MSI Afterburner no longer supports Windows XP, according to the changelog for the latest version (4.6.6) of the popular overclocking and hardware monitoring program, which blames the change on the update to a new compiler. 4.6.6 also introduces a new feature for the Radeon RX 7800 XT, as well as new DeviceIDs for future NVIDIA GPUs.
Version 4.6.6 include:
- Ported to VC++ 2022 compiler. Please take a note that due to this change MSI Afterburner will no longer be able to start under Windows XP. Please stay on the previous versions of the product if you need this OS support
- Please take a note that size of mandatory VC++ 2022 runtime redistributables roughly doubled comparing to the previously used VC++ 2008 redistributables, and we’d like to avoid providing overblown application distributive, drastically increased in size due to bundling newer and much heavier VC++ redistributables with it. To deal with this issue we provide our own original tiny web installer for VC++ redistributables, which allowed decreasing the size of final application distributive drastically even comparing to the previous VC++ 2008 based version. Please take a note that install time can be increased slightly due to downloading VC++ 2022 runtimes redistributables on the fly during installation. If you install MSI Afterburner offline, you can always deploy required VC++ 2022 distributives later with web installer by launching .\Redist\VCRedistDeploy.bat
- Added voltage control support for AMD RADEON RX 7800XT series graphics cards
- Added some future NVIDIA GPU PCI DeviceIDs to hardware database
- Now MSI Afterburner reinitializes skin scaling engine on DPI scaling change events to prevent cases when GUI looks cut off in some cases (e.g. after switching between display resolutions with different DPI scaling settings)
- Fixed instances enumeration for some performance counters with no localized names (e.g. GPU related Windows performance counters) in PerfCounter.dll plugin
- Added experimental support for “Beta : Use Unicode UTF-8 for global language support” option enabled in administrative regional OS settings. Now each localization description file contains additional “Codepage” field, defining runtime ANSI to UTF8 conversion rule for selected language pack
- Seriously revamped German and Ukrainian localizations
- RivaTuner Statistics Server has been upgraded to v7.3.5:
- New version’s changes list is huge, it includes more than 90 compatibility enhancements, changes and new features including programmable conditional layers support, PresentMon and NVIDIA Reflex integration
Guru3D.com, an official host for MSI Afterburner, warns:
A lot of fake sites are hosting downloads with malware. Only Guru3D.com and MSI.com are legally allowed to distribute MSI Afterburner; the same is true for Rivatuner statistics server, Rivatuner CORE application, and RTSS-related files.
…if it’s not published here on Guru3D.com in the news or download section, then it’s not an official public version leaving you at risk, potentially even downloading a vulnerable version at an external website. For that reason alone be very wary if you download MSI Afterburner from an external party. Our distribution is safe, and is the only way for you to know if downloads have not been tampered with, are unstable, or even vulnerable.