32-bit Windows versions of Epyrus?

[athenian200]

I just had a quick question and I wanted to gauge community interest in this. Does anyone actually use the Windows 32-bit version of Epyrus that I provide, and if so on what hardware? My reason for providing it is mostly for people who are using 32-bit Windows on modern hardware, and I just want to make it clear that I haven't really tested it on actual 32-bit hardware like older Pentium 4 or Athlon XP systems. The oldest machine I still have that runs UXP applications is a Core i7-3770 from 2012.

I'm considering just making Epyrus 64-bit only, if no one is actually using the 32-bit versions. If people do use them, I would be happy to keep providing them, but I am seriously wondering at this point whether it's worth it to keep supporting that, since there aren't a lot of 32-bit NPAPI plugins for Epyrus like there are for Pale Moon that would really justify keeping a 32-bit version around.

Note that if I do discontinue these versions, I wouldn't do so right away, and also wouldn't prevent anyone else from building a 32-bit version if they want to. It would just be a thing where I don't bother building and supporting a 32-bit version of Epyrus myself.

[mrnhmath]

I think the percentage of 32-bit Windows users must be so low nowadays that it's not even worth bothering with, some statistics are needed.

Also, thanks for making this poll. It will help me decide whether I should distribute 32-bit builds of NetFusion for Windows.

[athenian200]

It appears that the one person using the 32-bit version of Epyrus so far is using it pretty much as I intended, on 32-bit Windows with modern 64-bit hardware.

I will wait for more replies, but so far the quick straw poll suggests to me I was right in my thinking initially about why people would use this, and I just need to put a disclaimer that this isn't guaranteed to work reliably on actual 32-bit CPUs and their hardware/instruction set limitations, and targets either OS software running in the 32-bit protected mode on x86_64 processors, or the 32-bit compatibility mode within 64-bit long mode that allows 32-bit applications to run on 64-bit Windows.

Supporting actual legacy 32-bit processors is a bit out of scope for Epyrus, and I was at least a little concerned that might be something people were expecting me to test consistently. But if not, then I can probably continue to maintain this on my existing hardware, just making sure to fire up a 32-bit version of Windows every once in a while to make sure all is well.

EDIT: I wound up going down the rabbit hole of curiosity to see when the last 32-bit processors were released because I got really curious thinking about it. And it seems like the answer really depends on what type of device you are looking at. For desktop, we all know it was Athlon XP and early Pentium 4 machines in the early 2000s. With laptops, things get a bit more interesting. Core Solo and Duo laptops based on the Yonah architecture were sold in the mid-2000s, essentially as souped-up Pentium M cores, which themselves were basically souped-up Pentium III cores. But really the final relevant examples for Epyrus purposes would actually be Atom processors based on the Bonnell architecture, some of which did not support 64-bit instructions.

The majority of the netbooks would be N280 or N270 machines from 2008 or 2009, and all the major models after that in the primary netbook line do support 64-bit instructions. Where things get really weird, is when you start looking into Intel's tablet/phone line. There are several Atom Cloverview processors from the early 2010s that you can usually only find in a handful of Android phones running bad ARM emulation software from this era. However, there is at least one example of a Windows 8 Tablet (really more of a 2-in-1 that can be attached to a keyboard) by Samsung from around 2012 running one of these CPUs. Turns out it's the Atom Z2760. It is definitely possible that someone could run Epyrus on such a device, and therefore this would be the final 32-bit only processor I would have to worry about supporting.

While there was technically an Intel Quark that came out as far as 2015, these were way too underpowered to actually run Epyrus, and were only found on developer boards and microcontrollers.

[dbsoft]

These days I only use 32-bit when running on ancient hardware, which is usually running Windows XP. Which isn't targetable by the official UXP anyway... so I guess my response would be I don't use the 32-bit version?

[athenian200]

So, I've been doing more research on this, and I just learned that Windows 11 does not have a 32-bit version at all. I assumed it did and may have even seen that beta versions of it did exist, but it seems like the final retail version of Windows 11 has no 32-bit version. So that means the last 32-bit Windows that can be supported is Windows 10. But since we are still technically supporting Windows 8 and Windows 7 32-bit, those operating systems do also have to work.

Based on that info, I'm thinking that it's a little premature to end 32-bit support now. However, I will be revisiting this issue on October 14, 2025, and see where we stand then, since it seems at least two people are in the situation of using a 32-bit version of Windows on 64-bit hardware, which is the exact situation I'm making these builds for.