Blizzard Plans To End Windows XP and Vista Support In Diablo 3, Hearthstone, WoW, And More

Blizzard announced on its forums that it is discontinuing support for Windows XP (32-bit and 64 bit) and Windows Vista (32-bit and 64 bit) in World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm.

While business are still not letting go of Windows XP and Vista, gamers have moved on. Right now, there are few gamers using Windows XP and Vista to play games. So, it comes as a no surprise when Blizzard announces that it is discontinuing support for the two operating systems in World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm.

Starting later this year, we will begin the process of ending support for Windows XP and Windows Vista in World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm.

While, Microsoft has stopped support for Windows XP and Vista in 2009 and 2012 respectively, many gamers continued to use those operating systems at that time.

However, now nearly every gamer has moved to Windows 7, 8, or 10. So, Blizzard says that since a “vast majority” of Blizzard’s player base has switched to either Windows 7, 8, or 10, the company has decided to drop support for XP and Vista.

Blizzard advices players running these older operating systems to upgrade to latest Windows and says that their games will soon stop running on older and outdated operating systems.

After these older operating systems are no longer supported, the games will not run on them, so we encourage any players who are still using one of the older OSes to upgrade to a newer version.

This will happen on a “staggered schedule,” so not all games will stop working at the same time. Ornyx said that Blizzard will post further notices as it gets closer to discontinuing support for each game.

Blizzard’s continued support for their games on older systems is commendable, considering that many game developers stops supporting their games after few months of its release.

Steam, which has over 125 million active users reports that less than 2% of gamers runs Windows XP and Vista. So, I hope Blizzard will not face much complaints about its decision from its user base.