Qt6 — Windows 7

Consider the trajectory. By 2026 (when this article is indexed), Windows 7’s market share outside air-gapped systems will be below 1%. Steam surveys already show <0.5%. Even Google Chrome dropped Windows 7 in early 2023.

"Qt 6.0 and later require Windows 10 (64-bit) or later. Windows 7 is not a supported platform." qt6 windows 7

The release of Qt6 (initially in December 2020) marked a significant modernization of the popular cross-platform framework. With it came a new minimum platform baseline. For Windows, this meant a formal shift: became the minimum supported operating system. This decision sent ripples through the developer community, particularly among those maintaining legacy systems or industrial software running on Windows 7. Consider the trajectory

This bypasses D3D11, but OpenGL performance on Windows 7 can be suboptimal due to older driver models. Even Google Chrome dropped Windows 7 in early 2023