3.1.4 windows installers fail to install on current win 11 with a 0xc000007b

[ourcivlookslessfree]

Greetings!

On a system , running Windows 11 patched current, I tried to run each of the four 3.1.4 Windows installers, without success.

Installing by running the installer as a normal user and elevating to Administrator at a via UAC, the installer disappears after the UAC prompt, and only by looking at the event viewer is there any data about what is happening.

For me, all four installers logged an Application Popup event with Event ID 26 with the identical text apart from their exe names:

Application popup: Freeciv-3.1.4-msys2-win64-10-sdl2-setup.exe - Application Error : The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b). Click OK to close the application.

Running the installer as admin, the dialog box with the error was visible.

I attempted install of a couple of the 3.2.0 beta installers to have a little bit more to go on, and found that they installed just fine (although are unusable with my 3.1.x *NIX freeciv server), which I see as evidence for being an issue with the 3.1.4 installers and not my win 11 system.

I was able to open the installer of my choice with 7-zip, extract the contents to a folder of my choosing, and run freeciv without issue, but it's not an ideal install experience, potentially insurmountable for a novice, and so worth a look.

Most kind regards,

Mike (An ardent supporter of free civilizations in the real world)

[cazfi]

To confirm that the issue is present in freeciv-3.1 in general, but not in freeciv-3.2 (as opposed to being in just those particular builds), can you test if latest freeciv-3.1 snapshot works for you (assumption is that it doesn't): viewtopic.php?t=62654&start=70

[cazfi]

I opened a ticket about updating msys2 environment in 3.1 to the same version as in 3.2, which might help with this issue: https://redmine.freeciv.org/issues/1290

[cazfi]

With the latest win11 (which is my Windows installers build machine) I now cannot build freeciv-3.1 at all. The build process just proceeds slower and slower until it's practically halted. I'm investigating the problem, but it's somewhat likely that there's not going to be any further official freeciv-3.1 Windows installers.

Later freeciv versions build fine.