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As the lead developer of the Slack Windows app, this move is absolutely phenomenal for me. Win7 is a huge proportion of our support tickets and causes us no end

As the lead developer of the Slack Windows app, this move is absolutely phenomenal for me. Win7 is a huge proportion of our support tickets and causes us no end of grief. To put what these Windows users are doing in perspective, Windows users are holding onto an OS that was released at the same time as OS X 10.6, and not only doing it, but demanding that developers support this version. If you asked any Cocoa developer to support Snow Leopard, they'd laugh you out of the room.

chris_wot 11y ago
So don't support Windows 7 then. But forcing upgrades which can lead to machines no longer functioning just means that person wipes the HDD and reinstalls Windows 7. You miss the fact that Windows 8 was such a botch job that most of us didn't start upgrading until Windows 8.1 - and this isn't just end users, but a hell of a lot of IT professionals. This never occurred on OS X.
RDeckard 11y ago
This isn't about you as the Slack Windows app developer.
kiallmacinnes 11y ago
Windows 8, and even Windows 8.1 were so utterly terrible its no wonder people are asking for windows 7 support. I'm betting 90%+ of business has stayed on 7, which often translates to individuals sticking with 7 too as it's what they know, and their IT dept / guy told them as much. Your blame is misplaced, these Windows users are doing nothing wrong. Microsoft did terrible releases for years, and is trying to recover from that mistake in a terrible way.
Can_Not 11y ago
Windows 7 support is a critical feature of slack for me. Every version of Windows after 7 is increasingly some kind of year 2000 era flip phone OS/dark age of computers BS. It's 10 steps forward, 1000 steps back. So what exactly do windows 7 users call in about? Is that because there is some major API difference between 7 and 8 or is does it represent people who buy computers less often?
- xpaulbettsx 11y ago
  > So what exactly do windows 7 users call in about? Is that because there is some major API difference between 7 and 8 or is does it represent people who buy computers less often? Windows 7 doesn't have a notifications / toast API which means we have to implement notifications ourselves. It also lets you turn off desktop composition and throw the UI into a completely different rendering path, which Electron doesn't support properly, so we then have to implement notifications again in a fallback software rendering only way. It also doesn't have a spellchecking API, so we get to ship Hunspell in-box and deal with updating dictionaries, the list goes on and on
  - Can_Not 11y ago
    For support and/or programming (in the context of slack), is Linux generally better or worse than windows 8/10?
    - xpaulbettsx 11y ago
      Linux is a mixed bag - while it's actually way easier to support in general and people write in with way more detailed actionable feedback, it also has its fair share of glitches, especially around video hardware.

chris_wot 11y ago

So don't support Windows 7 then. But forcing upgrades which can lead to machines no longer functioning just means that person wipes the HDD and reinstalls Windows 7. You miss the fact that Windows 8 was such a botch job that most of us didn't start upgrading until Windows 8.1 - and this isn't just end users, but a hell of a lot of IT professionals. This never occurred on OS X.

RDeckard 11y ago

This isn't about you as the Slack Windows app developer.

kiallmacinnes 11y ago

Windows 8, and even Windows 8.1 were so utterly terrible its no wonder people are asking for windows 7 support. I'm betting 90%+ of business has stayed on 7, which often translates to individuals sticking with 7 too as it's what they know, and their IT dept / guy told them as much. Your blame is misplaced, these Windows users are doing nothing wrong. Microsoft did terrible releases for years, and is trying to recover from that mistake in a terrible way.

Can_Not 11y ago

Windows 7 support is a critical feature of slack for me. Every version of Windows after 7 is increasingly some kind of year 2000 era flip phone OS/dark age of computers BS. It's 10 steps forward, 1000 steps back. So what exactly do windows 7 users call in about? Is that because there is some major API difference between 7 and 8 or is does it represent people who buy computers less often?

xpaulbettsx 11y ago
> So what exactly do windows 7 users call in about? Is that because there is some major API difference between 7 and 8 or is does it represent people who buy computers less often? Windows 7 doesn't have a notifications / toast API which means we have to implement notifications ourselves. It also lets you turn off desktop composition and throw the UI into a completely different rendering path, which Electron doesn't support properly, so we then have to implement notifications again in a fallback software rendering only way. It also doesn't have a spellchecking API, so we get to ship Hunspell in-box and deal with updating dictionaries, the list goes on and on
- Can_Not 11y ago
  For support and/or programming (in the context of slack), is Linux generally better or worse than windows 8/10?
  - xpaulbettsx 11y ago
    Linux is a mixed bag - while it's actually way easier to support in general and people write in with way more detailed actionable feedback, it also has its fair share of glitches, especially around video hardware.