's also pretty lame when games are listed (eg. on wikipedia) as having been released for "PC" or "Windows" when said games were only released on the Steam DRM platform.

cyclone3d wrote on 2025-04-23, 15:53:

Just do a version check. If it passes, it launches the actual program. If not, then it pops up the message about version requirements.

This is actually not good at all. Devs routinely include checks like this, and also get it wrong. The program can run on an unsanctioned version, but only after the check is defeated. I can't tell you how many times I had to fool with a disassembler to find out why a thing was refusing to run so I could trick it into running.

Devs mostly don't understand dependencies very well. That's part of the reason that dependency hell exists.

posted from Windows 2000 on a Ryzen 3500X 😀

Well then those devs need to actually learn the tools they are using or they need to not be allowed to write code ever again.

As someone who programs / has a BS in Software Engineering, this angers me greatly.

Had a "dev" where I work come to the IT department because their code would no longer compile. The error message being given by Visual Studio was that a certain SDK was missing.

When I told them it was missing an SDK, this "dev"'s response was: "What is an SDK?"

Agggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

My theory regarding the above remark, they simply don't care, just have to have some job to get by.

I find the lack of minimum requirements highly unprofessional.
But given the actual events , I think it's not surprising. Things get quite anti-social, anyway.
For example, there are people who take photographies of documents and send them via Whatsapp etc.
Let's imagine people in the 1970s or 1980s had taken snapshots of document papers via polaroid camera and then did submit them to offices, agencies etc.
Very immature, very unprofessional. IMHO. But even my family members are now down on that level. Makes me sad. 🙁

Out of curiosity, I looked up the latest Steam hardware survey results. According to that, only 0.11% of respondents are still using Windows 7. Vast majority of people are using Win 10 or 11.

On the one hand, it might not be much extra effort to list "requires Windows 10/11". On the other hand, this level of specification is only going to be relevant to people not using Win 10 or 11, which is such a small user base to begin with.

The problem is, I think, that people nolonger think ahead.
Windows 11 is now current, sure, but what about Windows in 10 years?
Windows used to have compatibility issues, there's even a "compatibility tab" to select the desired Windows version to emulate.
But if you don't know which Windows version the application was written for, it's of no big help.

Personally, I think that the rolling release philosophy is at fault here, at least in parts.
The nonsense of numbering Windows as 2xHyz, is no big help, either.
Because these sub versions can get their own updates within.
A 23H2 might get an important update that wasn't available in 24H1 etc.

Edit: macOS is a bit worse here, maybe. Applications refuse to run if the OS version is being too low.
That's because the minimum version is set into stone during compile time and many developers leave it at default (=the version the development computer uses).
That means that many applications could run on, say, 10.13 just fine in principle but demand macOS 15.4! 🙁
Funnily, though, Android applications do mention which OS version they require.

I am perfectly happy being among the 'linux user' demographic.

Proton / WINE with dxvk and a vulkan capable driver works 99% of the time, even on hardware that would refuse to run the game with windows.

This is especially true for weak-kneed hardware, like a repurposed chromebook, which are almost always cursed to forever languish under the intel iGPU. Under Linux, even an iGPU as old as CherryView (Brasswell era!) has a Vulkan capable driver, and can push pixels in DX10/DX11 modes under Proton. (Just not very speedily, or at high resolutions) 'in theory', you could force d3d12 modes with vkd3d as well, but... 'it displays pixels!' Is not the same thing as 'it's playable.' Dxvk d3d10 and d3d11 modes 'actually work'.

On windows, Intel just laughed and said 'No. We wont issue Vulkan capable iGPU drivers for something that old. DX9, and THAT'S IT.'

On linux with proton? Set graphics quality to 'potato' and you'll be good to go.

This concludes the obligatory linux fanbois endorsement.

we now return to the regulatory windows requirement ranting. 😁

^Linux. Wayland. Pulse Audio. Shudder! 🫨