Microsoft to kill the Win32 version of Skype

Microsoft is making some big changes to Skype. New features were rolled out, including Full HD video chat with screen sharing with up to 24 people, support for @mentions to grab someone's attention in a group chat, and a new chat media gallery. File sharing also got a boost to 300MB in version 8.0 of Skype.

Over the summer, more features will be added including read receipts, end-to-end encrypted audio calls, chat, and file transfers, support for call recording, a new profile invite feature to start conversations or calls with people who aren't on Skype yet, and a group link feature to quickly get a group together on Skype.

Overall, these are some very welcome changes. There's one big caveat though; Microsoft will end support for the classic Win32 version of Skype. Users of Skype version 7.0 (aka Skype classic) will be forced to upgrade to Skype 8.0 for desktop in September.

We are encouraging everyone to upgrade now to avoid any inconvenience as only Skype version 8.0 will work after September 1, 2018. As we roll out improvements, there comes a time when we must shut down older services and application versions. This is done to ensure that all customers have the best possible Skype experience, and that there are no quality or reliability issues resulting from old technology and new technology interoperating. We know change can be hard, so we’re working to make the update as simple as possible.