Starting January 1, 2019, Avast/AVG users using antivirus products on Windows XP & Vista will no longer receive new program updates, Avast software says in a blog post, however virus definitions will still be offered continuously to them.
“Avast cybersecurity products will officially stop updating our antivirus product for Windows XP and Windows Vista Operating systems as of January 1, 2019”. The company recommends Avast users on these operating systems to update to latest Windows 10 Operating system.
But Avast’s support forum, moderator, Martin’s confirmed in a forum thread that end of support starts at the end of this November where they will release a new Avast version with 64-bit support.
“Change: Due to the introduction of the 64bit version in the next release we decided to move the end of support of XP/Vista one month earlier. So the next version planned for the end of November won’t support XP/Vista”.
Windows XP & Vista users receive virus definition updates
Current Avast version is 18.7, the XP & Vista users will stay on this version forever and this is the last version for them, where the company will release version 18.8 in November this year, which won’t be available to them.
Consider this: for instance, if they download and install Avast through online installer in 2019, they’ll get Avast 18.7 whereas Windows 10 users will get Avast 18.9, that’s the difference. Older systems users will always be using 18.7 and no new Avast versions for them, but they’ll receive virus definition updates for sure.
UPDATE November 14, 2018: Avast Software has now decided to make Avast 18.8 version available for XP and Vista users.
“Situation has changed. The current situation is that any version 18.x will support XP/Vista, version 19.x not”.