Trying to address the 32-bit instability

[Moonchild]

As some of you know, Pale moon is currently being built for release using a slightly older toolchain due to stability issues on older hardware with MSVC2022.
I've been trying to address these issues so I could bring the 32-bit Windows builds back in line with our normal build process, but obviously I neither have 32-bit hardware nor a 32-bit O.S. on bare metal at my disposal.

Could some of you using 32-bit builds make some time to test what I've built, and let me know if there are stability issues with them?
7z packed, installer and portable available.

ftp://publicbeta:forum@ftp.palemoon.org/unstable/32-bit/

[Pentium4User]

Are there really people who rely on Windows 32 bit builds?
Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs, they aren't manufactured for 10 years.

[Nigaikaze]

Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs

Just because the app is 32-bit doesn't mean the OS is. Some people are running 32-bit versions of Pale Moon on their 64-bit Windows installations. I would not do that myself, but they have their own reasons for doing so.

[Moonchild]

there's a number of people running 32-bit OSes on 64-bit capable hardware, too.

[Pentium4User]

I know that, but is there a real argument for that or is that only "legacy" stuff that was never changed?

[suzyne]

Are there really people who rely on Windows 32 bit builds?

Yes, I do! See Laptop 2 in my signature.

Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs

No, it runs fine. I understand that it is hard to imagine Windows 10 not being really slow on a 32 bit CPU, and while it is not what I would call fast, it is quick enough for a good work experience and that laptop is in regular use because of it's small size and weight. without the expense of a new ultralight.

The hardware itself is about seven years old, but it has all the latest Windows 10 updates, and I would like to think that the Pale Moon community fully appreciates the value in making use of an older computer provided it continues to work reliably?

Could some of you using 32-bit builds make some time to test what I've built

I am happy to report back on my experiences with Pale Moon running in a strictly 32 bit environment and will download that beta to see how it goes while using it as my primary browser on that computer.

[mrnhmath]

Been using it for some hours, no stability issues so far... although I can say the same for the Alpha 1 release of NetFusion, which I wasn't aware of the latest MSVC v143 32-bit woes when I built it.

[athenian200]

Are there really people who rely on Windows 32 bit builds?
Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs, they aren't manufactured for 10 years.

Off-topic:
Well, technically I think we still support Windows 7 32-bit, which means the minimum hardware someone could use for Windows 7 could very well be something a person would try to run Pale Moon on. I know for a fact that Athlon XP and Northwood Pentium 4 processors can be upgraded to Windows 7 32-bit, and you can max out the RAM at 3GB or 2GB depending on chipset (I had an Athlon XP system with Windows 7 32-bit and 3GB of RAM lying around until 2019). Now, would Pale Moon actually run on such a system? I have no idea, but it's at least theoretically possible so long as Pale Moon doesn't require AVX instructions or the NX bit.

But the more realistic scenario is that someone would either run a 32-bit OS on 64-bit hardware because they need to run 16-bit software, or else they want to use something like a later-model Atom chip that was artificially crippled by Intel to be 32-bit only, even though the underlying architecture is 64-bit. Even on the Atoms that do support 64-bit instructions, a lot of them are capped at 2GB of RAM and actually need the RAM savings that come with a 32-bit OS, getting basically no advantage at all from going 64-bit.

[Moonchild]

Been using it for some hours, no stability issues so far... although I can say the same for the Alpha 1 release of NetFusion, which I wasn't aware of the latest MSVC v143 32-bit woes when I built it.

I think it was a compiler bug that may have been limited to VS 17.4 or there abouts. But to be on the safe side I kept building with the slightly older toolchain. Since that toolchain is now officially out of support and won't get any bugfixes or sec updates anymore, I want to re-align with using a currently-supported version of the compiler (as used for 64-bit). If you've been building with VS-latest then you probably haven't run into the same issue.

[CrimsonAkiha]

Are there really people who rely on Windows 32 bit builds?
Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs, they aren't manufactured for 10 years.

Off-topic:
[...snip...]
I know for a fact that Athlon XP and Northwood Pentium 4 processors can be upgraded to Windows 7 32-bit, and you can max out the RAM at 3GB or 2GB depending on chipset (I had an Athlon XP system with Windows 7 32-bit and 3GB of RAM lying around until 2019). Now, would Pale Moon actually run on such a system? I have no idea, but it's at least theoretically possible so long as Pale Moon doesn't require AVX instructions or the NX bit.
[...snip...]

Off-topic:
I actually do use one of those 32-bit Northwood Pentium 4 processors with 3.5 GiB of RAM because they're some of the cheapest computers you can buy at the moment (potentially around 10 euro or less for a complete and working system), and Pale Moon works flawlessly, to answer your question. I have not tried the unstable build in this thread yet, though. Given that these computers are really cheap and likely used by a lot of people who seriously do not have the means to upgrade at all (not even to mention all of the much more recent 32-bit-only processors used in laptops), it would be a real shame if Pale Moon dropped support for them because of this, because it would effectively leave a lot of people without a browser at all, even though their computers are still stable and perfectly usable for everything else.

[Pentium4User]

Off-topic:
I actually do use one of those 32-bit Northwood Pentium 4 processors with 3.5 GiB of RAM because they're some of the cheapest computers you can buy at the moment (potentially around 10 euro or less for a complete and working system), and Pale Moon works flawlessly, to answer your question. I have not tried the unstable build in this thread yet, though. Given that these computers are really cheap and likely used by a lot of people who seriously do not have the means to upgrade at all (not even to mention all of the much more recent 32-bit-only processors used in laptops), it would be a real shame if Pale Moon dropped support for them because of this, because it would effectively leave a lot of people without a browser at all, even though their computers are still stable and perfectly usable for everything else.

Great that there are still Pentium 4 users.
Do you run it with Windows or another OS (GNU/Linux, *BSD)?

[athenian200]

Off-topic:
I actually do use one of those 32-bit Northwood Pentium 4 processors with 3.5 GiB of RAM because they're some of the cheapest computers you can buy at the moment (potentially around 10 euro or less for a complete and working system), and Pale Moon works flawlessly, to answer your question. I have not tried the unstable build in this thread yet, though. Given that these computers are really cheap and likely used by a lot of people who seriously do not have the means to upgrade at all (not even to mention all of the much more recent 32-bit-only processors used in laptops), it would be a real shame if Pale Moon dropped support for them because of this, because it would effectively leave a lot of people without a browser at all, even though their computers are still stable and perfectly usable for everything else.

Off-topic:
Glad to know my theory was right! I suspected that since mainstream Pale Moon is compiled for SSE2 systems and doesn't use AVX or even SSE3, that makes a Pentium 4 Northwood the oldest CPU that can run Pale Moon on Windows 7. Athlon XP processors probably wouldn't work with the mainstream build because they lack SSE2, though it might still be possible to build a version that would run on them if you really wanted to.

[Pentium4User]

Pentium 4 Willamette is older (2000, 1st gen of Pentium 4) and also has SSE2.

[noellarkin]

I occasionally use the 32 bit version inside x32 Windows 7 VMs, primarily for testing websites (I run all websites my team develops through Pale Moon ).

[RedRamGT]

I used the Portable version all weekend, and didn't have any problems, issues, or notice any differences from the 64-Bit version I normally use.
If there is something in particular that you would like tested, let me know - I'll be happy to check it out.

[suzyne]

I have been using the beta Pale Moon (palemoon-32.4.0.win32-beta.7z) and using a copy of the profile folder with a full set of add-ons that I normally use on Laptop 2. This is the real thing with an actual 32 bit cpu running Windows 10.

Despite trying my best to stress Pale Moon by turning off Suspender and visiting sites that I don't normally use in PM like Outlook while simultaneously listening on Google Podcasts and with GMail open and several other tabs for doing real work, Pale Moon behaved with nothing I would call a stability issue. Tabs didn't spontaneously close or anything like that, and it continued to work fine for a full workday without any restarts.

But I did notice one difference in behaviour when compared to the regular 32 bit 32.4.0 on the same laptop. When opening a tab with lots of javascript a "Not Responding" message would often appear:



Normally, I am used to the wait circle with web app style sites, so I am no stranger to this:



But the beta is the first time I have seen the other message.

Each time the site does successfully load, and probably (?) no slower than before, but it is a difference that I mention in case it is significant.

[Moonchild]

Thanks for testing!
Does seem like the instability issue was solved in that case (as it was quite obvious at the time, leading to 31.4.1.1) and I'll be building the next release on the current compiler toolchain again then. Please do report if you run into trouble before then though.

[lunapalida]

No, it runs fine. I understand that it is hard to imagine Windows 10 not being really slow on a 32 bit CPU, and while it is not what I would call fast, it is quick enough for a good work experience and that laptop is in regular use because of it's small size and weight. without the expense of a new ultralight.

Same here.

[4td8s]

there's a number of people running 32-bit OSes on 64-bit capable hardware, too.

I'm definitely one of them.
have a Win10 32bit/x86 OS on an old 2007 Dell laptop using an Intel Core 2 duo mobile T7600 cpu on a 250Gb HDD

Pentium 4 Willamette is older (2000, 1st gen of Pentium 4) and also has SSE2.

so is Pentium 4 Northwood (slightly newer than Willamette but also 32bit only and exists in both desktop & mobile/laptop versions)
64bit instruction support (or "Intel 64") was first added to "Prescott" series of Pentium 4s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_4_processors

[jb_wisemo]

Windows 10 should run really, really slow on 32 bit only CPUs

Just because the app is 32-bit doesn't mean the OS is. Some people are running 32-bit versions of Pale Moon on their 64-bit Windows installations. I would not do that myself, but they have their own reasons for doing so.

I routinely run 32 bit PM on x64 windows to use a plugin (not add-on) that I maintain for 32 bit x86 only, because other work has delayed the x64 port . To avoid conflict with my main x64 PM install, I use the portable PM as a sandbox .

Any pointers to that MSVC 32-bit bug so I can avoid it when upgrading the compiler for non-browser work?