14 DAY TRIAL // Windows XP no longer receives security updates since April 2014, for some reason, many users keep running it, despite the obvious risks that are caused by using unsupported software.
And yet, software developers are one by one dropping support for Windows XP, and today it’s the turn of Blizzard to announce that it’s moving the focus to newer versions of Windows.
Starting from October, games like Starcraft II, Diablo III, and World of Warcraft will no longer launch on Windows XP and Windows Vista, and Blizzard explains that upgrading to a supported version of Windows is the only way to deal with this restriction.
“Microsoft ceased mainstream support for these versions of Windows in 2009 and 2012, respectively, but since a decent portion of our audience was still using them at the time, we continued supporting them. However, there have been three major Windows releases since Vista, and at this point, the vast majority of our audience has upgraded to one of the newer versions,” Blizzard explains.
The company first announced that it's ending support for Windows XP in February this year, but now it confirms that the deadline for its users to upgrade is October.
The restriction will go live gradually for Blizzard users
Updates to block games from running on Windows XP and Windows Vista will be released gradually to computers across the world, but sooner or later everyone would be prevented from playing these games unless they upgrade.
“The games will not run on these older operating systems once they are no longer supported, so we encourage any players who are still using one of the older OSes to upgrade to a newer version. We’ll be rolling out this change on a staggered schedule, and will post further notices as we get closer to making the change for each game,” the company continues.
Truth be told, there’s no reason not to upgrade to a newer version of Windows, especially if the PC is used for gaming, as Microsoft has implemented several improvements and new features that are specifically aimed at gamers.
Windows 10, for instance, comes with a dedicated game mode that improves performance when gaming by adjust process priority and allocating resources to the game itself, while reducing the system impact of other applications.