WinSCP 6.3(.1) doesn't start on WinXP

WinSCP 6.3 and 6.3.1 don't start on WinXP (SP3).

Instantly after double-clicking the WinSCP.exe I just get a message box saying

Die Anwendung wurde mit STRG+C unterbrochen

(German for "The application was interrupted with STRG+C"), see the attachment below.

Is it intended to keep the support for Windows XP (Server 2003... and Vista / Server 2008) alive? That would be great! Let me, let us know... The retro/legacy computer community would be very grateful!

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• The latest version for Windows 95/98/98SE/ME is 4.40!?
  
• The latest version for Windows 2000 is 5.1.8!?
  

I mirrored these versions on my website (https://soggi.org/misc/tools.htm) together with other software's old versions as they are not easy to find these days.

Thanks in advance and keep on the great work!
greetings
soggi :-)

Thanks for your report. I've fixed this issue:
Issue 2268 – Cannot start on Windows XP

According to our records, support for Windows 95/98/ME was dropped in 5.0.7. So the last compatible version should be 5.0.6 beta. Though if you are asking for a stable version, then it is indeed 4.4.0 (not 4.40 – there's no such version).
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/incompatible_changes#older_general
https://winscp.net/eng/docs/history?a=5.0.7

You are correct regarding the Windows 2000.

Thanks for your replies and the fix, @martin!

It's really great that you could fix the issue and extend the support of Windows XP – WinSCP is one of the last great/classic tools which still supports WinXP (at least). The exact and transparent bug tracker is also awesome.

Huh...I actually can't recapitulate where I got the version "4.40" exactly from (instead of 4.4.0), referring to the Wayback Machine it wasn't the official WinSCP website itself (there it says "WinSCP 4.4.0 released")...I seem to recall that it was somewhere here in the forums when I was searching for the latest Win9x compatible version. Nevertheless I will change this, thx!

I guess, I chose to not mirror the latest beta 5.0.6 back then (when I added the mirrored versions) because version 4.4.0 was released on 2013/01/28 and the former on 2012/02/29, nearly a year earlier. Is it worth it to have 5.0.6 beta also mirrored despite of that?

As said above, keep on the excellent work!

kind regards
soggi

There are lot of differences between 4.4.0 and 5.0.6. So it is probably worth keeping both.

Thx @martin, I‘ll consider to add 5.0.6 beta to my website. But first I‘ll correct the version information and add the setup versions to the already existing portable versions.

kind regards
soggi

Any update?

As @martin said above, the issue is already fixed!
But the fix isn't released yet (see https://winscp.net/eng/docs/history).

kind regards
soggi

WinSCP 6.3.2 has been released already.

To give you some feedback @martin:

WinSCP 6.3.2 works again on Windows XP, many thanks for fixing the issue!

I donated 50,- US$ for the great support and work over the years (decades), thx again!

kind regards
soggi

@soggi: Thanks for your generous donation!

Today I checked the WinSCP website for updates and unfortunately noticed that support for Windows XP/Vista and Windows Server 2003/2008 has been finally removed in WinSCP 6.4.1 beta and up. @martin

Sad to read this, but I know that it was just a question of time...

Two things...

1. Could you please give a short explanation about what's the reason for the deprecation?
(Edit: Found the reason -> Reverted fix for issue 2268 (USE_RWLOCK), but why?)
(Edit2: BTW PuTTY recently reinstated accidentally broken Windows XP support in version 0.83)

2. Please "back-propagate" as many fixes and improvements as possible to the 6.3.x line!

So I guess it's time to also mirror the latest 6.3.x version of WinSCP as the last version for WinXP/Vista/2003/2008 on my website (https://soggi.org/misc/tools.htm)!?

Thx and kind regards
soggi

Since 6.4.1, WinSCP is built in Embarcadero C++Builder 11. An upgrade that was a decade overdue. It was needed in general, but specifically as a step for long-postponed 64-bit build:
Issue 618 – 64-bit version of WinSCP
C++Builder 11 does not support Windows XP.

So it has nothing to do the the revert you have mentioned.

Windows XP share among WinSCP users dropped below 0.1%.
Sorry for bad news.

Thx @martin for the fast answer and explanation, the reason you gave is understandable. As already said above, it was just a question of time when WinXP/Vista/2003/2008 support would have been deprecated, frankly.

martin wrote:

So it has nothing to do the the revert you have mentioned.

I guess you made the revert due to the drop of WinXP support, understandable so far.

martin wrote:

Windows XP share among WinSCP users dropped below 0.1%.
Sorry for bad news.

Just curious, how do you measure the share? This year (since 2025/01/01) I have 1.1% WinXP share on my niche website (w/o my own visits ;), measured with Matomo [formerly Piwik]), so it's also not that high there but ten times higher than your measurement - I know there are some to many who appreciate my service very much and who will miss WinSCP from the ONGD (ongoing development) fraction. Version 6.3.x as the last for XP/Vista/2003/2008 will find it's place on my website!

So yes, bad news - but I/we also have to thank you for the long support of older versions of Windows! I consider to make another 50 bucks donation...
Edit: Made the donation! :-)

soggi wrote:

2. Please "back-propagate" as many fixes and improvements as possible to the 6.3.x line!

Maybe you can also drop a line on this!? Is there a roadmap on how long the 6.3.x line will be supported? Just saw that 6.3.7 (not released yet) entry in the Recent Version History.

# Off-topic #
There are several ways to donate here, most important is Paypal I guess, but there are also others like credit cards or Patreon. Do you have some performance figures? How well performs Patreon?

Thx in advance and kind regards
soggi :-)