@arecian You don’t have to update Local to user newer PHP/MySQL versions because Local can download PHP and MySQL versions separately. But it’s generally better to update Local when you can.
Newer versions of Local update dependencies and bundled tools for compatibility with newer PHP versions. For example, Local Beta 9.2.3:
- Updates composer to support PHP 8.4.
- Includes Microsoft’s latest Visual C++ Redistributable for Windows compatibility with PHP 8.4.
But — if you wanted to — you could use an older version of Local to run PHP 8.4.4 on Windows. You just may have to install the C++ redist dlls manually (not required on macOS/Linux), and you may run into error messages from composer if using it or site shells with sites running PHP 8.4 (on all OSs, not just Windows).