Specify in the docs that Windows 7 and below isn't supported anymore

[nomalord]

Our systems use some old machines (2008 old) and I noticed that vector doesn't work on them.
After a bit of digging I found out that since rust version 1.77, windows 7 and below isn't supported anymore 😢😢

Through a bit of git magic I found that the last version of vector that supports windows 7 is 0.38
I was hoping that you could add a disclaimer for that in the docs in the windows sections, as I had no idea about the issue and had to break my back a bit to find out what is the problem and how to fix it.
Thanks in advance 😊

P.S
I was wondering if it's possible to downgrade the rust version to 1.77 for releases specifically for windows (as a seperate release from the original windows release) to support backwards compatibility

[pront]

Thanks for sharing this information @nomalord.

This is covered: #21721

P.S
I was wondering if it's possible to downgrade the rust version to 1.77 for releases specifically for windows (as a seperate release from the original windows release) to support backwards compatibility

This is quite challenging:

• Some crates/dependencies used in Vector may have also dropped Windows 7 support
• Maintaining a separate legacy build would add a lot of overhead.
• Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft, and old software can come with security vulnerabilities.

[pront]

Another thought here, could you use an old Vector version to just collect the data on the edge and then push to another Vector running on Linux?

• from https://vector.dev/docs/reference/configuration/sinks/vector/
• to https://vector.dev/docs/reference/configuration/sources/vector/

[nomalord]

Oh absolutely, that's currently what I'm doing (many old windows servers (0.38) and one new Linux container running in Openshift (latest)) so when I'll eventually need newer features I'll just use them in the aggregator.

Thanks for the offer 😊😊😊