Who here has a Youtube-DL compile for WinXP?

[user57]

the answer from the developer is not bad, but he also say he dont know it so exactly either

but i would have to go with close to nothing to just write something to this

connections are made via winsock - here TCP/IP procolls and TLS (aka the named openssl) can be involved
if its a winHTTP request the HTTP request also sends what OS you are on - some actually then refuse the connection if they see this
that would be changeable

the idea going to a changed python yea - i also said that - even tho i had much less useful detail´s 

a other small idea is to look if the same code work for a other OS, if so its likely the internals (the functions that come next) somehow mess up
thats also what the python devloper said with other words 

the openssl problem might be possible to determinate by just trying a different OS - if it has the same code then its not openssl

a problem i can see here that this rely´s on script functions (low level) the next tier functions are deeper (like the named winsock)
if its somewhere at this spot you need to debug these functions - and see why they are breaking up
this is the other problem i talked about - if you would have a normal c++ style you could see the most internal functions 
(instead of only "connection failed" or something like "urllib3.connection.HTTPSConnection object at 0x032F9910>: Failed to establish a new connection")

[nicolaasjan]

18 hours ago, user57 said:

the answer from the developer is not bad, but he also say he dont know it so exactly either

The answer was actually from Copilot AI. 

[j7n]

The SABR problem has returned. It dowloads only VP9. I have to make multiple attempts at downloading.

WARNING: [youtube] qqhXsUwncfE: Some web client https formats have been skipped as they are missing a url. YouTube is forcing SABR streaming for this client. See 

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12482 for more details

[j7n]

Seems like they could build in a "retry" up to five times to get the requested non "SABR" download. Currently I have to do it manually: watch the console, close and reopen the link. The workinh download will likely go away soon though. Maybe it's a fluke that I'm getting it. The current process with the "potoken" ain't gonna happen unless it is made easier.

[Rod Steel]

On 8/8/2025 at 10:48 PM, j7n said:

The SABR problem has returned. It dowloads only VP9. I have to make multiple attempts at downloading.

FYI:  try the best online YouTube downloader so far.

https://ssyoutube.online/en1/

[VistaLover]

43 minutes ago, Rod Steel said:

the best online YouTube downloader so far.

https://ssyoutube.online/en1/

https://ssyoutube.online/privacy-policy

Quote

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Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on ssyoutube.online, which are sent directly to users’ browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit.

[j7n]

I will use this if it remains working after SABR remains the only option. Have to block advertisements though with a regular expression: obqj2.com will likely keep changing.

[VistaLover]

1 hour ago, j7n said:

after SABR remains the only option.

First of all, have a read of below yt-dlp GitHub issue tracker comment:

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/13965#issuecomment-3168934752

Some of the described solutions may work for you (as they did for others  ) ...

At the same time, the yt-dlp devs are already working towards the (plausible) scenario of SABR-only: 

https://github.com/coletdjnz/yt-dlp-dev/tree/feat/youtube/sabr

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/13515#issue-3164587812

(latest test release, requires Win10+:  

https://github.com/coletdjnz/yt-dlp-dev/releases/tag/2025.08.10.010506 )

Since you're mostly on WS2008R2, the server edition of Win7, and @nicolaasjan  already provides Win7-compatible (py > 3.9) yt-dlp compiles, you should be good to go  when the currently experimental SABR downloader makes it, in due course, to the release branch of yt-dlp; Vista SP2 and XP SP3 users will be the ones "left stranded on a desert island"  after October, because so far no solution has materialised for those users (i.e. a CPython >3.9 recompile/fork that would launch BOTH on NT 5.x/6.0, having additional support for all yt-dlp required Python modules ) ...

[j7n]

I didn't know that a Windows 7 program existed because it wasn't in his signature. They might not finish SABR before the end of Python. I don't want to do anything with Potoken because you need to dig it out of the browser repeatedly and then pass it into the command-line. I don't touch command line after initially setting it up.

[user57]

1 hour ago, VistaLover said:

First of all, have a read of below yt-dlp GitHub issue tracker comment:

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/13965#issuecomment-3168934752

Some of the described solutions may work for you (as they did for others  ) ...

At the same time, the yt-dlp devs are already working towards the (plausible) scenario of SABR-only: 

https://github.com/coletdjnz/yt-dlp-dev/tree/feat/youtube/sabr

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/13515#issue-3164587812

(latest test release, requires Win10+:  

https://github.com/coletdjnz/yt-dlp-dev/releases/tag/2025.08.10.010506 )

Since you're mostly on WS2008R2, the server edition of Win7, and @nicolaasjan  already provides Win7-compatible (py > 3.9) yt-dlp compiles, you should be good to go  when the currently experimental SABR downloader makes it, in due course, to the release branch of yt-dlp; Vista SP2 and XP SP3 users will be the ones "left stranded on a desert island"  after October, because so far no solution has materialised for those users (i.e. a CPython >3.9 recompile/fork that would launch BOTH on NT 5.x/6.0, having additional support for all yt-dlp required Python modules ) ...

well it raise questions why they are not able to make it xp compatible, they are deeply into this stuff

is it a problem of skill ? like somebody just used someones code that was wrote for win10, or a must to a certain engine version (that would also be a python version)

it also could have come that python is a scriptish language like java - if you do write a code there it might just depents on the java engine 

personally i have never seen this to happen with a normal c++ style

 

but going a little of-topic - this is bad for vista 7 and even 10 users - this version around play might just hit them at some point either - that might not be now but that would be a thing - they are trying with the vs2022 version already (and trying to get rid even 10)

if it comes over a next newer python version then you run into the same problem - again it raise the question if you have insight into the real code - not just it´s low level/script functions

[VistaLover]

3 hours ago, j7n said:

I didn't know that a Windows 7 program existed because it wasn't in his signature.

... One should visit nicolaasjan's GitHub repo  ; load latest yt-dlp release, 

https://github.com/nicolaasjan/yt-dlp/releases/latest

then expand assets (if not expanded) and there they are  : 

yt-dlp_win7.exe => 64-bit compile, 
yt-dlp_x86_win7.exe => 32-bit compile, 

BOTH are built on py3.13, so are good for the next 4 yrs, at least...

Win7-compatible py3.13 courtesy of adang1345  ...

4 hours ago, j7n said:

I don't want to do anything with Potoken because you need to dig it out of the browser repeatedly and then pass it into the command-line.

Well, you didn't go through the GitHub issue I linked to  ; there are automated solutions suggested such as this one : 

https://github.com/grqz/yt-dlp-getpot-jsi/blob/master/README.md

 

@user57: 

https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-31018/

is the latest py3.10 release by the PSF (security-only release in source-code form: 

https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.10.18/Python-3.10.18.tar.xz )

Let me just say that achieving Vista SP2 (NT 6.0) compatibility should be much easier that targeting XP (NT 5.x); the last Vista compatible version was py3.7 (py3.4 for XP SP3).

One should thoroughly comb the py3.10 source code and identify ALL the Vista breaking code the PSF authored after py3.7; these changes should then be reverted or rewritten with "translated" code that is py3.7 compatible; once that task has been completed, the modded source should then be compiled with a suitable compiler (MSVC and/or MSYS2) targeting NT 6.0 and, also, the 32-bit architecture; but this is NOT all  ; yt-dlp itself has quite a large number of dependencies, i.e. Python modules; the py3.10 wheels for them to be found on PyPI are made with the official py3.10 in mind, so compatibility with a Vista-py3.10 isn't always a given, especially in the case when the modules contain C/C++ extensions (i.e. DLLs, which, under Windows, have the .pyd file extension); these Python modules have to be recompiled from their sources using the modded py3.10 and the same compiler that compiled py3.10 itself (probably on a Win10 host). 

Things on XP should be even more difficult because several py3.10 own dependencies, e.g. OpenSSL, have moved away from XP  long time ago...

https://github.com/adang1345/PythonWin7/blob/master/Notes.md#python-310

and 

https://github.com/adang1345/PythonWin7/tree/master/patches

are adang1345's instructions on how to make py3.10 run on Win7; perhaps they'd be somehow useful for someone wanting to also attain NT 6.0 compatibility ...

PS: the yt-dlp devs are adamant on always dropping a Python version once the PSF have dropped security support for that version (they're also keen on using the latest bells and whistles a new Python version comes with ) ; and the PSF always align themselves behind Microsoft when it comes to the Windows OS, so, as a result, only Win10+ is officially supported now  ...

PS2: Maroc's py3.11 offering previously discussed is what is called a binhack (binary hack): official DLL and EXE binaries are HexEdited and XP-incompatible functions are either stubbed or forwarded to a set of wrappers, mostly One-Core-API and/or Wine DLLs; the end result 1) makes my antivirus solution go completely berserk  2) WON'T even launch under Vista SP2 32-bit, as the wrapper DLLs specifically target NT 5.x system DLLs  ...

[nicolaasjan]

9 hours ago, VistaLover said:

BOTH are built on py3.13, so are good for the next 4 yrs, at least...

I tested adang1345's Python 3.14.0rc1 and was able to build and run yt-dlp on Windows 7 (in a VM snapshot). 

That should give us 5 years.

Only issue: I had to compile the Brotli dependency myself, because it is not yet offered on PyPI.

Cffi wheel for Python 3.14 was found here.

[roytam1]

11 hours ago, VistaLover said:

PS2: Maroc's py3.11 offering previously discussed is what is called a binhack (binary hack): official DLL and EXE binaries are HexEdited and XP-incompatible functions are either stubbed or forwarded to a set of wrappers, mostly One-Core-API and/or Wine DLLs; the end result 1) makes my antivirus solution go completely berserk  2) WON'T even launch under Vista SP2 32-bit, as the wrapper DLLs specifically target NT 5.x system DLLs  ...

maybe we can make a minimal version of replacement DLLs that just work with what they missed.