Hi @mira141. Although Windows 10 has been specified as the minimum officially supported version from the start of the Arduino IDE 2.x version series, earlier versions did have incidental compatibility with Windows 7 through 8.1. That compatibility was lost starting from Arduino IDE 2.2.0, so Arduino IDE 2.1.1 is the last version compatible with those obsolete Windows versions.
I'll provide instructions you can follow to install and configure Arduino IDE 2.1.1:
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Click the following link to open the page for the 2.1.1 release in the Arduino IDE GitHub repository:
Release 2.1.1 · arduino/arduino-ide · GitHub
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From the list of download links under the "Assets" section of the page, click the link with the name:
- If you want the installer package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.exe
- If you want the "MSI" package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.msi
- If you want the "ZIP" package: arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.zip
ⓘ If you aren't sure which one you need, use arduino-ide_2.1.1_Windows_64bit.exe
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Wait for the download to finish.
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Install Arduino IDE from the downloaded file as you would normally do.
Disabling IDE Update Notifications
You will now find that Arduino IDE periodically shows an "Update Available" dialog to offer you an update to the newer version of Arduino IDE. You must not accept these updates since the newer versions are not compatible with your vintage version of Windows.
There are two methods for dealing with these update offers. I'll provide instructions for both of them. You can pick whichever one of the two is most convenient for you.
"SKIP VERSION"
The "Update Available" dialog contains a "SKIP VERSION" button. If you click that button, Arduino IDE will no longer show the dialog for the specific newer version being offered at the time you click the button.
The dialog will appear once again each time Arduino releases a new version of Arduino IDE, so you will need to click the button again after each release. That is slightly inconvenient, but the release cycle is fairly long so I don't think it will be very burdensome.
Disable All Update Offers
It is possible to completely disable the offers of updates in the Arduino IDE advanced settings. The downside is this setting also disables offers of updates for your installed boards platforms and libraries.
- Press the Ctrl+Shift+P keyboard shortcut (Command+Shift+P for macOS users) to open the "Command Palette".
A menu will appear on the editor toolbar:
- Select the "Preferences: Open Settings (UI)" command from the menu.
ⓘ You can scroll down through the list of commands to find it or type the name in the field.
A "Preferences" tab will open in the Arduino IDE main panel.
- Type
arduino.checkForUpdates in the "Search Settings" field of the "Preferences" tab.
- Uncheck the box under the "Arduino: Check For Updates" setting.
- Close the Preferences tab by clicking its X icon.
Keeping Your Arduino Dependencies Updated
If you chose this "Disable All Update Offers" method, make sure to periodically check to see if newer versions of your installed boards platforms and libraries are available. You can do this by opening Boards Manager and then setting the "Type" menu to "Updatable", then repeating the process with Library Manager.
There is no possibility of a problem using newer versions of libraries on a computer with an older version of Windows, so don't worry about a Windows incompatibility when updating your libraries.
It is theoretically possible that some future version of a boards platform could have a minimum Windows version requirement, but I'm not aware of any such thing at this time. Even if you did encounter that a boards platform stopped working after an update, you can always easily downgrade the platform back to the last working version via the Arduino IDE Boards Manager.
