3.5 install fails poorly on Windows XP

[pwatsonphsorg]

BPO	25143
Nosy	@pfmoore, @larryhastings, @tjguk, @zware, @zooba

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/zooba'
closed_at = <Date 2015-10-11.23:43:12.856>
created_at = <Date 2015-09-16.16:18:06.663>
labels = ['type-bug', 'expert-installation', 'OS-windows']
title = '3.5 install fails poorly on Windows XP'
updated_at = <Date 2015-10-11.23:43:12.855>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/pwatsonphsorg'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2015-10-11.23:43:12.855>
actor = 'steve.dower'
assignee = 'steve.dower'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2015-10-11.23:43:12.856>
closer = 'steve.dower'
components = ['Installation', 'Windows']
creation = <Date 2015-09-16.16:18:06.663>
creator = 'pwatson@phs.org'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 25143
keywords = []
message_count = 8.0
messages = ['250852', '250853', '250861', '250921', '251376', '251442', '252830', '252831']
nosy_count = 9.0
nosy_names = ['paul.moore', 'larry', 'tim.golden', 'python-dev', 'zach.ware', 'steve.dower', 'djoudi', 'pwatson@phs.org', 'UlFie']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'fixed'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue25143'
versions = ['Python 3.5', 'Python 3.6']

[pwatsonphsorg]

Running the installer on an unsupported system (such as Windows XP)should fail gracefully and not just leave the user hanging.

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2015-September/696789.html

[pwatsonphsorg]

Installing on an unsupported platform should fail gracefully.

https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2015-September/696789.html

[djoudi]

The Python installer could check what operating system the user is trying to install python on and if it's not supported then, information him, and maybe redirect him to the correct python version.

[UlFie]

Even better: Clearly (and ASAP!) document on download page that 3.4.3 is the last version usable in XP! This avoids useless downloads and a lot of confusion as clicking somewhere in the erroneously white area above the Cancel' button in the 3.5.0 installer window will get the installation running (see mailing list thread quoted), only to experience error messages like python.exe is not a valid win32 application' (translated from what I get in German, exact wording in English might be different) when trying to run the interpreter. That message is not helpful at all, either! Actually, searching the web for that message yields various suggestions how to fix the problem (useless here), taking me two days before I finally found the thread on the mailing list. :-( :-(

[zooba]

I don't have any XP machines handy, but I'll see if I can at least get an early termination from the installer rather than broken UI.

IIRC, Larry was against having prominent warnings about unsupported platforms on the download page, but with python.org being the official source of Windows binaries and XP still having an overly large market share, maybe it needs to be there? (Though it probably won't ever be prominent *enough*, and we'll still have people miss it.)

[tjguk]

I'd just bail as early as poss. from the installer. If it's possible to
detect Windows versions, stick something like "The last version to
support WinXP is 3.4". If that's too tricky, perhaps something "Your
system may be unsupported. Please try an earlier version of Python"

[python-dev]

New changeset 2316bc881eea by Steve Dower in branch '3.5':
Issue bpo-25143: Improves installer error messages for unsupported platforms.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2316bc881eea

New changeset 2c384ba13fdd by Steve Dower in branch 'default':
Issue bpo-25143: Improves installer error messages for unsupported platforms.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/2c384ba13fdd

[zooba]

Still need to validate the fix on WinXP, as I'm not 100% certain that enough UI will appear to show the user the error, but we will now bail right at the start and link to either help pages for installing updates (for Vista/7) or Python 3.4 (for pre-Vista).