How to fix SWTOR Launcher Issues on Windows XP and Vista

If you are having SWTOR Launcher Issues on Windows XP or Vista, check out this workaround, suggested by Bioware. This is, however, just a temporary fix!

After last week’s SWTOR Launcher Update, an annoying error started appearing for many players: “Launcher is being updated. Please, wait.”. After research and investigation, Bioware seems to have reached a conclusion that the problem is an old operating system. Windows XP and Windows Vista are causing issues with the game and since Microsoft isn’t supporting them any more, there was little the SWTOR Dev team can do in order to fix this.

There was a solution, however. At least a temporary one. Here’s the quote coming directly from community manager Eric Musco and the official SWTOR forums:

Here are the steps to take:

Restart your computer! This is very important as it ensures that no versions of the launcher are currently running.
Download this utility: http://cdn-patch.swtor.com/patch/Lau…OL_xpvista.exe
Run the launcher repair utility (note this utility will force your launcher to be on BitRaider, this is mandatory for the fix to work)
Once complete, start your launcher and you should now be able to login normally. (If you were on SSN and had to switch to BitRaider you should expect a lengthy verification period. This is normal!)

If this does not work, here are a few things to check:

If the launcher will not run or you are still receiving the error. Restart your computer and then ensure the launcher is not running in task manager. Then follow the steps above to run the utility..
The launcher repair utility will attempt to remove a folder called “patch” from the SWTOR directory. The launcher may not run properly if this delete did not occur. You can try deleting this folder manually and then follow the steps above to run the utility.

This fix will allow your game to continue to run until October. It may run beyond that, but there are no guarantees. This launcher issue has highlighted for us that going forward, we will be unable to support Windows XP and Vista for The Old Republic. Since Microsoft has discontinued support for both of those OS, we will need to follow suit since we cannot reliably fix any issues that could arise.

The fix above will allow you to continue to access SWTOR until October. Beyond that, should any other issues crop up for XP or Vista users we will be unable to provide any assistance.

If you decide to upgrade to the newest version of Windows 10, I have a few articles that you will find useful and helpful:

And if you haven’t seen this video of mine, give it a go. It may provide good results too.