Supported Windows Versions and Hardware
We try to cater to two different types of users for our pre-built packages:
- Developers using MSYS2 directly, who usually want the latest software and tend to use newer hardware and keep their Windows up to date.
- End users, who use bundled applications containing pre-built packages from the MSYS2 repository. They can use very outdated Windows versions on very outdated hardware.
In some cases we can't please both groups at the same time, so we have to find compromises.
Msys Packages & the Installer
This includes the unixy environment and the GUI installer.
Required Windows version: 64bit Windows 8.1 / Windows Server 2012 R2
Mingw Packages
This includes all packages that don't depend on Cygwin.
Targeted Windows version (*): Windows 8.1+
(*) If possible, depending on the upstream support. In some cases we can delay dropping support by staying on older versions/branches longer, or patching them, but that is not always practical or desirable.
Supported Hardware
We try to follow the minimum hardware requirements of the Windows versions we support.