Arduino board by a loader program in the board's firmware. From version 1.8.12, Arduino IDE windows compiler supports only Windows 7 or newer OS. On Windows Vista or older one gets "Unrecognized Win32 application" error when trying to verify/upload program. To run IDE on older machines, users can either use version 1.8.11, or copy "arduino-builder" executable from version 11 to their current install folder as it's independent from IDE. IDE 2.0 On September 14, 2022, the Arduino IDE 2.0 was officially released as stable. Previously, on October 18, 2019 the initial alpha preview was released as the Arduino Pro IDE. On March 1, 2021, the beta preview was released, renamed IDE 2.0. The system still uses Arduino CLI (Command Line Interface), but improvements include a more professional development environment, autocompletion support, and Git integration. The application frontend is based on the Eclipse Theia Open Source IDE. The main features available in the new release are: Modern, fully featured development environment Dual Mode, Classic Mode (identical to the Classic Arduino IDE) and Pro Mode (File System view) New Board Manager New Library Manager Board List Basic Auto-Completion (Arm targets only) Git Integration Serial Monitor Dark Mode Sketch A sketch is a program written with the Arduino IDE. Sketches are saved on the development computer as text files with the file extension .ino. Arduino Software (IDE) pre-1.0 saved sketches with the extension .pde. A minimal Arduino C/C++ program consists of only two functions: : This function is called once when a sketch starts after power-up or reset. It is used to initialize variables, input and output pin modes, and other libraries needed in the sketch. It is analogous to the function . : After function exits (ends), the function is executed repeatedly in the main program. It controls the board until the board is powered off or is reset. It is analogous to the function . Blink example Most Arduino boards contain a light-emitting diode (LED) and a current-limiting resistor connected between pin 13 and ground, which is a convenient feature for many tests and program functions. A typical program used by beginners, akin to Hello, World!, is "blink", which repeatedly blinks the on-board LED integrated into the Arduino board. This program uses the functions , , and , which are provided by the internal libraries included in the IDE environment. This program is usually loaded into a new Arduino board by