POPFile is written in Perl. Perl is an interpreted language that has ports for almost every popular platform available today. This means that a user can run the same POPFile code without any changes or recompiles on any available Perl installation (unlike languages such as C).

Windows users can choose between two versions of POPFile:

?POPFile for Windows !This version includes a user friendly installer application to help you get POPFile running quickly and a system tray icon that lets you easily access the user interface. The installer supports many different languages and installs all of the files necessary to run POPFile.

?POPFile Cross Platform !The Cross Platform version can be used on any platform (including Windows) where Perl is already installed. If Perl is not installed on your Windows system then you will need to download and install Perl before you can use POPFile. Note that some POPFile functions require components that are not included in a standard Perl distribution therefore you may need to install several extra Perl components in order to run POPFile. The POPFile wiki has further details on POPFile's Perl requirements.

The POPFile 1.1.1 (or later) installer uses a version of Perl which is not supported on these older versions of Windows. It also installs six programs (popfile.exe, popfileb.exe, popfilef.exe, popfileib.exe, popfileif.exe and popfile-service.exe) which are built using a version of the Perl Dev Kit (PDK) which no longer supports these older versions of Windows.

The system requirements for this version of Perl are Windows 2000, Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista or Server 2008 and for this version of the PDK they are Windows 2000 SP4 or later. Earlier versions of Windows are not officially supported by these versions of Perl and the PDK.

If the installer detects that it is being run on a system earlier than Windows 2000 it will display a warning. This warning message explains that the installer is being used on an unsupported version of Windows and as a result POPFile may not work properly.

We do not know if any users are still using the Windows version of POPFile with Windows 9x, Windows Millennium or Windows NT. It is now more than a month since the intention to drop support for Windows 9x, Windows Millennium and Windows NT was mentioned in the Open Discussion forum and so far there has been no feedback at all. Perhaps this means nobody will be affected by this change?

As mentioned above, Windows users (including those using Windows 9x, Windows Millennium or Windows NT) can still use the Cross-Platform version though this may require the installation of some more software on their systems.

If you want further information on getting POPFile 1.1.1 (or later) running on Windows 9x, Windows Millennium or Windows NT systems please post to the Open Discussion forum.

The POPFile 1.1.0 (or earlier) installer can be used on these older versions of Windows. There are no known issues specific to these versions of Windows. (The restriction that concurrent POP3 connections cannot be enabled when POPFile's optional SSL support is used also applies to POPFile 1.1.1 or later).