MuseScore 4.0 will not run on various older operating systems

• Aug 29, 2022 - 12:29

Please note that MuseScore 4.0 will not run on

  • 32-bit Windows 7, 8,1 and 10
  • macOS 10.13

A detailed discussion (of what is and is not supported and the reasons we are desupporting older versions) is available at MuseScore 4.0 support for older operating systems

(I decided to move the contents of the original post into a Developer Handbook page so that other contributors can make improvements to it. I have also merged some of the original comments into the above document - e.g. the reference to PortableApps.com).

Please note that this is a repost of a previous announcement message, which was deleted by mistake during a cleanup operation. A copy of the original post (with most but not all comments) can be viewed at the Wayback Machine.

Comments

• Dec 1, 2022 - 22:26

You do not make any money off of Musescore. It is a free product.
What is the drive to continually upgrade and add more and more features, which for me personally constitute unnecessary bloat?
I don't need this product upgraded anymore. It is perfect. I don't want any upgrades.
I realize how immature this sounds, but I know in five more years Musescore is going to be a 1GB download of 1,000,000 things that 90% of the public doesn't need.

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• Dec 1, 2022 - 23:15

I wouldn't call it "immature", but I would say that imagining that 90% of people don't want their scores to look better (improved engraving) or sound better (improved playback) is curiously naive :-). And making the program easier to use (improved user interface) is valuable also to the people who aren't current MuseScore users.

My suspicion is that once you experience for yourself how much better your scores look and sound - and how much more easily you can produce truly professional results than ever before - you'll look back on this post and laugh at your former self :-)

As for drive: the push to constantly improve a free product should be easily understood as a desire to delight the 90% of users who do value improvements, as well the millions who have held off because it wasn't good enough or was too complex to learn. A heartfelt wish to make the world a better place has always been the primary motivating factor for open source software development. But no doubt. for MuseScore specifically, having more and happier users will help the bottom line of their musescore.com business as well, so there is that.

Anyhow, FWIW, the size of the download for MuseScore 4 itself is not significantly different than for MuseScore 3. Which makes sense, because from a feature perspective, there isn't that much difference. Only the optional Muse Sounds orchestral library is larger - and yes, a lot larger. As should be expected, because it's mind-blowingly good.

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• Dec 1, 2022 - 23:34

"I don't need this product upgraded anymore. It is perfect. I don't want any upgrades."

Upgrades are completely at the user's discretion. So the obvious remark is, If you don't want to upgrade, then don't upgrade. I am sure there are users out there still using v1.x and v2.x and there will be others like you who stick at 3.x. I think you will find that getting support here for 3.x will become more and more difficult as users migrate to 4.x and forget how 3.x used to work. But chaqun à son goût.

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• Mar 19, 2023 - 03:23

You can continue to use an older version like 3.6.2 as long as your OS updates don't cause library incompatibilities. That's what's happening with me when I try to use 3.6.2 under Linux Mint 21.1 - I've been using it under LM 19.2 till now, but 19.2 is going out of LSTM very soon.

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• Dec 2, 2022 - 02:28

In reply to unknown proigy;
So, just use the free software that you have and stop whining. There is no obligation to upgrade and the (free) software that you have will not time-out. In five more years, BTW, a 1Gb download is likely to take less than 8 seconds for over 50% of the world population; Even if it took overnight, MS is worth downloading.

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• Dec 2, 2022 - 20:25

I couldn't find any stats on average broadband speed by population but the latest global average, (by country?), was 34.79Mbps, so a 1GB (= 1024 MB = 8192 Gb) download would take 8192 ÷ 34.79 seconds = 235 s, or approximately 4 minutes.

It would obviously require 1Gbps internet to download 8Gb in 8 seconds. Does 50% of the global population of internet users really have this speed?

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• Dec 3, 2022 - 12:30

It doesn't sound immature at all, you just sound like a 'satisfied customer'. It would be nice to see MS3 continue to get bug fixes for those users who don't want/need MS4. Of course this may be difficult due to resourcing levels.

A 1GB download in 5 years may or may not happen but technology will have moved on and this size will not seem bloated nor take too long to download.

Much software has a lot of functionality that many users don't need but without it that software could be useless for the 10% of people that do need it. Example: VBA in desktop Excel. This opens up a whole host of possibilities in the business world as well as private, (e.g. my guitar Let Ring plugout for MS3), but most Excel users are unaware of it's existence.

The biggest issue for me of different software versions is backward compatibility. I don't want two versions of Excel on my computer just to access older Excel file formats. Fortunately, Microsoft have provided backwards compatilbility. Similarly, it would be ideal if MS4 could load MS3 and MS2 files without mangling them in any way, (even if this meant a bit of software bloat!)

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• Mar 17, 2023 - 17:32

I'd be happy to not upgrade an application if I don't want to, but what if the OS needs to be upgraded and the instaled app version will not run under the new OS?

I have been using MS3.6.2.MuseScore-3.6.2.548021370-x86_64.AppImage in Linux Mint 19.2. LM 19 is about to reach end of LTS, so I installed LM 21.1 for dual-boot. I tried using my MS 3.6.2 in LM 2.1 and the first thing I noticed is that mouse-clicks are not correctly responded to. I assume it's a library version issue; has anyone tried or considered reverting a lib in LM 21 (or the Ubuntu version it's based on)?

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• Dec 5, 2022 - 11:49

As Jojo-Schmitz has gone to the trouble of creating a fork of MS3 with new features, here are some points to consider:

MuseScore 4.0 support for older operating systems: https://musescore.org/en/node/334684

>The MuseScore developer community uses a development environment Qt 5 to develop MuseScore 4.0. Qt 5 supports Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 (32-bit), and macOS 10.13. Unfortunately, Qt 5 is no longer supported by its vendor. We are planning a near-term transition to Qt 6, which desupports the above operating systems. To be compatible with what is (and is not) supported on Qt 6, MuseScore 4.0 has the following limitations:

> 64-bit Windows 7 and 8.1 - MuseScore 4.0 may work, even if untested and not supported.

OS stats: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worl…

Note Windows 7 has a 10% share of OSes globally. Reasons: https://www.zdnet.com/article/poll-results-heres-why-people-are-stickin…

Windows 10 has 69% share (not sure how much of that is 32 bit). Reasons:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/10-reasons-not-to-upgrade-to-windows-11
https://www.makeuseof.com/windows-10-reasons-to-choose-over-windows-11/
https://au.pcmag.com/migrated-15175-windows-10/91394/the-10-worst-thing…

Unsuprisingly, Windows 11 only has a 16% share. A bit more than Windows 7. Hardly a reason from

QT: https://www.qt.io/blog/qt6-development-hosts-and-targets
> Both Windows 7 or 8.x version support will not be available for Qt 6. Microsoft discontinued the support for both Windows versions some time ago, and as a vendor, we can no longer maintain support for these windows versions in Qt 6. Windows 7 (both 32bit and 64bit) was supported as a target in Qt 5.15 LTS and Windows 8.1 (both 32bit and 64bit) as a target in Qt 5.12 LTS. This means that we will not have 32bit Windows support available. Additionally, it will no longer be possible to create UWP applications on Windows 10.

So QT is just dropping support following Microsoft's lead, no specific reason. Windows 7-10 are well understood,stable,mature, OSes. With solutions readily available to issues.

Jojo-Schmitz wrote:
>> For an updated MS3 see my PR#9000 and its artifacts, meanwhile 435 commits ahead of 3.6.2...

Rather than maintain a fork of MS3 using QT5 with new features ported..

If Qt5 is mature and does everything Musecore can imagine, then there is no big deal in just sticking with QT5 for a while. Right? I mean if Musescore development was a couple of years ahead so MS 4 came out in 2018, would QT have been a blocker? If not, it's possible to use QT5 for now, and release a new major version Musescore 5 when a new QT6 is needed, so users are aware there might be incompatibilities.

Muscore:
> The nature of the IT industry makes software and hardware upgrades a "constant". A software project like MuseScore desupporting certain operating systems from time to time becomes inevitable.

Some points for Musecore to think about for the future:

The things that Microsoft does is not driven exclusively by improvement and the public good/interest of the software world. There are a lot of valid reasons not to follow Microsoft's directions without questions in future.

The default position for opensource software companies should be to resist Windows 11 and it's TPM DRM which needs very recent CPUs, and the close bundling of the Windows store with Windows.

It's mainly Microsoft pushing people to newer and newer OSes, which attempt to bundle a software ecosystem even more closely than the previews OS (remember the lawsuits from about netscape about bundling internet explorer, or the EU forcing Microsoft to release a version of Windows with the bundled Media Player: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_litigation#United_States ).

Right now the Windows home versions are essentially a digital store attached to a bundled operating system. Windows 11 requires people to log in to their website. Windows 11 requires a new 7th generation processor that supports Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM 2.0) - which Microsoft likes as it's essentially DRM similar to what they use in their XBOX platform - where they hardware lock software to prevent modification making it impossible for people to modify opensource software on that hardware. Microsoft are working on an upgrade to TPM called Pluton which would be even closer to the XBOX hardware DRM - expect a Windows 12 push eventually.
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Other_uses_and_co…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.en.html
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/17/21571069/microsoft-pluton-processor…

Both the Windows store, and powerful XBOX hardware, are hostile to GPL3. As a result, long term, opensource projects like Musescore (v4 is GPL3 it seems https://musescore.org/en/node/320043 ) lose out on revenue/exposure. Microsoft locks GPL3 out of the Windows store purely out of malice - GPL3 has no issues with the store as long as it allows people to modify GPL3 software.

https://www.electronicdesign.com/technologies/embedded-revolution/artic…

In Microsoft's dream vision, GPL companies like Musescore.com would not exist ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft ). Neither would this website and Musescore cloud services very likely - as the vast majority ( https://www.enterpriseappstoday.com/stats/linux-statistics.html ) of servers on the internet run on Linux.

Cheers

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• Dec 13, 2022 - 21:59

@nmit.
Interestingly enough, there are many things about Microsoft that warrant complaint. And yet brand name notation software that I bought in 2007 for PC runs on my W10 machine just fine. I had W11 on an 8 year old laptop and never once had to sign in to the Windows store.
Look, I've used Windows since W98. Every time a new version comes out, the doomsayers are all over it. The outcry over W7 was quite deafening. W11 is barely a year old. No one flocks to a new OS. For example, I tried it and went back because it isn't that much different for what I do. Security aside, I decided that it will be fine to wait until I buy a new computer to get it. There is software backwards compatibility in Windows that is much less in Mac.
Or perhaps you are thinking of Windows in S-Mode.

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• Dec 15, 2022 - 00:10

Thank you so much, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. OS upgrades have been getting so common these days (and often mandatory in a sense) that average users are turning numb and insensitive to the risks involved. I really hope more could see the warning. Anyone willing to spend time and learn about BIOS, UEFI, Secure Boot and TPM will understand what ms has been trying to do with the new OS, it's just so obvious.
Unfortunately what else can FOSS devs do beside following big corp's rule? You can't really talk others out of getting the newer and shinnier OS, most simply believe its just better. "Giving up on my own interest? We'll see". "Public good? Interest of the software world? GNU? Cannot care less"
All things considered, I believe Musescore dev team has made the best possible informed decision on this matter.

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• Mar 14, 2023 - 11:14

I work on a Windows 10 64-Bit,
though Musecore 4 doesn't seem to start installing. Is it, because I don't have Internet on my workstation?

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• Mar 14, 2023 - 13:24

Are you saying you downloaded the installer (e.g., an MSI file) at a time/place when you did have an internet connection, and now you are trying to run the installer, but something goes wrong. As far as I know, that should work even without an internet connection. What specifically went wrong when you ran the MSI installer?

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• Mar 24, 2023 - 15:44

In your FAQ, as of today (March 24, 2023) you clearly state: "we focus much of our resources on developing the optimal experience for desktop and the MuseScore Player for mobile". In this remark, I essentially retain the possibility of having - one day - a MuseScore 4 player for mobile. Will it be a version for Android like the one I use pleasantly and efficiently with MuseScore 3.6.2? And if the answer is yes, how long do you think it will be available? Thank you in advance for your insightful answer.

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