Can't run electrum 4.2.0 on Windows 7 (api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer)

When I start electrum-4.2.0.exe on Windows 7 I get this error: The program can't start because api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem. According to this, the problem is related to python 3.9, it doesn’t support Windows 7. Readme file for electrum contains Language: Python (>= 3.8), therefore, it should be possible to build electrum for Windows 7 with Python 3.8. Could you please build the latest electrum with Python 3.8?

[SomberNight]

Possible ways to fix:

• bundle pre-built Python 3.8.10 from python.org ❌ we would be missing out on later 3.8.x security fixes
• build the “hacky” api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll ourselves (as part of the build scripts) and include it in the binary
  • not sure how future-proof this would be… but currently the lack of this dll looks to be the only reason why Python 3.9 cannot run on Win7
  • note that I’ve tested simply including the dll provided by Wine, and that does not work
• cross-compile the msys2 python using mingw, as in https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/6565
  • this could be a long-term win regardless of Win7 support, as we would no longer need to trust the python.org binary

Note that any approach would require being able to build reproducible binaries (as is already the case), and we heavily dislike bundling pre-built binaries.

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Considering that

• Win7 itself is no longer receiving security fixes,
• there does not seem to be an easy way to keep supporting Win7,
• I am still a bit doubtful there are a lot of Win7 users out there,

my decision for now is to drop support for Windows 7.

If someone comes along and starts contributing towards supporting Windows 7, then we could potentially reintroduce support, however as it stands we don’t have time to do it ourselves.

Existing Win7 users can keep using Electrum 4.1.5 for the time being – but they should consider upgrading or changing their OS.

[BeholdersEye]

* build the ["hacky" `api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll`](https://github.com/nalexandru/api-ms-win-core-path-HACK) ourselves (as part of the build scripts) and include it in the binary

You might consider including the dll in the portable version, at least, since that would significantly increase its portability (likely a reason some people use the portable version).

* I am still a bit doubtful there are a lot of Win7 users out there,

Even now it represents 10% of Windows installs.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide

Existing Win7 users can keep using Electrum 4.1.5 for the time being

That is an ominous “for the time being”. I’m a happy user of Electrum on Linux so it’s no skin off my own nose but I would like to be able to recommend Electrum to my friends without saying “The first step is back up all your files before we install a new operating system…” and in any case it should not be necessary to replace the host operating system to use “portable” software.