Jitsi-meet-electron: Disable automatic updates for Windows 7/8.1

Install & Config
1

I am not the only one who noticed that jitsi-meet-electron has been broken since version 2023.5.0 due to updating the Electron base to a version that no longer supports these versions of Windows.

The main problem is that there is still an audience of people and computers such as mine who are on these legacy versions of Windows without access to Windows 10, and they are greeted with an arbitrary error. If they try to install an older version of jitsi-meet-electron, the program will work perfectly for the first time that it is open, but once it is closed, every future program launches will stop working.

I can’t imagine keeping Electron out of date is the solution, nor do I know how usable providing a built-in fallback would be. However, it would be beneficial if the usage of legacy-windows is detected, and provide the user with a more user-friendly message. I am assuming that a built-in fallback is not a good idea?

Is there a way to disable automatic updates, such as through a .exe launch parameter?

Alternatively, maybe for a bare minimum solution, there could be a one-time modified build of 2023.2.0 that has automatic updates permanently disabled, made conveniently available for non-programmer people in this unusual situation such as myself for a bare-minimum solution, it doesn’t even need to be maintained.

2

The ‘problem’ is with Chrome no longer being supported on Windows 7, not Jitsi’s electron application. For security, amongst other reasons, Jitsi must evolve with the evolution of browsers (and sometimes, OSs). Asking the team to provide a version it will not actively support is really creating a liability. What if that version somehow becomes a security risk?

You can build the application yourself from the provided code and block automatic updates. If this is not something you can finagle on your own, it might be worth posting in the ‘Paid work’ section to hire assistance. This is just my personal opinion, of course.