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The Dropbox desktop application will no longer be supported for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 on October 22nd

Congratulations Dropbox! You've just put the nail in the coffin of all W7 users who prefer not to be spied on and constantly used for data scraping!

Well done. If the constant scaremonger nagging about running out of space, the constant begging to upgrade, the incessant app updating demands, the constant USB device interrogation upon connection wasn't enough of an incentive to finally ditch Dropbox for good, then the cutting off of users of a still perfectly good and functional, non-spyware infested OS will be the last straw. Thank you Dropbox for giving me the incentive to go to your competitors instead and get out of your ever more bloated crapware ecosystem.

Sometimes, people need a little push to get away from what's comfortable and familiar, even though they suspect just how bad that relationship is for them. I thank you Dropbox for giving me this little push. Goodbye.

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Jay

Hi @Dibrom, thanks for messaging the Community.

We appreciate the feedback on this matter. As you've read in your email, Dropbox will be ending support for Windows versions 7, 8, and 8.1 on October 22, 2024.

We regularly release new versions of the Dropbox application with additional features, better performance, and security enhancements and these are not always compatible with older systems. Microsoft stopped providing security updates to Windows 8.1 in January, 2023, with Windows 7 and 8 being earlier than that date.

We are ending our support of the Dropbox app for these operating systems in October to keep our product offerings in-line.

Thanks for using Dropbox, and please let me know if there's anything else I can help with.

Dibrom

No problem Jay. There are plenty of free alternatives out there that do the same thing as Dropbox and more as well as offer greater storage space, so Dropbox shooting themselves in the foot is entirely your choice. I will just correct some of the misconceptions you're feeding though. I strongly suspect the 'additional features' to which you refer are actually better and more varied ways of data scraping your users, since that's always been what Windows 10 has been about, which of course is why it's always been free, whereas people had to pay for W7. If the product is 'free', then you are the product that's being sold is the adage.

'Security' has always been the default way to scaremonger users into 'upgrading' to more invasive malware ridden systems their purveyors want, to exploit user behaviour data to resell. The actual truth is the opposite. Windows 7 is by far and away the most secure version of Windows now there has ever been, by simple virtue of the fact that hackers no longer target it. They don't target it because as of June 2024, it's only used on 2.95% of all computers worldwide. XP is even better because it's market share is only 0.39% making it even more popular still than Windows 8 at 0.36%. I gave up bothering to even have an antivirus program installed many years ago. Simply don't need one anymore on Windows 7.

A perfectly valid analogy is a three pedal manual car. These days you could leave a 3 pedal manual car in the street with the keys in it, completely unlocked and it still wouldn't be stolen. Why? Because no car thieves these days have the faintest idea how to even drive a three pedal manual, so they literally couldn't drive it away even if they wanted to!

Crap excuses about security and added features are nothing but Trojan Horses, pure and simple. I'm sure you'll be able to scare a great many users into pointlessly upgrading and giving themselves and their data over to Microsoft to own them. I will simply dump Dropbox and use one of your many other competitors instead.

earlpurple

I have Windows 7 on my home desktop and I like it and do not wish to upgrade. Firstly, this desktop probably does not have sufficient resources for Windows 11, but primarily, I have a laptop with Windows 11 (and previously with Windows 10) and I do not like it restarting on me without my permission. I prefer to choose when I update anything, and unless you're fixing bugs or improving performance, I am probably not interested in your new features, especially if they use up more resources, and I have found that that is what most updates are.

Dropbox has proved a very useful way to carry around your important documents (in spite of Windows always wanting to put them elsewhere).

I see no valid reason why the existing software on Windows 7 should not continue to work, or why you cannot make simple light versions for Windows 7 with the features we have now and that this cannot continue to be supported, because I am sure there are many like me who do not like their computers being controlled by Microsoft and other software manufacturers, and would like to be able to choose what we run on our own computers.

Jay

Hi @earlpurple, I merged you to this post regarding a recent update on the Windows 7 desktop compatibility.

leo9185

I hope someone will find a "workaround"-solution for this Dilemma.

Dibrom

Doubtful, because the very nature of the software's purpose is that it connects to the internet and 'phone's home' all the time in order to do the very thing the tin it comes in says it can do. This means it is constantly checking for and updating itself without user control. There used to be a stripped out version called Dropbox portable, which could even run from USB on computers that were locked down from installing apps like work computers, but Dropbox put an end to that when they decided they would remove the option of preventing updates and took away all user control altogether.

Just google "how do I prevent Dropbox from updating" and you'll see this is a VERY common and wanted question. The answer unfortunately is you can't - at least not without breaking the application entirely such that it no longer works. In this respect, it's the same as Windows 10/11 itself. You can strip all the spyware and telemetry out of Windows 7 relatively easily and make a new installer without all the spyware/bloatware crap, and it works brilliantly - far better in fact than it ever did officially from Microsoft, but you can't do the same thing with Windows 10/11. The telemetry/spyware/data scraping tools are so intrinsic and embedded so deeply within the operating structure of Windows 10/11, that removing them breaks the OS to such an extent that it no longer works as an OS. Exactly the same is true of Dropbox now unfortunately. These are both advertising tools designed to harvest your data and sell it to advertisers ultimately to make money.

Windows 10/11's primary purpose is a data scraping tool for Microsoft. On the back of that basic functionality is an operating system for your MSI/Gigabyte/ASUS whatever MoBo provided as the useful part you need to run your computer as the incentive for installing it, but never forget that the primary purpose and the main reason for the software existing in the first place is to scrape the user's data and feed it back to Microsoft.

As of today, right now (since I just checked), the sum total market share of Windows versions 7 + 8 + 8.1 is only 3.71%. That's how many computers in the world are running those OSes. The simply truth is that Dropbox have made a commercial decision to trash 3.71% of their customers they've determined they can live without and don't need. They can see the numbers for themselves and that's a decision they've made. 3.71% is not a lot and they can obviously survive with a loss of 3.71% of their customer base, so that's what they've decided to do. No amount of pleading or hand wringing will change that. Just switch to their competitors instead. A quick look reveals there are a lot of them.

mgambrell

Bleck. Tuning into this thread for the eventual workaround chat.

There should be a number of 3rd party multi-cloud apps that can use dropbox as a backend. None of them integrate with windows as well as dropbox does, but we'll have to find out out the pros and cons eventually now. I've used RaiDrive a bit, since Google Drive stopped caring about win7, and it works decently, though not perfectly. Note that google drive never worked particularly well compared to dropbox, so the challenges and expectations are higher for the dropbox integrations. Note: while companies often like to charge subscriptions for no apparent reason (this would seemingly include RaiDrive), cloud apps are often requiring assistance from the 3rd party app vendor's servers to work around shoddy design in the cloud backends (and this is often intentionally shoddy design, to frustrate bad actors and people like us, none of whom they care about).

I do expect there to be a period of time where it's relatively easy to interfere with dropbox so that it thinks it's running on win10 even when it's not, so they can't shut us off on the server. But eventually they will use some OS services which are not so easy to fake, and it's the integration with OS (filesystem and shell) services that are a principal part of dropbox's value so it's not so easy to just slice out either.

Ferret7

I have over $500K of 3D Scanning software & hardware that only runs on Windows 7 (I can NOT afford to update to an inferior Windows version...) Will the existing version Dropbox still continue to work if I do NOT do an upgrade (I'm only using Dropbox for file sharing/storage)

Bewildered_Bobby

Apparently I am NOT the Lone Ranger who intends to continue running Win 7 despite Dropbox's unfortunate decision to discontinue support soon. It makes no sense to let "the tail wag the dog" by upgrading (?) away from Win 7 to continue using Dropbox. Those folks could help the community by publishing a list of free alternatives that will continue to be supported for Win 7 users who refuse to switch OSes for only one app. Do y'all hear me OK ??

Very Bewildered Bob

Dibrom

Sadly, no. The (massively complex and user onerous) "solution" to your dilemma you're about to face head on, is that what you're 'supposed' to do is spend huge $$$ buying an all new top range computer that can handle Windows 11, then you run an emulator version of Windows 7 inside that W11 environment so your hardware can still run your Windows 7 software that has no drivers compatible with W10/11.

So now you have not one simple OS to maintain, but TWO OSes to maintain, one of which is constantly spying on everything you do, just so you can keep doing what you were happily doing perfectly well with your previous 10yo reliable computer running just W7.

I'm sorry to say, this is the new world order or how things work. There are many examples. EV's are another one. First you needlessly create a massive problem through (in this case) enforced software incompatibility sold to the users through the blatant lie of "security" and "privacy" and any other nonsense you can come up with and convince people to believe. Then you sell them the all new, massively overly complex and pointlessly expensive solution that best case, gets them back to where they were before the fake problem that never needed to exist in the first place was foisted upon them.

QED: Dropbox sells its users the idea that for the sake of security and privacy and future feature enhancements, they have to force a compatibility upgrade that will leave 3.71% of their userbase behind. Then they tell us that's really not a problem because all we have to do is upgrade our computers to Windows 10/11, helpfully leaving out the fact that for most, this will mean a complete upheaval of their ENTIRE computer operating ecosphere starting with having to buy all new hardware componentry and in many cases building up everything brand new again from first principals. A process that could cost thousands of $$$ and take many months. At the end of it all, best case is that you end up with a computer setup equivalent to what you had before, except that its constantly spying on you and sending all your usage data back to microsoft to send you targetted advertising. This is the world Dropbox has revealed themselves to be complicit in creating and propagating. After knowing this, it is up to you whether the service they provide is really worth wanting to stay associated with them.

Bewildered_Bobby

Apparently Dropbox software was NOT the cause of the outage so in my humble opinion there will be no change in their announced withdrawal of support for Win 7. Do y'all agree ?

Bewildered Bob

Dibrom

Windows 7 computers are indirectly immune from the outage because Falcon Sensor by Crowdstrike, much like Dropbox is soon to be, is not compatible or unsupported in a Windows 7 environment. Therefore it can't be run on a W7 computer and therefore that Windows 7 computer is unaffected and still perfectly reliable.

This is why all the BSOD vision in the media is showing the W10/11 flavour BSOD with the childish 😞 emoji thing on the blue screen. You don't see a single screen with the W7 BSOD because they haven't failed.

Interesting too that the 'solution' being bandied around involves booting into safe mode, which is coincidentally very hard to force a computer running W10/11 to do. Those OSes in line with their mantra to remove as much user control as possible and make everything automated, have no key press combo you can use to force safe mode and the option to boot that way isn't presented on the post driver install boot screen. When trapped in an endless boot loop cycle, apparently the only thing you can do is to let the computer reboot itself 15 times in succession, at which point the software supposedly realises by itself that it is completely f*cked and will then boot itself into safe mode. You hope.

Yep, that's real progress over Windows 7 right there. So much easier than just holding down the SHIFT key through the boot process to get into safe mode. And then of course if the system hard drive is bitlocker encrypted (as all corporate owned or leased machines will be because no company trusts their own employees not to fiddle and tinker anymore), then the problem becomes a whole lot more otherworldly complex, difficult and time consuming.

Bewildered_Bobby

Looking back at "ancient history" Microsoft (for some unknown reason and apparently no pre-release user survey) went from venerable old Windows 7 to apparently unacceptable Win 8 which was quickly replaced by Win 8.1 to correct design defects in 8.0. But instead of acknowledging that 8.1 was less than robust and not an improvement over Win 7, Microsoft skipped Win 9 and went directly to Win 10 and then to Win 11. I often wonder abt today's environment if a hypothetical Win 9 had in fact been designed to build on the reliable features of familiar Win 7. Only very minor changes could have been made that would have avoided the distrust in and relearning required by its latest versions that apparently ignore the success of VENERABLE WINDOWS 7.

Bewildered Bob

Dibrom

Yes Bob, your retelling of history is basically correct. As is the case with Apple, product releases follow a fairly predictable path: year one = major release of all new product. Year two = minor facelift update to add functionality to basically same product. Year three = major update adding major new functionality and features. Year four = minor facelift only etc.

In that sequence, Windows 7 was a major new OS that pretty much removed the MS-DOS underlying operating system running the show under the hood of XP/Vista and Windows 2000/Server. W7 also combined the two development streams of XP and NT under the one product to do both jobs. ie. Windows 7 didn't have separate streams for home computing and network environments. It did both.

When Microsoft tried to minor facelift W7 into W8 however, they did so in such a way as to COMPLETELY change its look and feel. So dramatic and comprehensive was the change from what everyone was familiar with into something more akin to a tile based Apple Mac GUI, that there was massive backlash. Windows users simply didn't know how to use their computers anymore. There was no taskbar, no START button, no programs list menu. Some people couldn't even figure out how to turn their computers on anymore, and turning them off was a joke. Windows 8.1 was the very hastily rushed out facelift upgrade of Windows 8 to restore some of the familiar look and feel of Windows 7 again so people could at least know how to use their computers again. Thus Windows 8 has become the much unloved forgotten version of Windows no-one uses, like Vista/Server before it.

Thus Windows 7 was the last of the traditional, familiar, non-spyware Microsoft operating systems. Windows 8 and 8.1 can basically be ignored as experimental facelift versions M$ tried on their customers to see how much resistance there would be to a wholesale GUI remap and whether or not people would accept not knowing where any of their computer controls were anymore. You can see how popular 8 & 8.1 were from this website:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide

In short, they are almost as uncomonly used these days as XP, which is a significantly older OS.

With Windows 10, Microsoft changed tack completely and realised they could make more money selling their OS user data to advertisers and marketeers than they had been selling the OS directly to the users as had been the case with all versions of Windows before it. Thus Windows 10 became 'free' to install, but of course, it's just the trojan horse to get you to install it. Once installed, it silently data scrapes you constantly and sends that information back to Microsoft under something called innocently enough Microsoft telemetry, which is of course sold as benefitting you the user in greater security, enhanced features and usability, greater privacy (which is hugely ironic, since privacy is exactly what it destroys), and basically anything else you need to hear to feel good about your decision to install it in the first place. Don't ask questions, just trust Microsoft and be happy is the message.

Bewildered_Bobby

Hello Dibrom: Thanx for the very interesting "history lesson" and Windows version comparisons. I am impressed and wonder how you learned all this good "stuff" - plz explain.

Also I remember when Win 10 was first announced by M$. Online users were swamped with uncontrollable # of ads urging us to switch to their "latest & greatest" OS. Someone precisely called it their "nag screen". Apparently M$ finally realized that their potential customers for Win 10 had enuff annoying interruption and turned off the fire hose.

BTW: I told an IT manager today that I was still very satisfied running Win 7 without any problems or known security breaches. He falsely claimed that no security updates were being released by M$ but obviously that is false since almost every week I download 2 "important" OS patches - (1) " Security Essentials" (2) "Malware Removal Tool". By faithfully downloading these 2 items and also running Malwarebytes (compatible with Security Essentials) I'm still running VENERABLE WIN 7 successfully. If some day I am forced to abandon it, Linux will probably be its replacement. But hopefully that day will never come.

Legion

With Onedrive not supporting 7 I think Dropbox have missed a trick. Many like me ditched Onedrive and installed Dropbox only to discover that Dropbox is bending over backwards to ape Onedrive. My main computer is 10, secondary is 7, plus updated Android. I will NOT change 7 for the benefit of Dropbox, Google, or any other company that rides roughshod over the requirements of users.

This "better performance and security enhancements" that make it 'incompatible' is a blind - a ruse to conceal the fact that companies don't want to waste time 'supporting' an older OS. I don't need a 'better performance' from Dropbox, and the unrestricted files in my Dropbox folder need no 'security enhancements'.

Aleonymous

Same sentiments. I used to like & use dropbox a lot, but it's finally over for me too. I'm phasing it out. Here's my issues:

Killing Windows Server support altogether (even for latest versions, e.g., my srv 2022 which is Win10-like engine), and with no prior notice (while all that spamming about space etc. goes on).
Client limit to only 3 devices. I suppose we should say "thanks" for keeping any old ones unaffected...
Lack of a cheap paid plan, e.g., in the 20-30 Euro/year range, that increases/bypasses the device restriction above and/or adds functionality. (The "Extra" plan takes your Basic account up to 50 GB, which is fair [Google gives 100 GB for same cost], but all the other features are the same.)

Clive48

Hi. I am using Windows 10. I am getting Dropbox popup for past few days that "Dropbox is removing support for Windows 7,8,& 8.1. Why am I getting this with only option is to Exit dropbox as per attached. Pl fix the issue to stop spamming Win 10 and above users.

screenshot

Jay

Hi @Clive48, it is possible that you have the Dropbox desktop application running in compatibility mode on Windows 10?

lycra

We have the same issue using Windows Server 2019. Dropbox cannot be started anymore.. What can we do!?

Hannah

Hey @lycra, can you check Ben's reply here, to see if it helps even though it's not specific to Windows Server 2019?

lycra

Hi and for the hint regarding early releases.

I changed the toggle to stable and installed the LTS version. Is is currently indexing 360.000 files. Lets see if is working afterwards. I will keep you informed.

Clive48

Hi. I am on Win 10 & not using Dropbox in compatibility mode. Infact, I uninstalled Dropbox as per ur support page, deleted all folders, reg edit entries and reinstalled using the latest installer 1.3.911.1, ins

talled Dropbox files in a different folder but still I am getting the same Support error.

I am using Windows 10 Enterprise for Virtual Desktops OS Build 19045.5131

Please check and fix the issue as I am unable to use Dropbox due to this.

I wanted to attach the logfile but the attachment button is also not working here. I tried 2 different browsers. So have to make a fresh post.

I then tried the offline Dropbox installer which also failed to work on my Win 10. The error log is copied below as attachment button here is not working.

bn.BUILD_KEY: Dropbox
bn.VERSION: 210.5.4894
bn.constants.WINDOWS_SHELL_EXT_VERSION: 76
bn.is_frozen: True
machine_id: 992fa5ef-c5cd-44aa-bc73-45bcc1f54162
pid: 4748
cwd: 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Update\\1.3.911.1'
real_path='C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Update\\1.3.911.1'
mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
HOME: None
appdata: 'C:\\Users\\Home\\AppData\\Local\\Dropbox\\instance1'
real_path='C:\\Users\\Home\\AppData\\Local\\Dropbox\\instance1'
mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
dropbox_path: 'E:\\Dropbox'
real_path='E:\\Dropbox'
mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
sys_executable: 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Client\\Dropbox.exe'
real_path='C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Client\\Dropbox.exe'
mode=0o100777 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
trace.__file__: 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Client\\210.5.4894\\python-packages.zip\\dropbox\\client\\ui\\common\\boot_error.pyc'
real_path='C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Dropbox\\Client\\210.5.4894\\python-packages.zip\\dropbox\\client\\ui\\common\\boot_error.pyc'
not found
parent not found
TMP: E:\Temp;
TEMP: E:\Temp;
tempdir: 'E:\\Temp;'
real_path='E:\\Temp;'
mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
parent mode=0o40777 uid=0 gid=0
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "desktop/dropbox/fs_api/lifecycle.py", line 235, in client
File "desktop/dropbox/fs_api/lifecycle.py", line 283, in _create_thin_client
File "desktop/dropbox/fs_api/fs_api_adapter.py", line 50, in __init__
File "desktop\extensions\fs_api\fs_api_python.pyx", line 63, in fs_api_python.FsApiServer.__cinit__
fs_api_python.FsApiError: "Initializing fs api |>> Initializing application filesystem |>> Attempting to initialize dbx cache directory |>> NtCreateFile syscall: open_unchecked |>> ACCESS_DENIED |>> Permission denied"

The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "desktop/dropbox/client/main.py", line 950, in wrapper
File "desktop/dropbox/client/main.py", line 7136, in finish_dropbox_boot
File "desktop/dropbox/client/message_queue.py", line 306, in _wrapped
File "desktop/dropbox/client/main.py", line 6583, in _init_components_for_account
File "desktop/dropbox/client/main.py", line 6504, in create_sync_engine
File "desktop/dropbox/sync_engine_boundary/factory.py", line 212, in make_sync_engine
File "desktop/dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/sync_engine.py", line 243, in __init__
File "desktop/dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/modern_client/modern_client.py", line 294, in __init__
File "desktop/dropbox/sync_engine/nucleus/classic_client/modern_client/base.py", line 242, in __init__
File "../win32_x86_64_dropbox_virtual_env/python38/Lib/functools.py", line 967, in __get__
File "desktop/dropbox/fs_api/lifecycle.py", line 259, in client
dropbox.fs_api.lifecycle.FsApiClientCreationException: "Initializing fs api |>> Initializing application filesystem |>> Attempting to initialize dbx cache directory |>> NtCreateFile syscall: open_unchecked |>> ACCESS_DENIED |>> Permission denied"

Walter

Hey @Clive48 - thanks for all the additional information there.

Could you try an advanced reinstall and let us know if you get the same results?

Clive48

I had already tried Advance Reinstall option wout any luck. Infact, post Adv Reinstall, I was getting a different error popup with the link to logs to share with Dropbox support. Logs are as above. Now Dropbox doesn't start only as per screen shot below. There is some bug in your app which you need to fix. Till then disable the Windows 7 etc support popup.

DBoxTips

Hello@"Clive48"

Based on the log that you provided, it appears that you are trying to setup your Dropbox folder on your E: drive. Dropbox is failing to start because it cannot create the E:\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache folder due to insufficient permissions.

What kind of drive is the E: drive? Is it internal or external? Does it use NTFS as file system? I am trying to figure out what is different about it that would lead to the failure of creating the “Dropbox” and “Temp” folders on it.

When you try to install Dropbox with default settings (so standard location for the Dropbox folder) does it still give you this kind of failure when starting up Dropbox?

Thanks,
Andrew (DBoxTips)

Dibrom

Well the day has finally come when the tray icon got a great big red alert thing on it saying it was no longer going to work in my Windows 7 OS because… enshïtification of everything these days. Everyone knows there's no technical reason why it had to stop working. Indeed, if the owners of Dropbox actually wanted it to keep working, it would, without any modification work required at all. The truth is that they've actually had to engineer the code to make it stop working and they've done that to hold to ransom all the users who trusted them to keep a useful utility working. Now they want the money and so the enshïtifcation has begun.

The 'workaround' everyone is asking for is to ditch Dropbox entirely and start a free account with Sync instead. Sync is everything Dropbox used to be before they went all corporate and spamming their users to get them to upgrade and then now finally killing them off entirely with enforced obsolescence of the software. Sync is free, it works on Windows 7, they don't spam their users and it has iOS apps that work just as seemlessly as the Dropbox one used to. Best of all, Sync offers even more free storage space than Dropbox ever did too, so there really is no excuse not to ditch Dropbox entirely. Oh and Sync doesn't try to force itself into scanning all newly connected USD drives you plug into your computer either, so that's a nice little bonus too.

Deleting Dropbox has been a delight. I just swapped everything I had stored in Dropbox straight over to Sync and it's up and running again completely seemlessly. Bye bye Dropbox!

earlpurple

I haven't received that notification, and I just made a change to a file on my Windows 7 machine and checked that my Windows 11 laptop picked it up, which it did.

Sync is not free for the amount of storage space I need, but I'm happy to pay $8 a month or whatever to know my storage is safe.

When the time comes I need to move I will certainly consider it.

I recently had an issue of Firefox not giving me any sound now on Windows 7. For what is supposed to be a "frozen" version, they insist on keep changing these things, including Spotify teling me my operating system is out of date. These companies trying to control what I do on my home computer And the reason I like Windows 7 is it never crashes and I don't get restarts when I didn't ask for them.

perry59

I'm with you. I will be dropping drop box

perry59

exactly right