When I try, now in 2023, to create a virtual machine with a vanilla Windows7 and to install a working tool chain for building Qt5.15 (Visual Studio 2015, or later), I somehow always end up facing errors that some package is missing on M$ servers. IIRC I tried 2015, 2017 and 2019.
So I wonder if anybody has successfully managed, or even better, has a recipe used in some CI, to provision a Windows7 with all the required tool chain, in order to build Qt5.15 + QtWebEngine?
Update: I found this answer Visual Studio - Error: Unable to download installation files and it appears that the certificate on the msvc2019 installer i got from microsoft website is expired. However, i don't know how to find a fresh one. I tried to update my windows7 but updates fail immediately. I found an x86 ova of W7+IE11 that apparently can run the installer, but unfortunately, being only x86, it can't run Qt installer. I wonder if i can export certificates from there? or if there's an offy x64 w7 ova somewhere?
In particular, the offending certificate seems to be Microsoft Code Signing PCA 2011 that is expired in 2021 (on my system). I checked on MS IE11 win7 image, there the installer runs, and it shows 2 certificates: the one above plus another, not expired, named C2RService. Any idea how to get this one, like what patch provides it?
Apparently the issue was that the system was not updated nor updatable, as windows update wasn't starting with an error (80072EFE). Apparently, to unblock it, KB3138612 was required https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB3138612 . After installing this patch, windows update started, and after the lengthy process, in the end vs2019 installer exe had the updated certificate listed, and could finally connect to the servers