WSJT-X Drops Windows XP

WSJT-X 2.2.0 will be the first release that will not work on Windows XP, microsoft’s longest running operating system. Documentation of the official release candidate 2 version already includes the updated System Requirements information, along to the new features announced some weeks ago.

 WSJT-X 2.2.0 System Requirements

• SSB transceiver and antenna
• Computer running Windows 7 or later, Linux, or OS X
• 1.5 GHz or faster CPU and 200 MB of available memory; faster machines are better
• Monitor with at least 1024 x 780 resolution
• Computer-to-radio interface using a serial port or equivalent USB device for T/R switching, or CAT control, or VOX, as required for your radio-to-computer connections
• Audio input and output devices supported by the operating system and configured for sample rate 48000 Hz, 16 bits
• Audio or equivalent USB connections between transceiver and computer
• A means for synchronizing the computer clock to UTC within ±1 second

As you probably know, Windows XP is an outdated, insecure and deprecated operative system. Microsoft ended the official support for Windows XP on April 2014, and almost all new modern software have stopped developments on this operative system. It sounds us obvious that also the popular weak signal software, will also adapt and focus on new OS versions.

Installing on Windows XP

If you try to install WSJT-X 2.2.0 on a Windows XP Machine, the installation will start as usual, but when you will try to execute the program, you will get message window titled “wsjtx.exe – Entry Point Not Found” with this message “The procedure entry point CancelIoEx could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll”

Alternatives ?

If you are one of the users affected by this problem, it means you are running a very old PC, and therefore this is probably the only software that has stopped running on your PC.

What to do in case you old PC does not support Windows 7 and you don’t want to change your hardware?

First option is to evaluate the possibility to move to a Linux distribution.
This will cost you some headache and hours, especially if you are not an expert on the matter.

Second option is to install the 2.1.2 release, that has been the latest version till June 2020. You can download all old WSJT-X Versions from the software repository on sourceforge.net

Here below a screeshot of the latest WSJT-X version that still runs on Windows XP.

WSJT-X and Windows Vista

The development team decided to leave not only support for Windows XP, but also Windows Vista.
The impact on Windows Vista users should generally be less than XP, as the unfortunate operating system lasted very few years in the market, followed by Windows 7.