It would be great to be able to run regular automated integration tests on Windows, to make sure syncthing works as expected. Currently we only do this with any regularity on Linux and sometimes on Mac. To be able to do this we’d need either
A Windows 7 license that I can install on a VM hosted by myself
or
A Windows 7 VM hosted by someone
… with reasonable internet access
… and ability to run a Jenkins build slave on that box
… not doing much else, since the tests can be invasive
… and, ideally, the ability to restore and reboot it at will when some random code has borked it
I’m focussing on Windows 7 since the 8 variants seem weird to me, Vista is nasty and XP is too old to be relevant. But we could probably do fine with 8 as well.
If all else fails I can of course go buy a license, but I’d rather avoid it if possible. :)
i have a windows 7 home premium activation license that is unused. after install windows 7 without a key you has to use the activation over the telephone.
the other way would a windows evaluation copy or a not activated version. if you dont use some advanced windows functions thats not a problem.
Hm. It seems like running an unactivated Windows will result in black desktop background and lots of annoying popups, which apart from being morally borderline actually sounds like it would be perfectly fine…
Would a cloud based build service work? I don’t think travis-ci supports windows yet, but appveyor does. Both services being free for open source projects.
Microsoft offer 90 day evaluations for free. Though I think W8 only now. If you are prepared to reinstall the image every few months, this is completely legitimate I think.