You are no longer running Windows, you are running alien3d's-special-snowflake-version. Please don't be surprised when many third party programs/games no longer run, because, some of my software certainly won't.
We are dealing with this right now with our software. Our end users on Windows 7 who haven't kept their machine up to date can't install the VC++ 2015 redistributable which is required to run our software. It's a Microsoft problem but it's still frustrating having to do basic tech support for them just because they won't let Windows do the updates that it is insistently but politely asking them to let it do. Not a problem with our Windows 10 end users, of course.
These days I don't blame them. I'm guilty of it myself. After Microsoft repeatedly dropped in the Windows 10 "updates" (including nag) under new names it got to be enough of a hassle to avoid them that I've basically stopped updating. Finding the latest update names to ignore, then actually finding them in the update listing is enough of a pain to get me to continually put it off.
>These days I don't blame them. I'm guilty of it myself. After Microsoft repeatedly dropped in the Windows 10 "updates" (including nag) under new names it got to be enough of a hassle to avoid them that I've basically stopped updating.
My PC is next to my bed. I love being woken up at 3 in the morning by Windows attempting and failing to install updates.
It's got to the point where I turn it off at the power supply to stop it.
I tired of the 'whack-a-mole' game and just stopped installing post-March 2015 updates on my Win 7 install. It may be vulnerable(what isn't?), but 3rd party sandboxing, firewall and noscript mitigate the immediate, automated threats well enough(last succeasful exploit on my machines outside of a purposely infected VM: ~2009). When MS can no longer harvest my activities(or I can deny them control) I will revisit my security policies. Until then, I will continue to disable updates, harden my firewall and deny any contributions to MS* 's data grab.
* et al. Sadly, "everybody's doing it" these days.
In my case it's because it get's stuck on and upgrade that won't install. The error messages are completely unhelpful, googling them doesn't help either.
With all due respect, if your software has an OS-level dependency that is less than 2 years old, you're too cutting edge and it's your fault.
You should not require an unpackaged dependency from 2015. This is a problem with your developers trying to use the latest and greatest technologies, with no respect for reality. It is neither your users', nor Microsoft's fault, that your users don't have bleeding edge 2015 upgrades.
It’s completely normal in my experience for programs developed on windows to have to install the appropriate Microsoft C++ or C runtime that the binary was linked against. Ever installed a game from Steam? Half of them will insist on downloading & installing the Microsoft VC++ runtime before they’ll do anything at all.
You are no longer running Windows, you are running alien3d's-special-snowflake-version. Please don't be surprised when many third party programs/games no longer run, because, some of my software certainly won't.