Windows 7 compatibility excessive restriction

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

(Gets off eschwartz's lawn)

This despite that I'm one of the younger people around here.

Originally Posted by binaryhermit

You're not wrong, though. The proliferation of Chromium everywhere is... not good.

I almost wish they'd invent SiFoIP so I could remotely slap whoever thought electron was a good idea in the face. Repeatedly.

If you ever get around to inventing this yourself, I would appreciate it.

More generally, browsers just kind of suck. They're ingenious, finely crafted artisanal towers of bad ideas, and people invent more bad ideas because it sounds cool rather than because it's actually useful. Interesting reading:
https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/R...ess-scope.html

...

HTML in desktop apps doesn't have to be bad. Qt has QTextBrowser is "rich text" and turns HTML files into GUI displays for building your program. But it doesn't need a browser to do it, and by design it has only limited HTML support in order to simplify things. You can do amazing things with it.

calibre uses it for some things that formerly ran in webkit, because webengine cannot be used at all unless it's loaded at application startup, and loading it at application startup is SLOOOOOOOW so calibre only uses it when there's no other choice, in worker processes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps a suggestion that it's his time and if he wants to spend it continuing development of calibre rather than supporting an obsolete operating system, that's his choice. One that I suspect the majority of calibre users would support.

Speaking as a tech support person who finally got to stop supporting Windows 7 this summer, I am happy not to have to deal with the security issues in Windows 7 that will never be fixed, the software programs that users wanted to install that no longer listed Windows 7 as a supported OS, the devices where Windows 7 drivers were not available, etc. Yes, Windows 7 was a great OS in it's day. Unfortunately for some people, that day is in the past.

Yes, I realize that some people have older computers that do not support installing Windows 10. For them, calibre 3.48 exists and works quite well. So take a cup of concrete and stop whinging.

Plus, you can try 4.23 and if it works, stick with that under Windows 7 and if it doesn't work, Calibre 5 wouldn't either.

[JJ Johnson]

Since it looks I'll be using 4.23 for the foreseeable future, how can I clear the "Update found:" notification in the caliber window?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by JJ Johnson

Since it looks I'll be using 4.23 for the foreseeable future, how can I clear the "Update found:" notification in the caliber window?

You could install 5.x on a computer running Windows 10 and then copy the contents of the Calibre2 directory to your Calibre2 directory.

[JSWolf]

Another option would be to run from source. Then the block put in the installer will not be an issue with Windows 7.

[chaley]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Another option would be to run from source. Then the block put in the installer will not be an issue with Windows 7.

Won't work. Running from source requires a compatible calibre binary that supplies all the infrastructure.

[JJ Johnson]

Nah. If it's not supported, it's not supported. I'll just run 4.23. Whatever. It does what I need.

How do I clear the update notification?

[ownedbycats]

I was going to suggest using the Windows Firewall to block connections but then I realized that would also break the metadata downloads and probably other functions too. Hm.

[JJ Johnson]

I turned off the 'look for updates' setting. I suspect that it found the 5.0 update while it was still enabled, set a flag somewhere and it will keep displaying the notification until it can be reset.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JJ Johnson

Nah. If it's not supported, it's not supported. I'll just run 4.23. Whatever. It does what I need.

How do I clear the update notification?

Why not go to Preferences/Behavior and remove the checkmark from Notify when a new version is available?

[JJ Johnson]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Why not go to Preferences/Behavior and remove the checkmark from Notify when a new version is available?

Did that. It doesn't go away.

[kovidgoyal]

You can disable the update found popup notification, you cant disable the label in the bottom right saying an update is available.

[alee]

Originally Posted by Peter Blaise

Hey, Firefox and Opera work in Windows XP, Google Chrome brickwalling XP is whimsical.

The last version of Firefox that supports Windows XP is 52.9.0ESR, which is 2 years old, and the last version of Opera that supports Windows XP is 36, which is 4 years old. Opera dropped XP support when Chrome did, since they're using the Blink engine from Chromium. I think I read that newer versions of Firefox may work on XP if the CPU supports SSE2(?) instructions.

[Dyxan]

I was also shocked myself after tryging to upgrade from v4.18 to v5.0.1 when I got the threatening message which I could read nearly as:
"You been a bad boy will be now punished while refusing to upgrade to the newest spy-W10-system therefore you will not get any updates anymore !"
.... on my main NB running W7 -64bit.

So since I own several other NBs myself and on one of my non-production secondary NB i installed W10 already before just to see and test this piece of CRAP... (found out soon it is totaly uncomfortable to work on W10) and lately I converted the installation to W10 LTSC with openshell classic menue.. which makes W10 feel and work to 97% as the good old W7 for me....
So instead of complaining about the unclever decision of Kovid to banish and punish W7 users.. I installed latest calibre 5.01. on the secondary Notebook running W10 LTSC... than copied the installation folder to my primary W7-64bit Notebook, named it calibre5.. and woalla.. calibre seems to work so far flawlesly for me....
We can probably complain to Kovid about his unclever decision banishing W7 only as much we are paying him for his unique SW and for fixing all problems and developing new features in same time... :-)

[DiapDealer]

My god, the drama.