Node.js supported operating systems

Question

Is there an official statement about the exact operating systems the Node.js is supported for? The only one that i can find is this one but for Windows at least it lists only two versions (Windows 2008R2/Windows 2012 for 64 bit). As far as i know, Node.js runs on many more Windows versions (7,8,10 ...). Any idea why the official statement does not include them?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

Windows 7 reached its EOL and no longer support it. The last Node version tested on Win7 is 13.6.0.

There are actually 2 PRs with alternatives to making Windows 7 an available but minimally supported platform. One uses a mutable warning that will be posted to all applications that run the Node.js binary, and the other requires an environment variable is set to enable using deprecated Windows operating systems.

For now, you can use the latest v13.13.0 while we wait to see what happens.

Node JS - 13.13.0 - https://nodejs.org/dist/