Does DrRacket 8.7 start on Windows 7?

Internals
1

This github issue:

... suggests that Racket 8.7 does not start on Windows 7. Does anyone here have a test machine, or know of a trustworthy VPS provider that supports Windows 7 instances?

2

I found this thread but there's no answer

1 Like
3

I recetly acquired an old Windows laptop, but have not used it, and have no idea whether is it Windows 7 or some kind of windows 8. I haven't even booted it. Is there a safe way to fine out without risking it on the internet? It's likely not even slightly up-to-date. Does Windows 7 need to phone home?

-- hendrik

4

On my windows 7 laptop 8.6 cs , 8.7 cs, 8.6 BC and 8.7 BS cannot start up.

5

Many thanks for your detective work! How about earlier versions? Does 8.5 start up?

6

Yes 8.5 does work well.

1 Like
7

The issue appears to be with a rebuilt library starting version 8.6. Copying the .dll files form a v8.5 installation's lib directory to the lib directory of an v8.7 installation allows DrRacket to run on the Windows 7 installation that I tried.

The specific failure that I saw with a plain v8.7 installation was about ScriptIsComplex — probably as referenced by Pango, and the note about Windows 7 compatibility on ScriptIsComplex function (usp10.h) - Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn is probably relevant. I'll check whether adjusting Pango linking helps, but there may be other problems.

8

Changing the link order for libpangowin32-1.0-0.dll did the trick.

For someone who needs a quick repair, if you don't want to install an old version to get the old DLLs, here's the only DLL that needs to be replaced:

https://www.cs.utah.edu/~mflatt/tmp/libpangowin32-1.0-0.dll
(32-bit version: https://www.cs.utah.edu/~mflatt/tmp/32/libpangowin32-1.0-0.dll)