[Consolidation-Locked] Lightroom 4 on XP

[Guest]

Lightroom 4 comes with a 32 and 64 bit install but does not install under XP.  Lightroom 3.6 supports XP.

WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WARNED BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED PAYMENT FOR THE UPGRADE.

Fortunately, I was able to upgrade on a laptop (Windows 7 64 bit) but the display is not optimal (my desktop XP is much better).

Do you contemplate recompiling the product for Windows XP?

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

WE SHOULD HAVE BEEN WARNED BEFORE YOU ACCEPTED PAYMENT FOR THE UPGRADE.

You were: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom/tech-specs.html. The rest is beside the point.

Mylenium

[Guest]

Thanks for pointing that out, but I am waiting for an official reply from Adobe on this topic.  I think they will come up with something more positive.

1. There was nothing mentioned at the point of sale about abandoning support for Windows XP.  Neither was anything pointed out in either of the two communications from Adobe - in the order confirmation or in the serial number email.  There was no warning on the download page and the install did not stop until the MSI began to run.
2. There is no other Photoshop (or competitive) product that does not install and run under XP.  I have not checked other Adobe products, but I suspect Lightroom is unique in this issue.
3. Microsoft support for XP (and Office 2003) does not end until April, 2014.
4. I am upgrading from Lightroom 3.6, which does run on XP.

I have been in the application software business for over forty years and have two Windows 7, one Vista and two XP machines, so I know which of these machines might be marginal – this usually means memory and processing speed.

I suspect that the reason for not supporting XP is more likely a question of not being able to get it thorough testing in time or not wanting to expend the resources to support the older operating system.  I wonder how candid Adobe will be in its response to my posting.

[Jeff A Wright]

Selmslie I apologize for your inconvience but unfortunately it is a requirement to have Windows Vista SP2 or later to use Lightroom 4.  This limitation was put in place to offer many of the great features in Lightroom 4.  Mylennium has already offered the links to the system requirements but they can be found at http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-lightroom/tech-specs.html.

You are certainly welcome to request a refund for your purchase.  The directions on how to accomplish this can be found Return, change Adobe orders | North America - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/return-change-orders-north-america.html.

You are correct that you can purchase Photoshop Elements 10 or Photoshop CS5.1 currently to use a Photoshop product under Windows XP.  Unfortunately there is no work around to allow Photoshop Lightroom 4 to function within the Windows XP environment.  If you wish to continue using Photoshop Lightroom 4 it would be necessary to upgrade your operating system to at least Windows Vista Service Pack 2 or higher.

[Guest]

I can still use 3.6 on XP and 4.0 on Windows 7 so I will not request a refund.

My point is that, since this is the only (first) product that is abandoning XP, something should be clearly stated at the point of sale, before the buyer commits to the purchase.

Not everyone will have several computers to choose from. Some PCs cannot be upgraded to Windows 7.

[judy04]

I'm really bummed out also.   I like to switch back and forth from my laptop XP to desktop win 7 and you can't read a LR 4 catalog in LR3.6 in XP.   **really** annoying and distressing!!

judy

[danbusler]

As you might guess, it is a common practice for a photographer to work on the images at their desktop then put the catalog on an external drive so that we can use them in the sales room on the system there - then after the consultation take the revised catalog (with changes made during the sales session) back to the desktop for final retouching and ordering.  My desktop is Win 7 and my laptop (sales room) is XP.  How the heck am I going to do this now? 

Lightroom is awesome - but we need a work-around here. 

[CSS_Simon]

The question here: how long should Adobe (or any other software supplier) support old operating systems?  The answer clearly isn't "for ever", or Lightroom would run on DOS. 

XP is 11 years old.  Vista came in January 2007 (full release) but was regarded by most as such a dog that most users skipped it, and were still installing XP when Windows 7 shipped in 2009.  That means 3 year old machines may well have been shipped with XP.  On that basis (given that for most purposes we can ignore Vista) it seems a bit remiss of Adobe not to support the operating system of choice until 3 years ago. 

On the other hand, LR4 really does need a fast modern machine.  Touch and go, but I can sympathise with Adobe not supporting XP. 

[JP Hess]

There are similar restrictions on the Mac, AND there is no 32 bit Lightroom 4.  You complain of not being notified of the limitation.  Did you consider reading the system requirements?  Time marches on, people.  And so must you.

[danbusler]

I totally agree, XP is on my old system, but XP is still used on many systems that photographers are using for their main processing workstation.

For now I can export the images from the LR4 system to JPEGS and then just import them into LR 3.6 in the sales room for client consultations, make the cropping etc revisions and then import just the changed images into LR4 for the final retouching of the original RAW images ..

Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 15:15:17 -0600

From: forums@adobe.com

To: danbusler@hotmail.com

Subject: Lightroom 4 on XP

Re: Lightroom 4 on XP

created by CSS Simon in Photoshop Lightroom - View the full discussion

The question here: how long should Adobe (or any other software supplier) support old operating systems? The answer clearly isn't "for ever", or Lightroom would run on DOS. XP is 11 years old. Vista came in January 2007 (full release) but was regarded by most as such a dog that most users skipped it, and were still installing XP when Windows 7 shipped in 2009. That means 3 year old machines may well have been shipped with XP. On that basis (given that for most purposes we can ignore Vista) it seems a bit remiss of Adobe not to support the operating system of choice until 3 years ago. On the other hand, LR4 really does need a fast modern machine. Touch and go, but I can sympathise with Adobe not supporting XP.

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[jdf84d68fj4]

How long to support an old OS?

As long as it is used at least 4% of Potential Customers.

Statistics presents usage of 50% Win7, 30% WinXP, 9% Mac, 5% Linux, 4% Vista.

[Keith Reeder]

Try actually reading the explanation for withdrawal of XP rather than quoting meaningless stats: Lr 4 cannot - ever - run on XP, because some of its capabilities are based on OS-level functions that XP simply does not support.

Or do you think that Lr 4 should be reverted back to the level of capability delivered by Lr 3? Because then it'd be Lr 3, and none of us would be better-off.

You need to deal with the fact that Adobe's hands were tied here: this wasn't an arbitrary decision made just to spite XP users, it was an unavoidable result of the fact that XP is functionally incapable of supporting what Lr 4 does.

And I want what Lr 4 does, thanks...

Let's have another look at the stats, too: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_os.asp

By the current rate of decline of XP, it'll be less than 20% by the end of this year.

[CSS_Simon]

Keith, are you saying it would have been physically impossible to implement LR4's features on XP?  If so, which features?  I believe CS6, including ACR7 (with all the PV2012 functions) runs on XP. 

LR4 may well use operating system features not implemented in XP, but to say that those features physically can't be implemented in the application would be surprising. 

[john beardsworth]

Video and DVD burning were the new features which would have been too costly to implement on XP.

It's irrelevant that ACR / PS CS6 runs on XP - the markets are different and there's a bigger installed base (see here).

Also my estimates, based on visitors to 2 Lightroom-only websites, are that about 6-8% of the total LR userbase is on Windows XP.

[judy04]

I don't see why they couldn't just leave off those two features for an XP version.

That said, I could live with LR 4 if only LR 3 could read its catalog, and I could edit some things on my XP laptop that I've already worked on some on my win 7 desktop.   LR 4 can read the LR 3 catalog.   **why** not vice versa??    Just this change would make me not all that unhappy with the change.  I just wish I hadn't upgraded at this point.

[JP Hess]

No, Lightroom 4 cannot read or use Lightroom 3 catalogs.  It has the code to convert older catalogs to the Lightroom 4 format, but that is all.  Once the catalog has been converted the "compatibility" ends.

Windows XP is an old operating system, people.  Mac users keep finding that older versions are no longer supported, and they don't even have 32 bit support any more.  Times change, and you have to change as well.

[Guest]

Yes, it would have been an easy matter to just disable a couple of menu choices for features that needed Windows newer than XP.  However, it's a little more complicated.

It appears that much of the underlying code for Lightroom has simply outgrown the limitations of 32-bit operating systems.  This is why it is also not being supported for the 32-bit Apple operating system either. 

In fact, there have been complaints of slowness from users with Windows 7 64-bit.  This might be happening on PCs with only 2GB of RAM where, when Lightroom runs out of memory, it has to use the hard drive for more temporary storage. 

It looks like Lightroom had a choice: work within the limitations of a 32-bit operating system, which would have required a little more effort on their part; or take advantage of 64-bit to allow access to more installed RAM.

The problem for the users is that Lightroom did not adequately warn them that XP was out and that 2GB of RAM might be slow.  This should have been made clear at the point of sale, where all of us would see it, and not on a tab that few users bother to consider.

[Keith Reeder]

CSS Simon wrote:

Keith, are you saying it would have been physically impossible to implement LR4's features on XP?

That's what I've been led to believe from umpteen previous discussions on the subject, Simon - discussions which included input from the likes of Eric Chan and Jeff Schewe.

Here's something dredged up in a few seconds' search, a statement (with my emphasis) from Adobe employee Brett N: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4483814#4483814

"So, your computer (the physical hardware) being able to run Windows Vista is not the same thing as your OS (Windows XP) being able to run Lightroom 4. It is simply too old and lacks much of the programming to run LR4."

Take-away message - "Lr 4 needs things from the OS that XP cannot deliver".

[CSS_Simon]

Thanks.  I think my point is rather a picky one: I don't doubt what you say, or what the two Adobe people say on that other thread.  My guess is that it would theoretically have been possible to implement LR4's features on XP, perhaps with more difficulty or poorer performance (or greater development cost, to develop capabilities not provided by XP).  But if they're saying XP support wasn't a practical option then I'm not about to say that's the wrong decision. 

However, even if I'm right that doesn't alter the thrust of your argument.  For whatever reason: LR4 uses features not in XP, and that is not going to change. 

[jdf84d68fj4]

If at least Adobe would continue to support the Lr3

or make an Lightroom Light Limited...

What is unsurpassed in XP SP3, the file size? Memory? Disk size?

About statistics: Yes XP declines but I expect it to stay over MacOS for very long time.

Another stat: http://www.gnuupc.org/operating-system-statistics

Windows XP-SP3 was released on 2008, Windows 7 on 2009.

Never say never...

[web-weaver]

For all you who are still running Win XP:

Don't invest too much in XP and programs that run only under XP. Microsoft will end their support for XP on April 8, 2014; see here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows/help/end-support

The time for XP is running out.

[jdf84d68fj4]

Yes WinXP support will possibly end in about two years. But life of XP doesn't stop here.

The best for computers up to 4GB of RAM is Linux or Win XP.

Better suggestion is: invest in programs that support both XP and W7.

I don't know another program than Adobe Lightroom, which would cancel

support for XP so much forward.

[Guest]

Hello Adobe,

How can I purchase Lightroom 3.6 now?

I have windows XP and lightroom 1 and I want to upgrade. When I click "Buy" in Lightroom 3.6 demo, it goes to the Lightroom 4 purchase page. will the Lightroom 4 serial number work with Lighroom 3.6? Is there another way to buy Lightroom 3.6 upgrade from 1.4?

Thank you.

[Jeff A Wright]

We are only offering the purchase of Lightroom 4 presently.

[Guest]

I understand, but will the serial number of Lightroom 4 fit Lightroom 3.6?

I only have Windows XP, does it mean I have no upgrade options from my lightroom 1.4 or I can use 3.6?