What should rather happen is that a warning is displayed when downloading Warcraft III from Blizzard that it does not support Windows XP if the OS being used to view the site reports that it is Windows XP. That is the best one can do without having to support XP to tell users it does not support XP.
This is more or less what I had in mind. It can be done with a dialog box, or other informative messages. A link leading to a standalone offline patch download is the easiest way to do this imho. Even though the offline standalone patch might very well be as big as the game itself.
Not possible. That would mean still coupling to WindowsXP so code can run.
Are you a member of the Classic Team?
This is what Mark Chandler said about XP compatibility on May 1st, 2018:
https://us.battle.net/forums/en/bnet/topic/20762177984#post-13
The link leads to this page,
Windows XP and Windows Vista Aren't Supported
... which does not mention Warcraft 3 as of this writing
(note: Blizzard has it right when they say that Windows XP and Windows Vista are no longer receiving *standard* support from Microsoft).
Also, the official Warcraft 3 system requirements have not been updated (yet?)
Warcraft III System Requirements
They already have those? That is how the PTR is deployed. [...]
If the updater does not work anymore, then there has to exist other ways to update the game.
Even if they could update their game it would not work. No XP support literally means no XP support. If you try to run it on Windows XP it will generate whatever default Microsoft error one gets for trying to run something on Windows XP that was built for a more modern OS.
Why does this all feel like the second cutscene of Duke Nukem 3D (starring Blizzard as Duke Nukem) to me?
(note: not necessarily based on actual events)
[...] Since Microsoft no longer supports XP [...]
Microsoft supports Embedded versions of Windows XP until 2019, afaik.
Microsoft Update Catalog
Microsoft may also release hotfixes for XP SP3 and Windows Server 2003 under exceptional circumstances. It already happened in July 2017. The hotfixes were not pushed via Windows Update, therefore one had to download then. For French users, they are:
- WindowsXP-KB4025218-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4024402-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4024323-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4022747-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4019204-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4018466-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4012598-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB4012583-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- WindowsXP-KB3197835-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
- IE8-WindowsXP-KB4018271-x86-Custom-FRA.exe
(unfortunately, this last cumulative update for IE does not enable built-in TLS 1.1/1.2 support for IE8 / Windows XP SP3 in the process).
The Microsoft Software Catalog can be browsed here:
Microsoft Update Catalog
Windows XP may also be supported through (expensive) paid support, for governments and organizations.
Vista support is being dropped as a blanket policy of Blizzard. All modern Blizzard games will soon, if not have already, dropped support for Vista. It is also possible in the distant future x86 support will be dropped meaning only x86-64 will work.
It would make sense that Blizzard drops support for XP and Vista at the exact same time. This is what Google did with Chrome. Ideally, this could happen when switching to a 64-bit executable and a move to DirectX 11. It could also be the occasion to update the development tools to Visual Studio 2017, to use the security features introduced with Visual Studio 2015.
Windows Vista 64-bit users may complain, though...
That requires that the updater support their OS... If they drop XP support how can that updater run on XP to do this?
It would appear that the problem comes from the online updater itself; more precisely the file agent.exe
This is what Microsoft says about GetThreadId:
GetThreadId function (Windows)
(minimum supported server: in Windows Server 2003 (!), but minimum supported client: Windows Vista)
Blizzard's general policy is to not support intermediate versions. This is actually a pretty universal policy in professional software development. There is often a very good reason a patch was released, and supporting unpatched versions is contradictory to those reasons.
I am talking about availability, not about support.
Previous offline standalone patches of the game for PCs are still available from Blizzard's servers, from 1.24a up to and including 1.27b. I am currently unable to find the equivalent patches for Mac.
The problem is, there is no offline standalone downloadable patch available after that. And it would seem that there is atm no way to update the game legally to the latest compatible version, for an unsupported OS like XP.
It is also a pretty universal policy in professional software development that critical bugs which prevent the gamer from playing the game are fixed. Even unsupported versions of software may receive fixes afterwards for critical issues. This is part of basic consumer service.
The problem is that XP support greatly complicates the build process. [...] one has to use special compatibility packs to build with. Additionally one cannot use any feature that requires Windows Vista or newer without having separate distributables which makes things even more complex.
This is not true for all software.
Since you are not part of the Classic Team afaik, how would you know that?
The problem is that XP support greatly complicates the build process. [...] one has to use special compatibility packs to build with. [...]
How are they 'special'?
More likely because it is a real pain to build software that is compatible with XP seeing how all modern Windows development tools have dropped direct support for XP. One has to use hacky XP deployment kits to build such software. Also again, the dropping of XP support is a general Blizzard policy applying to all games.
Unless there was a recent change in Blizzard's development tools for Warcraft 3, the game still uses Visual Studio 2013, which natively supports XP afaik.
I am pointing out that even the Visual Studio 2017 Runtime can be installed on XP. In order to build executables suited for XP, the developer must first install the official appropriate supplement pack by Microsoft. Therefore, I see nothing hacky about it.