Considering deprecating native Windows version of FORM #623

We are considering deprecating native Windows support (configure --with-api=windows), as we are not aware of anyone using the native Windows version of FORM in a serious way. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) provides a practical alternative, making native Windows support less necessary. Additionally, maintaining it is inherently difficult because our main development environment is Linux and our human resources are limited.

Users running the native Windows version of FORM will see a deprecation warning. To suppress the warning, use the -ignore-deprecation command line option or set the environment variable FORM_IGNORE_DEPRECATION=1.

This does not mean that support will be dropped immediately. However, support for new features and bug fixes may be delayed or not provided at all. If we receive no feedback from users, native Windows support will be removed from the codebase at some point. If you want this support to continue, please leave a comment on this issue.