The abandonment of obsolete versions of Windows by important applications continues and the turn of Google Drive has arrived, whose support in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 has its days numbered. Nothing new under the sun, by the way, and that is that Google’s cloud file storage service already said goodbye to Windows 7 at the beginning of this year.
If Windows 7 ran out of Google Drive in January, Windows 8 and 8.1 will do so in August, so they barely have a month and a half to live. That is, full life, enjoying maintenance or, what is the same, updates. It is unknown if the applications will continue to work for a while, but previous experience does not give rise to hope in this regard.
In this regard, it should be remembered that Windows 8 was left without official support in 2016, more than seven years ago, while Windows 8.1 followed suit in January of this year, after ending its standard support five years earlier, in January of 2018. Whoever endures in any of these versions, his is the cross.
But this isn’t the only upcoming support end coming to Google Drive, as the client also says goodbye to Windows 10 32-bit on the same dates. And, despite everything, Windows 10 has support until 2025 in its two editions, for 32 and 64 bits. However, it seems that part of the industry wants to get rid of maintaining the old architecture.
Of course, when we talk about Google Drive, we mean the desktop client. Anyone can continue to access the service through the web browser, although it is also convenient to take precautions in this regard: Microsoft Edge withdrew its support in January and Chrome did so in March; only Firefox resists, trying to scratch the remains of the quota that nobody wants and will do so until September 2024.
Of course, the applications that are leaving the support of the old versions of Windows, and there are a lot as we have been collecting in recent years, are mainly aimed at Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, since Windows 8 has been considered amortized for quite some time. The Google Drive thing is an anomaly. In any case, be prepared if you are in that situation, because it is becoming untenable.
Try the free upgrade to Windows 10 and if not, buy a license and reinstall the system. Take advantage of the fact that you have them from 12 euros, a ridiculous price. And from there you can now make the leap to Windows 11 for free. What if your computer can’t take it? Either you renew it, or you continue eating an outdated version of Windows that puts your security at risk… or you try Linux.
