CAN'T INSTALL SL VIEWER - MISSING WIN7 FILES ERROR

[Shamu077]

The two latest versions of the SL Viewer, the 6.6.16.6566955269 - GHA default release, and the latest PBR "beta" release, 7.0.1.6658224456 - GLTF Material Import. will no longer install on my system.  Firestorm still works fine, although I have not installed Firestorm in the last 2 days.

I assume these windows files were somehow deleted.  Where do I find them?  Since no one else has reported this, I figure it's a local problem. 

Here are the two error messages I get when attempting to install any SL Viewer.  I already uninstalled the prior GLTF viewer as suggested.  Now neither release version will install.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Shamu077
changed title to win7 from win

[Monty Linden]

By any chance, are you running Windows 7?  https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.6.16.6566955269.html

[Shamu077]

7 minutes ago, Monty Linden said:

By any chance, are you running Windows 7?  https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.6.16.6566955269.html

Yes I am.  So all Win7 users will no longer be able to install the SL Viewer?   I can try to re install the api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll in Win7, since it seems to be the same for Win 7 through Win11.  But I guess you are checking the viewer version, and blocking Win7, with no possible fix?  Is that correct?  Win7 is also blocked on your non GLTF version now.  Why?  You just wanted to force all Win 7 viewers to upgrade?

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Shamu077

[Monty Linden]

I'm not certain about the planning and rationale involved (if any).  But that's the technical source of the problem.  Speak up if this is truly a problem (Jira, here, the user groups).  Win7 is obsolescent at this point (Steam will stop functioning on it in 54 days).

[Shamu077]

15 minutes ago, Monty Linden said:

I'm not certain about the planning and rationale involved (if any).  But that's the technical source of the problem.  Speak up if this is truly a problem (Jira, here, the user groups).  Win7 is obsolescent at this point (Steam will stop functioning on it in 54 days)

I tried to install an older version, 6.6.16.582201 - Maintenance-V, which always would install before.  It to is now blocked with the same missing files error messages.  So basically ALL of the installable versions of the SL Viewer are now blocked from Win 7 users, and not just the two latest versions?

I hope Firestorm and other TPV's do not start to block Win 7 from all of their past versions as well.  This is what LL has done it seems.

I have Win10 installed on a new SSD, but am not looking forward to moving the 1000 or so programs I use in Win7 over. Some will not run in Win10, some need new drivers, and it's about a 1 week hassle to get transfered.  Since I can dual boot, I can go to Win7 when necessary.  I wll ask Firestorm developers if their next release versions for PBR and non-PBR will also block Win7 from installation.  Hopefully the TPVs will not be forced to follow the LL path without any warning.

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Shamu077

[Monty Linden]

2 minutes ago, Shamu077 said:

I tried to install an older version, 6.6.16.582201 - Maintenance-V, which always would install before.  It to is now blocked with the same missing files error messages.  So basically ALL of the installable versions of the SL Viewer are now blocked from Win 7 users, and not just the two latest versions?

Try using the uninstaller from the Start Menu then reinstalling the above package.

[Shamu077]

6 hours ago, Monty Linden said:

Try using the uninstaller from the Start Menu then reinstalling the above package.

Nope.  I did that, removed all registry and other files from the SL Viewer - like a clean install, with the uninstaller.  I still get the same missing files messages from ANY of the listed SL viewer versions when I try to re-install.  Did the latest version delete these essential window DLL's ?  They should install any dll files they have modified for their program, not remove them.  But they apparently delete them, and not replace if Win 7.

I hope LL doesn't find a way to delete the files for Firestorm viewers as well.  

Added later - The missing files were never in Win7.  I checked two recent backups of my entire WIn7 system, on the cloud and a different hard drive, and neither of the files mentioned in my error messages were present in Win7 system or in the SLViewer folders.  So the 'SLVersionChecker.exe' is preventing the missing dll files from being loaded at all.  An effective way to block all Win7 systems from being used in SL.

A public notice that WIn7 is now blocked from all SLViewers versions would have been more professional, imo,  perhaps with a week of lead time for those that need to install Win10 or Win11.

I doubt I am the only SL resident in the entire world that is still using Win7, which has up until now performed flawlessly, even with the alpha/beta PBR SL viewers.  And I am no longer burdened with the Win7 program updates, which often break things until MS fixes it the next update.  Finally a stable operating system!   Security updates are STILL active in Win7, btw, in case someone thinks Win7 is a security risk.  Real time monitoring of all incoming files still protecting the system, in addition to my router firewall port protection.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Shamu077

[Jaylinbridges]

Found this on a tech forum, https://stackoverflow.com/ Same issue. Bye bye Win7 for SL Viewer users.

Fatal error detected: error loading python dll 'python311.dll

"I tryed to compile my python script with auto-py-to-exe, and it worked great (on Windows 10). But when i tried to run the program on another computer (on Windows 7). At first there was an error there is not an api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll. When i downloaded this file and put it in base dir, occurred new error:

Error loading python dll 'python311.dll' and I don't know how to solve this problem."

 

[Beq Janus]

TL;DR: Firestorm should remain unaffected. Due to our three-release policy, when Win7 no longer installs the latest FS, you will have two prior releases available that will continue to work, allowing you time to choose how you resolve this.

With regards to Firestorm. Our position re:Win 7 is the same as the lab's and the same rule we apply to other aspects such as 32-bit, Linux distribution and Mac version. Unsupported platforms work by chance alone, and no action is taken to fix them when that luck runs out. We will not kill Win7 support deliberately; it might well fail at any point due to a build dependency or other change that we make, and when that happens, we will choose not to resuscitate the patient. 

Now, with the specific case here, I cannot test this to be certain, but Firestorm should remain unaffected for the end user for now.

Firestorm has been built using GitHub Actions for over a year now. As with the LL builds that have newly migrated to GitHub, this enforces a higher degree of security and support awareness as GitHub retire older OS build machines (know as runners) on a well-defined basis. For example, this has seen a recent update of our Mac builds from 10.X to 11 and our Linux builds from Ubuntu LTS 18 to 20. We have been building on Windows 11 (essentially, Windows Server 2022)  for a while now. In our build system, we are using (and have been using) Python 3.11 for a few releases, and given that you are only now seeing this issue, that adds a little weight to my belief that we are, for now, unaffected.

The bottom line is that Firestorm does not require Python to be installed on the end user's machine, as we do not use the LL mechanism to manage the viewer updates. FS allows you to update manually and provides three supported versions; when we do reach a point (probably sooner rather than later) where Win7 can no longer support the viewer, then those users will, in theory, have a period of up to 3 viewer releases during which they can choose how to address the issue. This should be ample time for most. I cannot, of course, guarantee this. It is always possible that a problem occurs, such as a security flaw which requires us to block all older viewers. There is no precedent for it that I know of, though.

As an aside, if and when FS does not work, you might still find that some other TPVs, those that are based on the older viewer 1.X heritage such as @Henri Beauchamp's CoolVl Viewer would still work for you. My expectation is that (in the same way as 32-bit is affected) the death of Win7 will not be due directly to the Viewer itself but a requirement of one of the libraries that we depend upon. 

For those interested: The supported Github runners are always found here. These dictate the platforms we can build on, but not necessarily what you can run on.

https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-github-hosted-runners/about-github-hosted-runners#supported-runners-and-hardware-resources

 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2023 by Beq Janus

[Jaylinbridges]

Thanks for the information Beq.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Jaylinbridges

[Shamu077]

Thank You Beq. I already have Win10 installed as a dual boot.  But it has nothing I need, and I will have to find some new applicatioin software that was never updated to run on Win10, and learn how to use it.  I will lose a few weeks of sleep getting it all back in shape on Win10.  And because of your 3 version policy, I can always keep Win7 for my old applications that also run with SL until Win7 dies from unnatural causes.    I will not miss the SLViewer one iota, I only used it for testing anyway.  There will be less fortunate residents who only have a Win7 computer and will not know how to upgrade, and can't afford a new system.  But they too have time, thanks to the TPV.s.  Do you think LL support will tell them to install Firestorm as a short term solution?

If they have never tried a TPV,  you and others will be getting new clients, as SL is forcing them off their **** viewer.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Shamu077

[Love Zhaoying]

11 hours ago, Monty Linden said:

By any chance, are you running Windows 7?  https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.6.16.6566955269.html

Thank you for sharing that specific information.

If the "side-effect" of the viewer no longer installing on Windows 7 is due to "just missing Python", or something else that could indeed be installed by a user, that would also be good to know!

(Not sure if my older desktop automatically upgraded to Windows 10 or if is compatible, but luckily I have a new notebook which is Windows 10.  My plan has been to use my older desktop "as-needed".)

 

[Flea Yatsenko]

I have a similar problem under different circumstances. I resolved it by removing the SL updater exes from where SL is installed. I forget exactly which exes to delete, but if you search for Linux WINE crash on start you should find something. My problem wasn't SL client, it was the SL updater and it caused the whole show to not run.

I think that's something LL needs to fix, because if anything goes wrong with the updater the client fails to load and they have a user who is upset they can't run SL. SL starting shouldn't depend on the SL update services succeeding when they can just log in, get the client blocked message, then download the new version.

Anyways, try deleting the update exes and stuff in the install directory (MAKE A BACKUP!!!) and see what happens.

[Jaylinbridges]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

If the "side-effect" of the viewer no longer installing on Windows 7 is due to "just missing Python", or something else that could indeed be installed by a user, that would also be good to know!

If it was only that easy.  Win7 will no longer run Python, unless you are a programmer that is willing to build your own Python.  So that eliminates about 99.999% of the user population.  Back when MS first announced their ending of Win7 support, about 3 years ago, some Python developers decided it was time to make all modern versions of Python not compatible with Win7.  Their reason was the usual - we don't want to support Win7, so let's force all Win7 users to upgrade.  That cause a problem for many CAD users still on Win7.  There was no solution but to upgrade.  Python is not essential to SL code.  FS has no plans to require Python in the future, with the new SL versions.   

What is Python?  Here's a Youtube explanation - the narrator is really a fast writer with his black marker.  It's a coder's wet dream it claims.  

 

 

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

For the version checker (and Python) issue, you can simply remove the SLVersionChecker.exe binary from the viewer installation directory (the viewer will complain it cannot start it, but will run without it nevertheless).

However, I am not sure how LL specified their build target on github for Windows: if they did not specify a WINVER=0x0601 option, then their viewer binary won't run on anything older than Win10...

The Cool VL Viewer still can run under Windows 7 (and 8.x), but for a couple releases it has already been using LL's CEF v118 github's build to replace the (vulnerable) CEF v91 old build, meaning you won't have a working web plugin any more under Win 7/8.x... I might add an option to build it against CEF v91 again, but you'd need a Win10+ system (or VM) to build it anyway (since VS2022 won't run either under Win7, even if it can build Win7-compatible binaries)...

It becomes harder to support Win7/8.x, and updates to those, while still possible using tricks and hacks (making them POSReady-like systems), will also soon cease to be distributed by M$...

Time to upgrade... Or switch to Linux ! 😜

Edited November 9, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Love Zhaoying]

2 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

If it was only that easy.  Win7 will no longer run Python, unless you are a programmer that is willing to build your own Python.  So that eliminates about 99.999% of the user population.  Back when MS first announced their ending of Win7 support, about 3 years ago, some Python developers decided it was time to make all modern versions of Python not compatible with Win7.  Their reason was the usual - we don't want to support Win7, so let's force all Win7 users to upgrade.  That cause a problem for many CAD users still on Win7.  There was no solution but to upgrade.  Python is not essential to SL code.  FS has no plans to require Python in the future, with the new SL versions.   

What is Python?  Here's a Youtube explanation - the narrator is really a fast writer with his black marker.  It's a coder's wet dream it claims.  

 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation - I know what Python is (lol), but I didn't know Python wouldn't run on Win7.

[Ardy Lay]

/me comes in and starts a fire:

14 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Time to upgrade... Or switch to Linux ! 😜

Linux is not THE solution, it is, or, should I say they are, a sea of solutions looking for users.  Do publishers of viewers for Second Life provide lists of Linux distributions and versions on which their viewers run reliably?  The person that chimes in with "compile it yourself" might be in for a ride.

I remember pitching a fit when Second Life would no longer run on Windows 2000 without tricks.

Now we are living in dread of the death of Windows 10, are we not?  I'll hold out for a while on a few machines I use around the office because they still do their little duties okay, but, for Second Life, I am one of the weird ones that buys new hardware every few years just for Second Life Viewer to run on.

Wow, we need Python to launch Second Life Viewer?  Was that really necessary?  I suffer constantly at work because of thousands of systems running R.A.D. puke instead of compiled-for-target applications.  The stacks of interpreters and the chains of scripts they run, all passed off as commercial products make my work life hell.  Now consider that we put the target platforms in the hands of people that want an appliance to "just work" and witness the complete failure of a rickety R.A.D. demo released into the wilds.

I would suggest replacing that version checker with something that doesn't add unexpected dependencies.  Second Life Viewer is very much already a dependency nightmare without it.

[Love Zhaoying]

19 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Wow, we need Python to launch Second Life Viewer?  Was that really necessary? 

I wasn't surprised by the use of Python as such..last year I found out that my company changed to create ALL new "automations" ('bots") using Python. (Of course, noone told those of us who used older automation software..)

I just had no friggin' clue that Python does not run on Windows 7. 

To me, personally - in my opinion, as a software developer (35 years now), that is the equivalent of not allowing Java on Windows 7.  Python has become THAT prevalent (from what I've seen).  In fact, it's WORSE than not supporting Java on Windows 7 - because Python is used for different things (such as desktop automation). (And when's the last time you saw a "native Java application" running on your desktop - not on a server, etc.?)

On the other hand, I also forgot Windows 7 is so friggin' OLD. (Time flies.)

 

[Flea Yatsenko]

56 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

/me comes in and starts a fire:

Linux is not THE solution, it is, or, should I say they are, a sea of solutions looking for users.  Do publishers of viewers for Second Life provide lists of Linux distributions and versions on which their viewers run reliably?  The person that chimes in with "compile it yourself" might be in for a ride.

I remember pitching a fit when Second Life would no longer run on Windows 2000 without tricks.

Now we are living in dread of the death of Windows 10, are we not?  I'll hold out for a while on a few machines I use around the office because they still do their little duties okay, but, for Second Life, I am one of the weird ones that buys new hardware every few years just for Second Life Viewer to run on.

Wow, we need Python to launch Second Life Viewer?  Was that really necessary?  I suffer constantly at work because of thousands of systems running R.A.D. puke instead of compiled-for-target applications.  The stacks of interpreters and the chains of scripts they run, all passed off as commercial products make my work life hell.  Now consider that we put the target platforms in the hands of people that want an appliance to "just work" and witness the complete failure of a rickety R.A.D. demo released into the wilds.

I would suggest replacing that version checker with something that doesn't add unexpected dependencies.  Second Life Viewer is very much already a dependency nightmare without it.

Firestorm works perfectly fine for me in Gentoo Linux. I just download the tar, extract it, and it's fine. The official client in WINE loves to crash on me though. It's a pain.

[Henri Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Do publishers of viewers for Second Life provide lists of Linux distributions and versions on which their viewers run reliably?

I give the prerequisite on the Cool VL Viewer web site:

Quote

The provided Linux viewer binary for the stable branch should run on any Linux x86_64 (2018-ish or newer) system with glibc v2.27, libstdc++ v6.0.25 and glib v2.58.3 or newer. You may as well easily build the viewer yourself (with just one command !) on any x86_64 Linux system.

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Flea Yatsenko said:

The official client in WINE loves to crash on me though.

Wine got bugs (at least two of which do impact viewers), making it a very bad option to run a viewer under Linux. I got workarounds for those bugs in the Cool VL Viewer, but even so, the stability is at best fragile, and the frame rates and smoothness very bad...

Just run native Linux builds.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Kathrine Jansma]

For people that care about the Python issue that causes this:

After installation on Windows7, 64bit Python 3.9.0b5 reports "api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll" missing and doesn't start · Issue #85584 · python/cpython · GitHub

Basically Microsoft restructured their Win32 runtime in the effort to modernize it as part of the UWP project and some functions got moved around to new DLLs like the mentioned one.

You can see a list here:

APIs present on all Windows devices - Windows UWP applications | Microsoft Learn

This means a viewer built against the newer set of Win10 headers & libraries will not find the long outdated old locations of those functions anymore. 

Thats pretty normal when things move on, just like a TP to an old landmark in SL leads you nowhere.

[Love Zhaoying]

34 minutes ago, Kathrine Jansma said:

For people that care about the Python issue that causes this:

After installation on Windows7, 64bit Python 3.9.0b5 reports "api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll" missing and doesn't start · Issue #85584 · python/cpython · GitHub

Basically Microsoft restructured their Win32 runtime in the effort to modernize it as part of the UWP project and some functions got moved around to new DLLs like the mentioned one.

You can see a list here:

APIs present on all Windows devices - Windows UWP applications | Microsoft Learn

This means a viewer built against the newer set of Win10 headers & libraries will not find the long outdated old locations of those functions anymore. 

Thats pretty normal when things move on, just like a TP to an old landmark in SL leads you nowhere.

Thanks for the details!

[Henri Beauchamp]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:44 AM, Henri Beauchamp said:

However, I am not sure how LL specified their build target on github for Windows: if they did not specify a WINVER=0x0601 option, then their viewer binary won't run on anything older than Win10...

I verified and LL's viewers can still be ran under Windows 7, with the exception of the CEF plugin (it simply won't start) and the version checker (but deleting SLVersionChecker.exe from the installation directory allows to start and run the viewer just fine).

I also started a poll for my own viewer...

Edited November 10, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Flea Yatsenko]

20 hours ago, Henri Beauchamp said:

Wine got bugs (at least two of which do impact viewers), making it a very bad option to run a viewer under Linux. I got workarounds for those bugs in the Cool VL Viewer, but even so, the stability is at best fragile, and the frame rates and smoothness very bad...

Just run native Linux builds.

Get lots of mesh and material upload errors in Firestorm alpha. FS will give me MISSING_NAV_BLOCK yet official client uploads fine. FS Alpha won't bulk upload materials either, always gives an error. Sometimes I have to use it, though I haven't tried yours in WINE yet. Plus FS doesn't have HAVOK.

 

23 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Do publishers of viewers for Second Life provide lists of Linux distributions and versions on which their viewers run reliably? 

Linux software should work in all (distributions) versions of Linux. Publishers just list specific versions because they don't want to get stuck troubleshooting someone's Gentoo installation where they have obscure setups. Some distros are a lot easier to use than others, and some a lot easier to fix or troubleshoot.

Anything based off Debian or Red Hat is always a good choice, though I vastly prefer Debian (or Devuan since systemd is awful)