Install recent Delphi versions on Windows XP

[dummzeuch 1505]

What is the latest Delphi version that can be installed and used on Windows XP?

 

I know that XE2 and XE3 work, and I seem to remember that XE4 also does.

Edited February 27, 2020 by dummzeuch
I remembered wrongly, that was XE3

[Alberto Fornés 22]

I have installs with Delphi 10.3.3 on Windows XP, some problems with vcl themes (datatime picker don't work), so I don't use it  with that SO, but it works.

[A.M. Hoornweg 144]

@alberto do you mean the Delphi IDE, or just apps compiled with 10.3.3  ?

[Darian Miller 361]

On 2/27/2020 at 2:31 AM, Alberto Fornés said:

I have installs with Delphi 10.3.3 on Windows XP, some problems with vcl themes (datatime picker don't work), so I don't use it  with that SO, but it works.

 

On a diversionary whim, I tried installing 10.4 on XP and the installer presented a fatal error "This program does not support the version of Windows your computer is running."  I imagine you have to unpack, tweak the installer package, and then rebuild it to get it to work on XP, correct?

[Anders Melander 1782]

On 2/27/2020 at 8:42 AM, dummzeuch said:

What is the latest Delphi version that can be installed and used on Windows XP?

Why would you want to do that? Just curious.

[dummzeuch 1505]

9 hours ago, Anders Melander said:

Why would you want to do that? Just curious.

Because I have to maintain some programs that must be run and sometimes debugged under Windows XP on computers that are not or rarely connected to a LAN (so remote debugging is out). So far I have been using Windows 2007 and XE2 but I'm thinking about upgrading these projects, so the question is: How far I can upgrade?

 

(Fun fact: I also have one active program under DOS with Borland Pascal 7 which I have been trying to get rid of for >10 years. Currently it looks like I will get rid of Windows XP before DOS.)

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

I just did an inventory of our warehouse hardware and discovered an Intermec industrial Truck PC running XP that had been overlooked.  Hopefully, it will be brought up to ... drumroll ... Win 7 SP 2 soon.

I guess it is time to start shopping for some newer truck PCs.  Luckily, our truck PC software doesn't seem to have any Win10 specific code in it.

[Bill Meyer 337]

I have a VM running XP which I keep because it allows me to run Lotus Improv. 

 

I believe I had installed and run XE on XP some years ago.

[dummzeuch 1505]

4 hours ago, Lars Fosdal said:

I just did an inventory of our warehouse hardware and discovered an Intermec industrial Truck PC running XP that had been overlooked.  Hopefully, it will be brought up to ... drumroll ... Win 7 SP 2 soon.

I guess it is time to start shopping for some newer truck PCs.  Luckily, our truck PC software doesn't seem to have any Win10 specific code in it.

As long as these PCs are not connected to the Internet or even the LAN, there is no need to update them, if they are "good enough".

 

Unfortunately it is becoming difficult to buy Windows XP compatible hardware. We found only one supplier who guarantees Windows XP compatibility for his motherboards, and we had issues with the test machine we ordered with it. That's why I am currently experimenting with Windows 10 on the "embedded" PCs. I have a bad feeling about this. Windows 10 has just too much of "we are Microsoft, we know best" in it, in particular the enforced updates. I would prefer Linux, but porting the software is way too much work.

[Darian Miller 361]

5 minutes ago, dummzeuch said:

 I have a bad feeling about this. Windows 10 has just too much of "we are Microsoft, we know best" in it, in particular the enforced updates. I would prefer Linux, but porting the software is way too much work.

 

Agreed!!  Even in simple usage it is unbelievably unnoying to have something running as a quick one-off on a Windows 10 system and come back the next morning to find the process was terminated and the system restarted due to a forced update.  There are some options of blocking Windows 10 updates, but Microsoft seems to be actively working against those settings.  Best bet is to block outgoing connections to the update servers at your firewall or simply redefine their update servers in a Hosts entry on the computer which is what I plan on doing soon as this just happened again to me yesterday.

 

[Remy Lebeau 1393]

21 hours ago, Anders Melander said:

Why would you want to do that? Just curious.

Until recent years, I did all of my Delphi development work (for Indy, for beta testings, etc) solely in XP VMs.  It wasn't until Embarcadero forced newer Delphi installers to fail on XP that I had to start using Win7 in new VMs.  Even my day-job work (well, until my main projects reached EOL last month) included a physical XP box and an XP VM as my sole environment for all of my C++Builder work.

 

XP is a fairly small, easily-installed, very stable OS to develop on, when you don't have to target new OS features (and even then, I still targeted new OS features while writing code on XP).  And if an app runs good on XP, it is likely to run good on modern Windows, too.

[Darian Miller 361]

3 hours ago, Darian Miller said:

 

Best bet is to block outgoing connections to the update servers at your firewall or simply redefine their update servers in a Hosts entry on the computer which is what I plan on doing soon as this just happened again to me yesterday.

 

 

After a little search, using a Hosts file seems like too much work given all the servers they use.   I have a reg file to disable updates, which apparently wasn't executed on that particular VM:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU]
"NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers"=dword:00000001
"NoAutoUpdate"=dword:00000001
"AUOptions"=dword:00000002
"AUOptionsNote"="2=Notify before DL; 3=Auto DL, Notify of installation; 4=Auto DL by schedule; 1=XP Keep my computer up to date option"
"UseWUServer"=dword:00000000
"MSDocLink"="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-wu-settings"

 

[Angus Robertson 574]

Surely disabling the Windows Update and Windows Update Medic Service services through the registry should be sufficient to stop them working.  That's the only way to stop Windows 10 Derfender Firewall interferrng with internet connections, even if turned off. 

 

Angus

 

[Darian Miller 361]

8 hours ago, Angus Robertson said:

Surely disabling the Windows Update and Windows Update Medic Service services through the registry should be sufficient to stop them working.  That's the only way to stop Windows 10 Derfender Firewall interferrng with internet connections, even if turned off. 

 

Angus

 

Perhaps.  I'm testing this particular machine out as I could swear that I disabled it in the registry already.   I know for a fact that I changed the Windows Update service in SCM to be disabled and it was running after a reboot.  Microsoft is definitely getting more aggressive at ensuring updates are still occuring.

 

Another option that I enabled is to set the network connection to be metered.  That plus the registry setting should effectively kill it.  If not, there are some other tricks available.  

 

 

[Lars Fosdal 1792]

We've replaced a lot of expensive industrial PCs with WinMate and Surfaces tablets. They are so much cheaper that the economy of possibly having to replace them more often is a no-brainer. The only exception are trucks that need to operate in -27°C - that is when you need those industrial solutions. Having those tablets on vanilla Windows 10 is a bonus. 

[Angus Robertson 574]

Disabling Windows Update is an art, Microsoft does keep trying to restart it afer any updates are installed manually, and there are two services to stop.  I've not recently tried to stop Update, but Firewall has not run here for three years.

 

Angus

 

[djhfwk 0]

Radstudio 10.3 and later need NET 4.5, but XP do not support 4.5, so....

[dummzeuch 1505]

I just tried to install Delphi 10.2 (Tokyo) on Windows XP. The ESD-Installer refused to run. The one from the ISO started and the installation finished successfully. But on the first start, a browser window opens to

 

http://installers.embarcadero.com/tamper?Version=25.0.29899.2631&Code=00409116

 

which times out. That's it. Not quite what I was expecting.

[Remy Lebeau 1393]

2 hours ago, dummzeuch said:

I just tried to install Delphi 10.2 (Tokyo) on Windows XP.

Even if you could get it INSTALLED on XP, it won't RUN on XP.  The IDE uses APIs and libraries that simply don't exist on XP.

Edited March 10, 2021 by Remy Lebeau

[Kryvich 165]

I was able to install the 10.3 Community Edition on Windows XP, but it refused to work.

[Guest]

In Embarcadero requirement, say:

RAD XE2

• Microsoft Windows XP Home or Professional (32-bit and 64-bit) SP2 or SP3

RAD XE3

• Microsoft Windows Vista^TM SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit) requires administrator rights

 

then, of course, the RAD 10.3.3 it should not works at all. But, with some "hack", a part would can.

 

hug

[dummzeuch 1505]

I know that XE3 works fine on Windows XP.

 

I started this topic to find out which was the last version that did. (Which does not mean that it's officially supported. So the documentation doesn't mean much unless it states a technical reason.)

 

I'm still not sure that 10.2 doesn't work at all, it might still be an installation issue. Since the web page URL contains the word "tamper" it could be that it "detected" something in the installation it didn't like. The web page, that does not (no longer?) exist, might have contained information on the specific issue (but probably didn't).

 

On the other hand ...

12 hours ago, Remy Lebeau said:

The IDE uses APIs and libraries that simply don't exist on XP.

... that would mean a definite no.

 

But then, there is:

On 2/27/2020 at 9:31 AM, Alberto Fornés said:

I have installs with Delphi 10.3.3 on Windows XP, some problems with vcl themes (datatime picker don't work), so I don't use it  with that SO, but it works.

 

[Alberto Fornés 22]

On 1/28/2021 at 10:27 PM, Darian Miller said:

 

On a diversionary whim, I tried installing 10.4 on XP and the installer presented a fatal error "This program does not support the version of Windows your computer is running."  I imagine you have to unpack, tweak the installer package, and then rebuild it to get it to work on XP, correct?

 

On 3/11/2021 at 8:41 AM, dummzeuch said:

I know that XE3 works fine on Windows XP.

 

I started this topic to find out which was the last version that did. (Which does not mean that it's officially supported. So the documentation doesn't mean much unless it states a technical reason.)

 

I'm still not sure that 10.2 doesn't work at all, it might still be an installation issue. Since the web page URL contains the word "tamper" it could be that it "detected" something in the installation it didn't like. The web page, that does not (no longer?) exist, might have contained information on the specific issue (but probably didn't).

 

On the other hand ...

... that would mean a definite no.

 

But then, there is:

 

  Hello, sorry for delay to respond, I was talking about executables generated with Delphi 10.3, not about installing Delphi 10.3 in a XP computer. I'm able to run the programs, except the problem with themes in some contros, as datatimepicker so I need to disable theme for that controls.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Alberto Fornés

[Remy Lebeau 1393]

3 hours ago, Alberto Fornés said:

I was talking about executables generates with Delphi 10.3, not about installing Delphi 10.3 in a XP computer.

In that case, I don't recall offhand the last version that officially supported XP as a target platform.  In the current DocWiki, versions prior to 10.1 Berlin do not say the specific Windows versions they target.  10.1 says Windows 7 SP1+, Windows 8-10, and Windows Server 2008-2012.

 

I do know that there are a few areas of the modern RTL/VCL that make use of newer APIs that don't exist on XP, so 10.x-compiled executables are not likely to run as-is on XP.