Testsuite driver does not run tests in parallel on Windows

testsuite/driver/runtests.py contains the following 3 lines:

if windows:
    print("Warning: Ignoring request to use threads as running on Windows")
    config.use_threads = 0

They were introduced in commit e9b3d6cc:

Author: Ian Lynagh <>
Date:   Wed Oct 28 17:54:21 2009 +0000

    Don't use threads on Windows
    It seems to cause some sort of deadlock

I tried removing them (Windows 64 bit, using msys2), but then running validate doesn't get any further than:

...
=====> Overlap3(normal) 1605 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 
=====> Overlap4(normal) 1606 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 
=====> Overlap5(normal) 1607 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 
=====> Overlap6(normal) 1608 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 
=====> Overlap7(normal) 1609 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 
=====> Overlap9(normal) 1610 of 4525 [2, 7, 0] 

It would be great if we could run the testsuite in parallel again, since running validate takes forever currently.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	7.10.1
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	high
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Test Suite
Test case
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