VLC has started dropping XP support with version 4

[NojusK]

I downloaded today's nighly build of VLC 4 just for testing and the installer installed it but when i launched i got this error:

Altough VLC 3.0.7 (not released to the public from  writing of this thread) installs and works without no problems!

You can test these nighly builds on VideoLAN's official website https://nightlies.videolan.org/

Even trying out the earliest VLC 4 beta gives the error for me

I hope i'm not breaking MSFN rules

[Guest]

Switch to Potplayer:

 

https://www.videohelp.com/software/PotPlayer

 

 

Edited February 7, 2019 by Sampei.Nihira

[NojusK]

2 minutes ago, Sampei.Nihira said:

Switch to Potplayer:

 

https://www.videohelp.com/software/PotPlayer

 

 

Thanks for the recommendation,I will test Potplayer soon as i come back home

[sdfox7]

Yes, they announced last February that XP would be the last officially supported. It could be a minor port to XP, or it might not happen at all.

 

[dencorso]

17 hours ago, sdfox7 said:

They announced last February that XP would be the last officially supported. It could be a minor port to XP, or it might not happen at all.

You mean: they announced last February that [it] would be the last [to] officially support XP ???

[sdfox7]

3 hours ago, dencorso said:

You mean: they announced last February that [it] would be the last [to] officially support XP ???

Yes, this past birthday I officially got closer to middle age. 

[sdfox7]

VLC Media Player 4.0 may work on Windows XP if there is a way to edit out the dependency IF_NAMETOINDEX. The same type of issue appeared in March 2016 on GitHub and was resolved by removing at compile time: https://github.com/openslide/openslide-winbuild/issues/7#issuecomment-192429311

Does anyone want to take a stab at it? I don't have time at the moment. The latest VLC 4.x builds are available here: https://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/last/ (today's zip file is https://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/last/vlc-4.0.0-20190213-0246-dev-win32.7z)

[sdfox7]

Just so you know, I sent Jean-Baptiste Kempf an email tonight. JBK is the president of VideoLAN. I provided my computer specs and phone number in case he has a solution and wants to contact me. Here is the text of my email:

Hi Jean-Baptiste, 

I have long been a fan of VLC Media Player. 0.8.6 was one of my favorite versions that I used for a very long time!

I know VLC 4.x isn't officially supported on XP, however, do you know if it's possible to modify the EXE or ZIP/7z to remove the IF_NAMETOINDEX dependency in IPHLPAPI.DLL? I am not asking you to do it, but is it possible?

Thank you for your time!

It will be interesting to see if I receive a response, as I am sure he is a very busy person.

[sdfox7]

I received a couple of responses from Jean-Baptiste. I'm very grateful for his openness and willingness to interact with customers.

It appears to me that since 3.x will be around for a while, there's plenty of time to experiment and get it working. Here is the log (last in first out):

Please be cautious
This email was sent from outside of your organization
________________________________

Sure, but the threads will block VLC from just running at all, and you cannot replace it.

We're not only dropping XP, we're dropping Vista too...

3.0.x will stay around for a while..


On Thu, 14 Feb 2019, at 08:17, Stephen Fox wrote:
> Hi Jean-Baptiste
>
> Thanks for your fast response. I figured that it may be possible since
> the guys over at GitHub were able to do the same in 2016:
> https://github.com/openslide/openslide-winbuild/issues/7
>
> I expected that running the standalone ZIP/7z versions of VLC would work
> without any OS dependencies. However, this is not the case. Any idea
> what specific threads need to be removed? I was going to try to use
> Dependency Walker as well.
>
> Thanks again for your help!
>
>
>
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Stephen Fox
> Cellular (xxx) xxx-xxxx
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Jean-Baptiste Kempf [jb@videolan.org]
> Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2019 02:11
> To: Stephen Fox
> Subject: Re: Hello!
>
> Please be cautious
> This email was sent from outside of your organization
> ________________________________
>
> Hello Stephen,
>
> This might be doable, but the main issue are going to be cancellable
> threads, and those are not replaceable.
>
> So, I'm afraid, XP users will need to keep staying on the 3.0.x versions.
>
> Best,
>
> On Thu, 14 Feb 2019, at 06:21, Stephen Fox wrote:
> > Hi Jean-Baptiste,
> >
> > I have long been a fan of VLC Media Player. 0.8.6 was one of my favorite
> > versions that I used for a very long time!
> >
> > I know VLC 4.x isn't officially supported on XP, however, do you know if
> > it's possible to modify the EXE or ZIP/7z to remove the IF_NAMETOINDEX
> > dependency in IPHLPAPI.DLL? I am not asking you to do it, but is it
> > possible?
> >
> > Thank you for your time!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Sincerely,
> >
> > Stephen Fox
> > Cellular (xxx) xxx-xxxx
> > Email had 1 attachment:
> > + IPHLPAPI.JPG
> >   72k (image/jpeg)
>
>
> --
> Jean-Baptiste Kempf -  President
> +33 672 704 734


--
Jean-Baptiste Kempf -  President
+33 672 704 734

 

[bluebolt]

At least it was a straight-up response, like it or not.  In this day and age, that's like seeing a unicorn.

[sdfox7]

29 minutes ago, bluebolt said:

At least it was a straight-up response, like it or not.  In this day and age, that's like seeing a unicorn.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a response at all!

[mirh]

Other people just dynamically linked the offending dll.

And afterwards, you can pretty much do whatever you want with just the function that is missing.

https://github.com/curl/curl/pull/3958

[erpdude8]

forget about VLC4.  a new VLC 3.x version came out (3.0.7) earlier this month:

https://www.videolan.org/news.html#news-2019-06-07

[Vistapocalypse]

I just updated to VLC 3.0.8 on Vista, and it looks like there will be a 3.0.9: https://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc-branch/NEWS.

[Fritz_Geiger]

While VLC v3 runs faster (smoother video) than v2 on both my WinXPSP3 systems, non-SSE and SSE2,
v3 is unable to show streaming/http - "http error: invalid url" in log.
Any v2 shows without problems this (or any other alive) URL.
Sadly, I can not compare v3 log against v2 log - v2 does not produce log even directed by command line.
So I stay at v2.2.1 (it reacts faster than later v2 versions when trying to stop the heavy/HD/4k video).