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Dropbox stopped working on Windows Server 2008 R2 on 01/19.2018

thiagomf11

Dropbox stopped working on Windows Server 2008 R2 on 01/19.2018. Is there any incompatibility with this system?

Does any version of windows server support? (2012, 2016?)

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Rich

Dropbox has never officially supported server operating systems. It has worked in the past, but newer releases have had issues and you may not be able to get it working. You can try contacting Support by opening a ticket, but since they don't provide support for server operating systems, you may be on your own.

Open your ticket here: https://dropbox.com/support
Track your ticket here: https://dropbox.zendesk.com

Replies take approximately 1 - 3 business days with Plus and Professional users getting priority (longer for Basic users).

Jay

There are two questions that been brought up in this thread:

Why is Windows Server 2008 no longer supported?
Why weren’t we informed about this change?

For these questions, I can provide the following answers:

Windows Server 2008 was never officially supported
If an OS isn’t officially supported in the first place, then we wouldn’t send out any notifications

However, this does require delving into detail. Even though our site specifically states we don’t support Windows Server, we do know that some users do use Dropbox on their server, so we provide very limited information about how to make it work. After that, if issues crop up, then we can’t really help out.

Now, as you know, as of January 16th, support for Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 were removed, along with Windows Vista.

The curious thing about Vista is that Windows Server 2008 is “built from the same code base as Windows Vista; therefore, it shares much of the same architecture and functionality.” according to Wikipedia and our dev team.

So, long story short, when support for the desktop app for Vista ended, so did the desktop app for Windows Server 2008. No notifications were sent out to server users because it was never supported to begin with.

We do understand your frustration over this matter and have logged it with our team here to take this into consideration for the future, should other server users be affected with any deprecation of other OSes.

Note however that this can’t be guaranteed from my end, as (and I hate to repeat myself again) Dropbox doesn’t officially support server editions of Windows, or any OSes not on this page.

[This thread is now closed. If you have a similar or new question, you can ask here.]

All comments

Rich

Bob N.6

I have the same problem.

Dropbox has shut down access to Windows 2008 Server machines. They sent a notice August saying that they were shutting down Windows Vista access AND DID NOT MENTION Windows 2008 Server.

This must be entirely arbitrary, at least at this point, because it continued to work until January 23, one week after it supposedly wasn't supported anymore.

This is unacceptable.

Mark

It didnt mention it Bob because it officially has never actually worked on Dropbox - it was (and always has been) unsupported.

If it did work it was accidental.

www.dropbox.com/help/3 tells you what is, and what is not, supported.

thiagomf11

I have always used Dropbox on Windows Server, but now after what they did, as I will have to migrate to a newer version of windows, I will take advantage of it and migrate to Google Drive which is cheaper (it also only works in Windows 7 / 8/10). Tip: Install a virtual machine on your servers and run any version of the dropbox or google drive!

Rich

thiagomf11 wrote:
I have always used Dropbox on Windows Server

It has worked in the past but was never officially supported. The fact that it has worked was likely due to the fact that previous server operating systems were based on the exact same technologies used in your desktop operating systems (XP, Windows 7, etc.). That's not so much the case anymore, and the dependencies that Dropbox has likely don't exist in Server 2008/12/16 anymore.

Bob N.6

I understand that. The problem is that there was NO NOTICE of this. On August 30, 2017 I got a notice that support was ending for certain operating systems. Windows 2008 Server WAS NOT LISTED THERE. And Dropbox has been fully aware that it worked on that system -- there's even a support page describing how to do it.

Rich

There was no need to post a notice about Server 2008 because Dropbox has never supported Server 2008 (or any server OS). The fact that it did work on previous server operating systems is immaterial to the notification that was sent.

Dropbox ending support and disabling the client on XP, Vista, etc. had nothing to do with the client no longer working on Server 2008. They didn't specifically stop it from working on Server 2008. It just doesn't work anymore.

Bob N.6

Actually, it had everything to do with them dropping support for other operating systems.

Perhaps you should look into the problem before making pronouncements.

This is a mistake on Dropbox's part. It can be easily reversed for at least a short period to allow customers who had setups using Windows 2008 Server.

Bob N.6

You are contradicting yourself:

was likely due to the fact that previous server operating systems were based on the exact same technologies used in your desktop operating systems (XP, Windows 7, etc.)

I don't know why you're arguing with me. We are both ostensibly otherwise content DropBox users who want to continue to use DropBox and want to help people who are having problems.

OC G.

Hi,

I know Dropbox does not support Windows 2008 server and with it the older OS'ses.

But this older server is an excellent Cloud server and Dropbox worked flawlessly, until yesterday.

We have tried all available tricks, older version, login through Chrome, run as administrator etc.

Dropbox did a really good job in detecting all these tricks.

Please dropbox give us a working version, it might have less features, it might be very basic, i dont care. Please release a working older dropbox version.

If anbody has some tricks to get this running, please let me know, thanks a million

Rich

I'm not contradicting myself. Server 2003 was XP based, and nearly any piece of software that would run on XP would run on Server 2000 and Server 2003. Only applications that had specific driver requirements were likely to be a problem when server drivers weren't available. This is likely why Dropbox was able to work without issue on those servers. Newer server operating systems, while still based on a desktop OS, have less in common with their desktop counterparts and it takes a bit more effort to make sure a piece of software will run on a server OS. Dropbox is likely not putting that effort into the newer versions of Dropbox because it has never supported servers. Why program for an OS that you don't support?

And, I'm not arguing with you or anyone else here. I'm simply commenting on the situation with information that I've learned over the years, much of which comes directly from the Dropboxers.

Mark

Due to the fact they are current pulling support for various OS's I suspect you are not going to be able to get this running I'm afraid.

Sorry

OC G.

Thanks Mark,

I know, i had to try, we are moving away from Dropbox because of this (unfortunately)

Jay

There are two questions that been brought up in this thread:

Why is Windows Server 2008 no longer supported?
Why weren’t we informed about this change?

For these questions, I can provide the following answers:

Windows Server 2008 was never officially supported
If an OS isn’t officially supported in the first place, then we wouldn’t send out any notifications

Now, as you know, as of January 16th, support for Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8 were removed, along with Windows Vista.

Note however that this can’t be guaranteed from my end, as (and I hate to repeat myself again) Dropbox doesn’t officially support server editions of Windows, or any OSes not on this page.

[This thread is now closed. If you have a similar or new question, you can ask here.]

edp1

I have Installed Dropbox in Windows 2008 R2 Server.Since it was working fine but now its not working.Please advise how to solve this issue

Rich

@edp1 wrote:
I have Installed Dropbox in Windows 2008 R2 Server.Since it was working fine but now its not working.Please advise how to solve this issue

I have merged your post into another thread that answers this. Please refer to the two solutions posted at the top of this thread.

The system requirements for Dropbox are listed here:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/system-requirements#desktop