Is Windows 7 still supported?

[CyberSimian]

I purchased a DrivePool licence three years ago, but sadly decided to discontinue use of DrivePool because of problems with the USB disks that I was using at that time. I am now setting up a new system that will use internal SATA disks, and so I have re-installed and re-activated DrivePool. However...

In looking at the web site I see that it claims that Windows 7 and 8 are no longer supported. I have just installed the current version of DrivePool on Windows 7 Pro, and it seems to be working OK. But am I going to encounter problems when I actually start storing files in the pool? Thank you.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[Shane]

Hi, I'd guess the answer is that if it seems to be working - e.g. you were able to create a pool and it shows up in Explorer and you copied a file to it okay - then you likely won't have problems (besides having to use Windows). That doesn't guarantee that future updates to the program will work on 7 down the line, so you might want to avoid updating unless it's necessary / carefully check the changelog / be ready to revert.

[The Doctor]

It is not listed as a supported operating system. That does not mean it will not work on Windows 7, I just installed it on a Windows 7 machine a few days ago and it works absolutely brilliant. A major upgrade from the pulling part of FlexRAID. Not supported just means that they are no longer providing active support for Windows 7. So if you have a problem, you may not get a lot of help with it. The other thing it means is that they are probably no longer testing new releases on Windows 7, so the next update may no longer work properly if at all. It's nothing to worry about, as long as you can accept these limitations.

 

Ed

[Christopher (Drashna)]

To clarify, Windows 7 (and 8,) are no longer supported by Microsoft, and no longer receiving updates.

We follow suite with the Microsoft support lifecycles, since we can't ensure stability of the OS outside of the support lifecycle. Additionally, key components (such as .NET Framework and Visual C++ runtimes) may not be supported, anymore.  Especially in the case where we need/want to update this components. 

However, we haven't done anything to explicitly disable support for these OSes, so they may still work just fine.  However, the longer it's been since they've exited the support lifecycle, the more likely you are to have issues.

 

Additionally, Windows 10 leaves extended support Oct 2025. Yay....