all: end support for Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 in Go 1.21 or 1.22

[heschi]

Per discussion in #52188, Microsoft, Chrome, Git and others will stop supporting Windows 8 and 8.1 at the beginning of next year.

In contrast to Windows 7, 8's corresponding Windows Server releases, Server 2012 and 2012R2, will not fall out of support for some time. Extended support ends later this year, but "extended security updates" don't end until 2026. I don't have a sense of how important that install base is to us.

On behalf of @golang/release, I propose we announce the end of support either in the Go 1.20 or 1.21 release notes and shut down the builder in the subsequent release. I don't feel strongly about which, and I think it'd be interesting to have community input on the timing on this one.

cc @golang/windows

[rsc]

This proposal has been added to the active column of the proposals project
and will now be reviewed at the weekly proposal review meetings.
— rsc for the proposal review group

[rsc]

Despite the possibility of extended support for customers paying Microsoft, it seems clear that nearly everyone is dropping support for Windows 8, including .NET. We would need to announce in the Go 1.20 release notes and then Go 1.21 would be the first release without support, and then Go 1.22 would mark the end of Go 1.20 being supported, which would be the real end. That Go 1.22 release would be in Feb 2024.

[rsc]

Based on the discussion above, this proposal seems like a likely accept.
— rsc for the proposal review group

[bradfitz]

proposal: all: end support for Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 in Go 1.21 or 1.22
...
In contrast to Windows 7, 8's corresponding Windows Server releases, Server 2012 and 2012R2, will not fall out of support for some time. Extended support ends later this year, but "extended security updates" don't end until 2026. I don't have a sense of how important that install base is to us.

I'm confused by this wording. Is this saying that Windows 7 (aka Windows Server 2008) will continue to be supported but Windows 8 (aka Windows Server 2012) will not? Only 7 and 10+?

Or is this about unsupporting both 7 and 8?

Or is 7 already unsupported? But https://github.com/golang/go/wiki/MinimumRequirements says:

For Go 1.11 and later: Windows 7 and higher or Windows Server 2008 R2 and higher. We test on Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012 R2, and 2016, which are roughly Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

As a data point (not even in support of any particular argument), our Go application has Windows user distribution as follows:

Win 10+	 96.8%
Win 7 	 1.7%
Win 8.1	 1.3%
Win 8	 0.1%

Pre-Win10 is low percent, for sure, but in absolute numbers it's still a good number of users. But I agree the Go project can't run builders & support everything forever, especially when upstream doesn't.

In any case, I'll note that https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.20#ports hasn't been updated yet to say anything about upcoming Windows deprecations. Is that going to happen before rc2/final?

[dmitshur]

@bradfitz There's a separate proposal for just Windows 7, #57003.