How can I get the latest version of Thunderbird on Windows XP or Vista?

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Although Thunderbird will run on Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) or above, the latest installers for Thunderbird require Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3) or Windows Vista with update KB2763674. To work around this issue, a two-step process is necessary to install the latest version of Thunderbird. Windows XP and Vista users should follow these steps:

  1. Download and install Thunderbird up to version 38.5.0 (link to download).
  2. After installing this version you can use the Thunderbird updater to install the latest version of Thunderbird. See the article Update Thunderbird to the latest version for details.

We're sorry for the inconvenience.

For advanced users:

On Windows XP SP3 or up-to-date Vista operating systems, you can download the full installer for the latest version of Thunderbird from https://archive.mozilla.org/pub/thunderbird/releases/

For example, to download the Thunderbird 38.6.0 Windows English (US) full installer, navigate to /38.6.0/win32/en-US/ and choose the file Thunderbird Setup 38.6.0.exe.

Before downloading, read the System Requirements and see the Release Notes for information about the latest Thunderbird release.

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