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.

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.

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

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.

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)

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

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

33 Replies

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earlpurple
Helpful | Level 5
8 months ago
It is still working on Windows 7 for now, but what have they done on my Windows 11 machine? Suddenly all the files are no longer there and replaced with a cloud sign next to them, where I have to click on them and then they download.
I never asked for this. How do I disable it? I want them on the machine. I have 2TB of hard disk space and if I travel somewhere I'd expect the files on my computer to be there without me having to continually download the ones I want.
Another company who forces their new ideas on users without asking them first?
mgambrell
Collaborator | Level 9
8 months ago
I haven't had luck with sync. The "cloud files" feature supposedly requires windows 10+, and I have a major problem with the "get a url" functionality (it doesn't work on files on the cloud). This, and a host of other issues, seems to be the result of their using microsoft's new cloud syncing APIs. I'm going to be trying to find some other cloud files shell extension that works as well as dropbox when the client actually stops working on win7. Anyone have any suggestions?
perry59
New member | Level 2
8 months ago
Yep, I'm sticking with windows 7 for all the reasons mentioned above. Bye bye dropbox
perry59
New member | Level 2
8 months ago
exactly right
perry59
New member | Level 2
8 months ago
I'm with you. I will be dropping drop box
earlpurple
Helpful | Level 5
11 months ago
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.
Dibrom
Helpful | Level 7
11 months ago
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!
DBoxTips
Experienced | Level 13
2 years ago
HelloClive48
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)
Clive48
New member | Level 1
2 years ago
Hi
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.
Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago
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?