Firefox 13 Will Drop Support for Windows 2000, Pre-SP2 XP

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- The next Firefox nightly will not run on Windows 2000 or pre-SP2 Windows XP
Mozilla's Asa Dotzler has announced that Firefox will be dropping support for Windows 2000 and pre-SP2 Windows XP, starting with Firefox 13. New releases will only work on Windows XP SP2+, as well as on Vista and Windows 7. Mozilla has had to drop support for these older operating systems in order to be able to switch to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, which doesn't offer support for them either. Switching from VS 2005 will enable the Firefox team to perform some optimizations that will benefit the browser in the long run, either via an instant performance boost or via a productivity boost from Mozilla software engineers and contributors. For those stuck with Windows 2000, Mozilla recommends a browser like Opera, as the only viable alternative. Those running Windows XP can update to the latest service pack, of course.
FILED UNDER: Mozilla Firefox Firefox 13 Windows 2000 Windows XP

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READER COMMENTS:

Comment #1 by: rainbow on 06 Feb 2012, 20:49 UTC

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Support for Windows 2000 and early versions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 RTM are being dropped in Gecko 13. This final decision does not affect users who are on the Gecko 11 and Gecko 12 branches which will continue to be supported.

By the time Firefox 13 is out and Firefox 10 ESR reach the end of the life cycle in February 2013, even fewer user will still use Win2k/early XP and those that are can either stick with Firefox 12 or switch to Opera.

Comment #2 by: saperstein on 28 Feb 2012, 21:44 UTC	reply to this comment
Should not affect too many people. Given the bail-rate since the rapid-release thing and version 10's release, we're all looking elsewhere. Do you hear that Mozilla? Netscape anyone?

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