Node.js supported operating systems
A year ago (in November 2015) there was a discussion on GitHub to drop support of Windows XP and Vista. See:
- Issue #3804: Drop Windows XP (and Vista) support in 6.0
See also a notes from the meeting where that was discussed:
- Issue #4901: Node.js Foundation Core Technical Committee (CTC) Meeting 2016-01-27
Finally, the commit named "win: prevent node from running on Windows Vista or earlier" has added this code to Node:
if (!IsWindows7OrGreater()) {
fprintf(stderr, "This application is only supported on Windows 7, "
"Windows Server 2008 R2, or higher.");
exit(1);
}
This commit landed in Node 6.0.0, see the announcement:
Windows XP and Vista are no longer supported #5167.
So from now on, that's official:
Node is only supported on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, or higher.
But as you can see on https://nodejs.org/en/download/ both 32 and 64-bit versions are available.
As of Node 14, the minimum versions are Windows 8.1, Server 2012 R2, but a patch to check an environment variable NODE_SKIP_PLATFORM_CHECK=1
was just added, and should arrive in new versions soon.