Windows 7 support update

Author: ChrisDenton

posts/2024-02-15-Windows-7.md

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "New Windows 7 targets and tier 1 deprecation"
+author: Chris Denton
+---
+
+The minimum requirements for tier 1 toolchains targeting Windows will increase with the 1.77 release (scheduled for March 21, 2024).
+Windows 10 will now be the minimum supported version.
+These requirements apply both to running the Rust compiler itself and to running binaries produced by Rust, if they use the libstd.
+
+Additionally there are two new targets that have Windows 7 as their baseline: `x86_64-win7-windows-msvc` and `i686-win7-windows-msvc`.
+
+## Affected targets
+
+- `x86_64-pc-windows-msvc`
+- `i686-pc-windows-msvc`
+- `x86_64-pc-windows-gnu`
+- `i686-pc-windows-gnu`
+
+## Why are the requirements being changed?
+
+Prior to now, Rust claimed tier 1 support for Windows 7 and 8 but they did not meet the requirements.
+In particular they lacked automatic testing and are no longer supported by their vendor.
+With other software also dropping Windows 7 support, including developer tools such as git, it's becoming increasingly untenable to claim Rust offers first class support.