The Future Of Dropbox On XP

[cc333]

Confirmed!

I have Dropbox installed on Windows XP x64, and setting the compatibility to "Windows 2000" got it working perfectly!

It seems like such an arbitrary block. That's the sort of stuff Apple does (for instance, the 2009 Mac Pro is not supported by the upcoming macOS Sierra, but the 2010 Mac Pro is. And guess what? The 2009 Mac Pro's hardware is identical to the 2010's!)

I just realized that this could theoretically allow Dropbox to work on Windows 2000 itself. Couldn't it?

Now I have to test it out....

c

Edited September 13, 2016 by cc333

[DmitryS]

On 10.09.2016 at 6:38 PM, Dave-H said:

Well that didn't take too long to fix!
I now have version 9.4.49 running quite happily on XP, and the only thing you have to do to make it communicate with the Dropbox servers is run the executable in compatibility mode for Windows 2000!

So, it looks as if it looks specifically for XP and blocks it, but an even older OS is perfectly acceptable!
Go figure!

I found that with a bit of research of course, I didn't find the answer all by myself!
It won't let you in with an old version of the client, so what I had to do was uninstall my version 2.10.52.0, and then find a copy of 3.18.1, which may well be the last that will install on XP from my researches. It installed fine, but still wouldn't let me in because it still said it was an old version, but then, lo and behold, it updated itself to 9.4.49 (the current version) and just carried on working.
So, normal Dropbox service resumed, at least for the moment!
As always, there's no way of knowing how long this will last for, but I'm very pleased that it's OK again for the moment!

 

Thank you!

It's worked for me too on Windows 2003 server.
I tried to set up Windows 95 :-), but cannot guess about W2K.

[Dave-H]

My Dropbox has now updated itself to version 10.4.25 and still seems to be working OK.
It did install a service, DbxSvc.exe, which was throwing up error messages in my Windows System Event Log -
"The DbxSvc service failed to start due to the following error: DbxSvc is not a valid Win32 application."
A quick registry edit disabled it OK and it doesn't seem to have caused any problems doing that.
It appears to be a service for Windows 7 (Win 7 DDK driver).

 

[dencorso]

Is your Dropbox Client still working, Dave?

[Dave-H]

Yes it is. 
Almost every time I run it it updates to a new version, when I checked just now it updated from 13.4.21 to 14.4.19.
It's still apparently working fine though, the only thing I have to do when it updates is to disable the DbxSvc (DbxSvc.exe) service, which is not compatible with XP, but this does not seem to affect functionality in any way, and I only disable it to avoid the error messages about it in the event log.

 

[cc333]

Dropbox is still working for me on XP x64.

c

[jamieoliver]

Is it still working? in my PC dropbox needs an update, dropbox updater doesn't work, the dropbox downloading page doen't work either, the page show me a message "you need to update" or something similar  (sorry for my english i'm spanish)

[Dave-H]

I've just tried running my Dropbox client (I don't use it very often) and it has auto updated from version 14.4.19 to version 15.4.22.
Still seems to be working fine.
Is dropbox.exe set to Windows 2000 compatibility mode?

 

[Dave-H]

Well it looks like it's all over for the Dropbox client on XP I'm afraid.
I ran it today for the first time in ages, and it automatically updated from version 15.4.22 to version 19.4.13.0, which now won't stay running. It tries to run and then throws an error message before shutting down and then trying to run again over and over until forcibly terminated -
"Entry Point Not Found : The procedure entry point SHGetKnownFolderPath could not be located in the dynamic link library SHELL32.dll."
No amount of fiddling with the compatibility settings would make it come good, so they've now obviously done something with has finally broken compatibility with XP. Dropbox will not allow you access to your files with an out of date version of the client either, so just keeping the old version is not an option.
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

 

[Dibya]

7 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Well it looks like it's all over for the Dropbox client on XP I'm afraid.
I ran it today for the first time in ages, and it automatically updated from version 15.4.22 to version 19.4.13.0, which now won't stay running. It tries to run and then throws an error message before shutting down and then trying to run again over and over until forcibly terminated -
"Entry Point Not Found : The procedure entry point SHGetKnownFolderPath could not be located in the dynamic link library SHELL32.dll."
No amount of fiddling with the compatibility settings would make it come good, so they've now obviously done something with has finally broken compatibility with XP. Dropbox will not allow you access to your files with an out of date version of the client either, so just keeping the old version is not an option.
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted!

 

Try patching with xompie 

I am releasing my shell32 soon that has the function.

Please can you check with dependency walker . Please 

[Dave-H]

Thanks Dibya, but I don't actually need to worry about it as I have a multi-boot machine, and I've just uninstalled Dropbox from Windows XP and installed it on Windows 10 instead, where it works perfectly of course.
I don't want to get into messing with my XP installation just to possibly get one incompatible application to run, with no guarantee of success, when there is a much easier and safer alternative for me.
Others may well be in a different position though of course.

 

[i430VX]

I tried Patching it with xompie. No luck.

[Dibya]

1. 16 hours ago, Dave-H said:

   Thanks Dibya, but I don't actually need to worry about it as I have a multi-boot machine, and I've just uninstalled Dropbox from Windows XP and installed it on Windows 10 instead, where it works perfectly of course.
   I don't want to get into messing with my XP installation just to possibly get one incompatible application to run, with no guarantee of success, when there is a much easier and safer alternative for me.
   Others may well be in a different position though of course.
   
    

   

[crashnburn4u]

What if one was to use an older version and prevent this Auto Updating that was happening, which eventually led for it to stop working? 

[Dave-H]

Unfortunately, in my experience the Dropbox server will block access if it detects what it considers to be an out of date version.