14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP is still running on more than 9 percent of the desktop computers across the world even though it reached end of support in April 2014, and without security patches and updates, it’s very clear that sticking with this version is quite a risky thing to do.
Software developers across the world are one by one giving up on Windows XP, and the latest to do it is Google. The search company has announced today that it’s pulling support for Google Drive on Windows XP and Windows Vista, explaining that, after January 1, 2017, its desktop cloud app will no longer receive updates and improvements on these platforms.
Google Drive will continue to work on Windows XP
What’s super important to note is that Google isn’t discontinuing the Drive desktop software on Windows XP and Windows Vista, but only giving up on releasing new updates and improvements.
This means that the existing Google Drive client should continue running smoothly on these two operating systems for a little longer, although there’s still no timing as to when the search firm could pull the plug completely on the app.
“Today, we’re announcing that on January 1, 2017, we will discontinue support for the Google Drive desktop app on Windows XP, Vista and Server 2003 since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft. The Google Drive desktop app (officially: ‘Google Drive for Mac/PC’) will continue to function on these platforms, but will not be actively tested and maintained,” Google explained.
As is the case with every software developer that decides to remove support for Windows XP, Google recommends users to move to newer Windows versions that still receive updates from Microsoft, such as Windows 7, 8.1, or 10.
Even if the desktop app goes dark, however, Windows XP users still have the option to access their Drive cloud files in their browsers, but they’ll obviously miss features such as synchronization.