Support LOST for Windows 7 with todays update

[JCmAxohtwEoK0fdaQip7]

Wire Messenger is advertised on the download page as supported for Windows 7 and up
https://wire.com/en/app-download

With todays update, [3.34.4566 - Windows] this is no longer the case
The move from Electron 22 to 27 broke Wire on Windows 7 forever unless there is a workaround or a rollback

Attempting to launch wire desktop now presents the following error

Wire.exe - Entry Point Not Found
The procedure entry point DiscardVirtualMemory could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll

This function exists only on Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012, and up, so Windows 7 support is lost

[Sledge-Hammer]

I have the same problem on Windows 8.1 and this is really unacceptable behavior!!!

I understand that you can't support those older OS any longer due to Google's refusal to do so, but this is not a reason to make everything completely non-working. Even older Chrome versions still run on these versions of Windows, so Wire should too... at least for an year or two more...

[aweiss-dev]

https://wire.com/blog/deprecating-wire-on-older-windows-versions

[Sledge-Hammer]

https://wire.com/blog/deprecating-wire-on-older-windows-versions

That's not a reason not to leave us use the old version as long as it is compatible with the server.
All you had to do was disable auto-updates if you detect an older OS.

Also how many of your users do you think read your blog?
I'm pretty sure that right now at least 99% of the users on older versions of Windows are unable to use Wire because they weren't aware of that.

And how many do you think will rush to upgrade their Windows right away only so they can use Wire... or instead will just look for an alternative.

It's like you're intentionally trying to get rid of as many users as you can.

[aweiss-dev]

Regarding your concern about our desktop application dropping support for outdated operating systems, we completely understand your situation. We do offer our web app as a fallback for such environments. However, we must also keep developing our application with the latest security features and fixes to ensure the safety of our users.

In order to provide the best possible experience and security for our users, we may need to drop support for outdated operating systems in our desktop application. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, but we hope you will continue using our web app as a reliable alternative.

I will close this ticket for now, but feel free to contact us again for further questions.

[Sledge-Hammer]

@aweiss-dev - I never said that I expect you to continue supporting the desktop app on the older versions of Windows.

All you had to do was disable the auto-updates in the previous version if it detects an unsupported OS and leave it running as long as it is compatible with the server (which is not very different from the situation with the web version, since both Firefox and Chrome are no longer updated on those versions of Windows). As a bonus you could've added a small message informing users that this version might stop working at any moment and they have to update their OS (at the same place where you are announcing new versions or lack of internet connectivity).

Also, you're not providing the best experience for the users - what you're providing is a nightmare for anyone who wants to keep their chat history and can't update their OS at the moment. It might sound strange to you but many people don't care about voice and video calls and use Wire only for text messaging.

If you and the whole Wire team cared about the best experience you would've made the history compatible between all platforms from the beginning or at least made such a task a priority, instead of wasting time with emojis and other irrelevant stuff.

All you're doing right now is forcing users to either upgrade their OS against their will or abandon their chat history.

 

 

Here's a solution for anyone who has no time to upgrade their OS right now, but still wants to use Wire and can move it to a Virtual Machine (VM) with a newer version of Windows, or wants to do a clean Windows install and still keep their history.

You have to copy somewhere the following 2 folders while Wire is not running (both are hidden, so you should have Windows Explorer set-up to show both hidden and system files):

1. C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Local\wire
2. C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Wire

After that you download the latest version of Wire and install it on the VM or the freshly installed Windows.
Wire will start and ask you to login - don't do it and close it (make sure to quit it from the system tray).

Setup Windows Explorer on the new OS to show hidden and system files and go to C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Local\ and C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\ and delete the Wire folders inside, after that copy the folders from your original install to their respective places.
Now you can start Wire and it will ask you to login again - this time go for it. After you're logged-in you should have all your history from that device available.

Note that this solution might not work after a newer version of the desktop app is released.

[MacGurus]

This is very disappointing - initially the update ran OK and wire started back up w/o issues but a few days later upon a windows restart (much to my surprise) Wire crashed

No fixes have been made for the very long standing backup issues and now you update Electron rendering a good percentage of the userbase unable to use Wire or access their message history.

Shouldn't we fix such serious backup issues before just pushing through updates in the underlying code for the sake of staying up with google and others relentless march to deprecate win 7 and 8.x that lock out users from use and their history?

Thanks Sledge-hammer for the workaround to possibly get our message history back that could not be backed up for those of us with large msg databases.

In the meantime does anyone have a copy of the previous release that we could potentially downgrade to and disable updates? Any chance this could be cobbled together ?

[Sledge-Hammer]

@MacGurus - You can download the previous release from here https://github.com/wireapp/wire-desktop/releases/tag/windows%2F3.32.4459 but before you do that someone from the team should say if it will still be compatible with the already upgraded version (in case the new version altered the history in some way).

Or at the very least you should backup somewhere the 2 folders I already mentioned before trying to downgrade.

As for disabling the updates - can't help you with that, someone from the team should do it or someone who's familiar with Electron and Wire's codebase.

[MacGurus]

Thanks Sledge-Hammer - agree with all your comments on this issue and appreciate the help - saves me a lot of time.

I'm hoping the update didn't modify the message database that is a good point. It did run fine initially (updated and wire restarted and ran so yes it may have made some changes during that initial start) but I'm guessing that the electron aspect fully updated itself after the system reboot. I've not spent the time to look into how things are put together so i'm unclear on that aspect.

Been a while since I coded but we might be able to find the call to server to check updates and have it point to something it can't reach possibly. If the update server is different than the main messages server we might be able to just block it with firewall for now. If anyone knows the answer please post thanks