This is the end, Windows 7 and 8 friends: Microsoft drops support this week Changes are imminent for users running legacy versions of Windows operating systems on their machines. As Microsoft has been warning, the company is yanking support for Windows 7 Extended Security Update (ESU) and Windows 8 and 8.1 on Tuesday, January 10, which means users of those OSes will need to shift to Windows 10 or 11 …
If the games are on Steam, then you probably don't need Windows for them either. I'm running Steam on Linux, and have yet to find a game that doesn't work - some even work better, as in less buggy, than on Windows. For example, a number of bugs in oldie-but-goodie Dead Island on Windows are not present on Linux, so I assume some support in the Wine based stuff is better than on native Windows.
I've got a Steam Deck. I've only found one game I would say doesn't work (Mafia 3, which either hangs on the launcher or doesn't display it's UI properly). Generally, compatibility is excellent. I do dual boot my Steam Deck with Windows, but. TBH, I barely use Windows on it. I installed it so I could play games from the Epic Games store on it, but never really bother to play any, so the Windows install on my Steam deck is probably in the way.
Re " I do dual boot my Steam Deck with Windows, but. TBH, I barely use Windows on it. I installed it so I could play games from the Epic Games store on it, but never really bother to play any, so the Windows install on my Steam deck is probably in the way."
Well, last night, I took the plunge, re-imaged the steam deck, and formatted the SD card I have in it to get ride of all traces of Windows on it.
Haven't had a chance to play with it since though, it finished re-imaging after midnight, and I had to get to bed.
Most aren't officially supported on Linux by their publishers, since it's still a vanishingly small audience, but if you check a game against the Proton database it will usually be listed as working on Linux. The only PC game I've not been able to play recently is the latest Far Cry one, but that's because the publisher refused to have it in the Steam store.
I've tried all with Steam, and found Ubuntu/Mint to be the most stable.
Zorin Pro gave me weird UI issues at the menu screen for some games (Latest Tomb Raider Trilogy, Mass Effect LE), Garuda may be OK for those with Nvidia cards, but AMD is a YMMV situation, and Endeavour just outright refused to display some games.
I have come across two that didn't work outright. X-Blades and Recettear.
I needed to download and use GloriousEggroll to get them working. Thankfully that was easy enough.
The Halo MCC doesn't work for multiplayer. Which is neat since I thought M$ was all about open source. But since that doesn't have the campaign crossplay, its a dead game to me.
Wine and Proton can work quite nicely but is not perfect, some specific games do not run well or at all in Wine and Proton. I play a few Windows 3.1 games and those tend to not run at all if it is not in a Windows XP VM... that I have in Windows 7. I haven't found a way to make a Windows 3.1 or Windows 3.11 VM were the sound works, unfortunately.
I do not mind keeping a laptop specifically to run Windows 7, the thing can't get more Ram added so it is stuck at 8 GB and that's pitiful by modern standards. My plan is to get a bigger HD and dual boot with Batocera Linux so that laptop will be left just for games.
How would that work for old games per my title? I have been playing Hasbro's Scrabble game as originally written for Windows 3.1 and 95, but have always kept at least 2 Windows PC's through the years so my wife and I can play it. Every so often I try it on the latest Mint+Wine versions to see if that has some way to handle that absolute game requirement for 256 colors on the Windows platform, but to no avail.
Use Windows98se in Virtualbox or vmware. You can try Windows 3.x in DOSBOX, or Windows NT 4.0 in virtualbox or vmware.
If Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0 are fine in Hyper-V, though without sound.
All of them are not easy "out of the box" setups.
The majority of hacking attacks these days seem to be looking for Windows 10 and 11 ... let's face it, there are a lot more people with "updated" operating systems who are more likely to think that they need to open their newpaymentdetails.pdf.img email attachments. The advantage of running XP and Windows 7 is that you know the internet is risky so the hacking level ends up being lower with very old operating systems.
I run everything behind an independent firewall with rules that prohibit all port access unless it's something that I am using - that makes so much stuff safer. So to keep our operating environment safe the only device that I allow to have direct access to the external internet without a firewall is a pair of wire cutters. We have never had anything hacked.
If 'Version 1.0' is tech-savvy enough to install an independent firewall, then they should be able to track hackers.
I am ultra-vigilant about hacking when it comes to my own website. I have developed a whole load of scripts that analyse the web server logs and after my review, the IPs that break the ruleset that I have set up, they are blocked by my commercial-grade firewall. It is almost entirely automated.
I am sure that the majority of the people who contribute to this site could do the same if needed.
>As you cannot prove a negative, it's quite impossible to be 100% sure you were not hacked.
That is true regardless of which version of Windows you are running...
I would suggest those running in-support versions of Windows are potentially more complacent about security matters...
There are two threads to that depending on the drivers
If the organisation cares about support, updates and security then the likelihood is it will had few unsupported operating systems (or software) so will be running later versions. They will also have a high degree of compliance and risk assessment in place
If the organisation just takes the latest and greatest of the OS then by default they will also be getting the updates in a timely manner as it is on by default.
In both cases I am not sure that by just running Windows 10 or 11 you have a lower view of security.
You could also say that anyone running an older, unsupported version of any operating system is more at risk because they don't care about security. The only exceptions to that being that it has no network and never has any removable media plugged in (unless it has been scanned elsewhere).
> the IPs that break the ruleset that I have set up, they are blocked by my commercial-grade firewall.
The only problematic bit is determining the ISP the IP's are coming from. Having played wack-a-mole a few years back. I now generally don't block a single IP address but a /24 block. I do this because it surprised me how many 'ISPs' in countries known for being the sources of hacking activity have a single /24 address block, with several being used by a hacker/bot. So by shutting down the entire block...
Obviously, where the ISP is a major like BT or increasingly common AWS/Azure/GCP blocking becomes problematic...
"The advantage of running XP and Windows 7 is that you know the internet is risky so the hacking level ends up being lower with very old operating systems."
this only applies to tech savvy "refuseniks" that would rather slide dwn a razor blade bannister into a tub of alcohol than use Win-10-nic or Win II that never browse the internet nor receive e-mail (though using T-bird, NOT viewing e-mail as HTML nor previewing attachments, and practicing "safe surfing" in general, is a big help).
> "refuseniks"
There are grades of refuseniks: I suggest the most troubling are those that brought a PC years back and continue to run it as their main system with the pre-installed OS etc. - ie. a typical non-IT/tech savvy member of the public, and probably aren't running a reputable third-party security suite on top of Windows.
And if you point out to such people that they really ought to update to a supported OS, you are very likely to get the response "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", or similar.
Trying to explain to them that in security terms it very much is broke is often a futile endevour, and they will argue persistently as to why you are wrong.
... which means users of those OSes will need to shift to Windows 10 or 11 buying new computers ... FTFY
I'm current working to update one of our applications' documentation - it was originally written for researchers and programmers using WIndows XP to provide them with specific clinical data access - we updated it a little and it still runs fine on Windows11 - but using Windows11 to update the user documentation is a total pain although I'm getting it done.
Windows Upgrades are actually Windows Upyourarsegrades but originally when users had to buy a new CD or floppy disk to upgrade (I was happy because it worked well), all the computer manufacturers were continually bitching that Microsoft Upgrades did not require that users bought new devices, those manufacturers are happy these days ...
Windows users are now just corporate food.
My 9 year old machine (core i5 with 8Gb of RAM still on Windows 7) booted up quicker and used less RAM the last time I tried Windows 10 on it.
Reason I didn't stick with it is that I just prefer the look and feel of 7, without having to use a third party program to make 10 or 11 look and operate like 7.
When I do finally migrate, I'll be buying no new PC or parts.
"My 9 year old machine (core i5 with 8Gb of RAM still on Windows 7) booted up quicker and used less RAM the last time I tried Windows 10 on it."
Try it after three months of use when all the Windows Update bloat has been added over time. Sitting idle, my laptop is 20% CPU load. All MS processes I can't shut off.
Then something is wrong, period. I have many Windows machines running for years without the [false narrative of] 'required' re-installs and they all idle at around 2% - I just checked this workstation, running on Win10 updated from a Win7 system first brought online around 8 years ago, and yep, 2%.
There is a level of administration required to keep Windows running, just like any other system; it is simply specialized to include things like this, which (admittedly) may not be an issue on other systems. I've been debugging and administering Windows systems for 30+ years and they can be stable...if you know how to moderate the fluff.
To misquote an ex workmate whilst chatting to the company’s equipment supplier “The bloke was talking out of his a£$€”
They run a few screens in the business, in communal areas that display employee messages. Mostly things like the coffee machine on the third floor is playing up. Meeting room 4 is being deep cleaned on Wednesday etc. along with images etc. Somebody did it in their spare time as a personal project once permission was granted.
The supplier rep is intrigued and asks about the kit powering this and is told it’s an old Win7 box and ancient switches. Not to be done out of an upgrade sale supplier mentions upgrading this to a new shiny win 11 computer etc.for a reasonable price. Think of the security implications he says (just before Christmas 2019) when 7 goes End Of Life in the New Year. My mate says fat chance of any security issues, the system runs on a wired closed loop network isolated from everything else. The bloke only made the system because they had a spare Win 7 machine that wasn’t Win 11 spec. Then used part of the remnants of their old pre fibre internal network for distribution. Supplier still dropped off the usual Christmas presents despite the snub to his opportunistic sales pitch.
I have an old laptop that came with win 8 (ugh, only got by by skinning it with win 7 interface)
Although officially the free upgrade to win 10 offer ended years ago, its still actually possible as long as the hardware is up to it.
I did the upgrade a couple of months ago, no glitches, should be good to run another few years. Still haven't got round to the Linux dual boot but it's in the works.
Any recommendations for an easy -to-use distro to start a kid on?
The catch being ignored is that Edge is basically Chrome. Firefox will continue to be upgraded, for now anyway, to run on Win 7.
The other catch, and I may be wrong, is that if history repeats itself, the hackers will change to the latest and greatest (ahem) MS browser just because corporates will grab it if they havent already.
As it is, I'm headed to Linux with a Win 7 VM as I don't want to have buy "new" or "upgraded" software. Yes, I'm old and cranky. Now MS can get off my lawn.
I switched to Linux 4 years ago as I hated Win10, but I still run a VM with Win7 to talk to my scanner if required - maybe once or twice a month. Once I'd figured how to get everything done under Linux it has just stayed working that way.
Mind you I'm old, and I prefer an old style WIMP user interface so I admit to being easily pleased.
Depends on what you use the scanner for - either that or I haven't found the correct software in Linux yet. I have an old Epson scanner which is "plug and go" under SANE and Skanlite on OpenSuse as far as simple copying of sheets of paper goes, but the scanner's USP is the ability to scan a dozen 35mm slides placed in a holder, or four strips of negatives (up to 6 frames each) with optional dust detection via an additional infra-red scan.
The original software would very quickly allow you to make a thumbnail scan, set various parameters for each frame detected and then could be left to its own devices to scan the frames. I can't find a way to do the same under OpenSuse so the old Mac mini gets dragged out when the occasion demands. I'm sure the processing would be a lot quicker on a more modern machine...
M.
Martin:
in fedora, not all of the scanner backends are installed by default. The photodupe backend on mine was in a separate package, and was actually in the sane-backends-drivers-cameras package. Not sure *why* but its possible you are just missing the backend driver for that Epson.
I can scan negatives using Skanlite (it has an invert colours option somewhere). I can also scan positives (slides), and the application also has "on glass" and "above glass" focus options but other than that it's a very manual process. Once you do the pre-scan it attempts to isolate "areas of interest", but invariably gets them wrong, so for a slide carrier I might have to outline - manually - a dozen frames. On the Mac it was much better at detecting these, presumably because it knew where the frames were *meant* to be; each different holder had a code on it. Also on the Mac, each frame was presented individually at low resolution, but sufficiently high to notice if the cropping was wrong, or the colour balance needed adjustment. I've yet to succeed in getting Skanlite to do that.
Then again, if I do find a better backend, maybe this sort of thing will be improved too.
Yes, not aware of any drivers beyond 32 bits for the Mac, but then this Mini has a Core Duo (not a Core 2) and and is maxed out at 2GB RAM so can't take the 64 bit OSes anyway!
M.
"Time has run out for users of legacy operating systems"
Yep. You had better migrate away from legacy operating systems like Windows sooner rather than later!
And until then, you might as well keep with 7 since it shares the same kernel as 11 and is just as legacy regardless of what its peddlers say!
Whilst I agree with you this is not just a Windows issue.
We had a stack of Linux VMs running all sorts of bits and pieces on ancient versions that were long part end of life. That lifetime may have been a bit longer than more recent Windows version but to be fair, Windows 7 has been going for a very long time.
Released July 2009
General support stopped in January 2020
Finally killed in January 2023
Debian Jessie
Released June 2018
General support stopped in June 2018
Finally killed in June 2020
that intermediate step to Windows 10 or go all in with Windows 11. Did you forget /s ? I tried Win11 last week, everything was fine until the desktop appeared*. If I need windows, Win10 will have to suffice.
*The fastest trail run since I tried Slackware back in 2010.
Microsoft: up your nose with a rubber hose. I don't enjoy big-studio computer games so much that I'm willing to pay the Microsoft O.S. fees and the hardware fees -- buying new computers and buying new peripherals, as the old peripherals are not supported under the new OS. Further, many old peripherals and adaptors have no Win 10/Win 11 equivalents.
Mine's the one with a floppy with a copy of DOSBOX and a DOS-based accounting package -->
I did until I wrote that post... the 8.1 UI works very well in tablet mode - as it is implemented in a native mode. Windows 10 "tablet" mode is just setting some "full screen" flags here and there.
Moreover application like Firefox still don't understand touch screen swipes, unluckily. But the one who believed a mail application needed a photo background and downloading images by default needs to be flogged with a CAT'o'9.
I might understand downloading images by default is needed by tracking - but a background???
Ahh Windows 11… actually it’s pretty good, but a shame it only supports TPM2 systems as lots of old kit would run it perfectly well.
The only real challenge I have with ‘11 is the combine taskbar tabs in to a single item, and I have to use 3rd party software to unmangle them.
Windows is the family productivity platform, appletvs the entertainment platform, and a couple of raspberry pis doing some networky vpny stuff (arr me hearties); I’d love to replace my desktops and media players with Linux but even with a bit of experience it’s too hard to choose a distro as the design changes between major revisions are even more puzzling than those that Redmond impose on us… and if you can’t just do Netflix or prime straight out of the box sometimes convenience outweighs the urge to wear my FOSS sandals and white socks.
So.. the boy got a new gaming laptop, wifey gets a new iPad and I got a steamdeck. Only one of us needs to worry about Win11 now!
As much as I want to leave Microsoft at times, and believe me I do, I find that the Linux desktop world functions considerably worse for me. Or sometimes it works fine, and then it suddenly doesn't because of some breaking package changing or something. I think Windows has it pretty solidly beat in the world of "just let me install my thing and never monkey with it or its dependencies". I hear that's changing in Linux but there's even competing standards there so....
Maybe someday Linux, maybe someday.
Gnome as currently implemented OOTB on a number of distros is about the worst MMI that I have ever come across.
Why do windows not have all three buttons enabled OOTB? You know maximise, minimise, close?
I really would like to send all of the people responsible for this to Gitmo and get them waterboarded until they repent.
Thankfully, with Linux being Linux, there are alternatives.
I'm currently using Xfce.
Yup.
I managed to get Scrivener 3 working in WINE using a very, VERY specific install process, and it was working just fine until I tried to install iTunes under WINE. Not only did iTunes not run properly, but it utterly hosed the scrivener install to the point where I'l going to have to foricibly nuke it, WINE and possibly the OS and start all over again. It could also have been the random updates that I seem to get prompted with from the update manager roughly twice daily, though. Or the prompt to upgrade the version of mint on top of the existing one, which has had it's own set of odd quirks and things no longer behaving like they used to. I honestly don't know, and it's only an interim machine at the moment until I get the desktop re-built with it's windows 10 install (which I'm reluctantly doing. because as noted, not everything runs perfectly on linux at this point.
If there was only an easy way to, say, containerize the wine installs so that each windows application could have their own virtualized environment to make a mess of instead of a shared sandbox where everything has to co-exist. Then I'd dock my ship there and be fat n happy. (WINE in a docker container- Let's make it happen!)
I've been running Linux on my desktop at home since 2001, which was when I first got a PC. It has never been a problem. Everything just works. Plus I have a choice. Having fallen out with Redhat because they insist on systemd, I moved to Slackware. Easy peasy!
Windows at work (XP to W11) has always been a pain - the UI is so primitive. Only one desktop? Only one item in your clipboard? A search that doesn't? Having to run extra software to fill in missing features of the o/s?
Microsoft Edge ... will continue to work...
I wish that had been true. What actually happened is that after saying Edge would no longer be updated, MS sent me an update that broke edge on Win7. I was on the Canary distribution, if that makes a difference.
I rolled back to v109, but in the process lost all my favorites/bookmarks. Not a happy camper
We have a couple of Win7 boxes that exist just for legacy software. They are not on the wild web, not on "extended support", and frankly not worth the trouble of even trying to update.
We have one application that demands Win 8.1 or 10 (not 7, not 11) and might try and get an old laptop to run that, but for the others we would rather get FOSS replacements for the web-cam software, etc, working instead of wrestling win10/11 to work reliably and securely and also having the jump through the licensing hoops for that.
RE: "We have a couple of Win7 boxes that exist just for legacy software. They are not on the wild web, not on "extended support", and frankly not worth the trouble of even trying to update."
We have a few machines like that at work. I know of two. These run dedicated software to control a couple of machines, and the software does not support any OS apart from Windows 7. It is not available separately, and the new version does not support our model of machine. The machines concerned cost 6 figures to replace. So, we just pulled the PCs from the network, and blocked the MAC Addresses, just in case someone should be determined enough to get the machine online that they re-patch it to the network, and give it an IP.
The 8.1 or 10 only is for special hardware, but just to program it so not needed always-on.
The web camera software was free for up to 32 cameras and much to our surprise did not suck donkey balls. In fact it "just worked" and has kept doing so for around 8 years now. But its replacement has more licensing trouble: while still free for up to 32 cameras it is now tied to the machine so you need to get a new license for a hardware failure, etc, and we have no idea if they will still issue said license years down the line. Also it is tied to that manufacturer's cameras and, while good and not involved in genocide, they are not the cheapest. So some FOSS web camera software with better features would be worth investing some effort in. Eventually.
@Jeff_Burt
Quote: "...most Windows 7 machines don't meet the hardware requirements for upgrading to Windows 11..."
Ha....the usual M$ ramp....spend more money on M$ approved hardware.....spend more money on Window$......
My experience.....Windows 98 was a nightmare.....Windows 8 was a nightmare....Windows 8.1 was a nightmare.....
Eventually every machine here at Linux Mansions was running.........................Linux!!
Now.....Linux requires some effort and commitment.....and for me it's turned out to be not only productive, but a useful educational experience as well...................
.................and I have not had regular requests for more money.....either from Bill Gates or from Jeff Burt!!!
All machines with a "Vista supported" and higher I've come across can run Windows 10. Not one machine I came across could not, though for some laptops it is a driver hunt to get all question-marks down. 4 GB RAM recommended, else use the 32 bit version. Some applications did not make it, but in all those years not one actually important one. The only exceptions are machine-control computers, for obvious reasons.
Take a Core2 duo with 4 GB RAM and 128 GB SSD, and Windows 10 will run faster than Windows 7. And it will use less disk space since Windows 7 is less efficient there, even if you run cleanmgr.exe with admin rights and hit all check-marks. Windows 10 runs fine with 30 GB SSD and still have more than 10 GB of free space. Except when you upgrade the build, then it MIGHT need an USB stick or SD card for additional temporary space, most of the time it won't.
Example machine: Zotac Pico PI335-W3B with Win10 Pro (a throwaway of a customer company since it was ordered with the home edition of Windows 8 instead of Pro, but unmanaged Windows boxes are VERBOTEN), in real use as "nightly download" 4-watt-average computer since the energy prices increased and I actually started to shut down my main machine instead of 24/7.
Windows 11: No, not yet. Upcoming 23H2 seems to be a build with way less kernel-level bugs than 22H2, but the minimum requirements changed. Don't try to run it with 4 GB, everything else can be circumvented. It even runs fine with a 30 GB SSD and Core 2 duo, but slower than Windows 10 even with 8 GB.
Yes, Win 10 will run on a 32G partition, but version upgrades are a problem because the last one I did required 10G free for the temporary files and that 10G requires the C: drive. Now a typical 32GB partition of the NvMe drive is about 28GB. Your 20GB install doesn't allow for version upgrades. On some of the 'laptops' with a 32GB drive, I have had to just do a fresh install and reinstall applications. Your mileage may vary.
That's out of the box. If you can get it to update with that small bit of storage, it will use up that 10 pretty quickly. Lots of Chromebook-spec laptops with 32 GB of eMMC storage with Windows 10, and they can't update right out of the box (depending on what "feature update" looms at the time of purchase).
I think the other thing not mentioned about Windows 10 is that the 2025 support deadline is clearly total garbage. MS have extended XP and then 7 several times, and by 2025 there will still be perfectly good hardware that won't run 11. 2030 is a more likely date. It probably won't be my primary system by then, but an i5-6600k @ 4.5GHz will still have perfectly decent *oomph* to perform most tasks. It will probably just take over from the Ivy Bridge that's the current secondary desktop.
XP support was extended because MS failed to deliver a working replacement, so effectively had to extend its life until they shipped 7...
Obviously, history repeats with MS releasing W8 followed by the rushed release of "work-in-progress" W10. However, from member W7 always was due to go EoL in Jan-2020, the only thing that has complicated matters is the 3 years of ESU - which for W7 ends this month. So I suspect you are right W10 won't go fully EoL in 2025 due to ESU, however, expect it to be totally discarded in 2028.
Also I note the MS website seems to have killed much that relates to W7 (ie. no longer supported versions of Windows) and even W10 resources seem to be harder to find as they get overlaid with the "upgrade to W11" messaging.
What I find noteworthy is that WinServer 2012R2 isn't due to go EoL until Oct-2023, yet because it presents as a W8 desktop, as far as Chrome and Edge are concerned, it would seem these systems will also cease to receive updates.
The only systems I've ever seen that met the requirements for Vista but not for Windows 10 were some older Intel Prescott desktops and Dothan laptops that lacked NX bit support. Those CPUs were mostly old stock by the time Vista came around, but still met the system requirements.
… be it a Mac or otherwise, every computer in my business ends up with Linux on it eventually when it initial OS runs out of steam, and by steam I mean is purposefully made obsolete by Microshaft.
My current main gaming PC and prior one are currently fully 11 capably. The one previous to that is limited to Win 10 since it has no TCM and hacking stuff in windows to work is a fool’s errand.
I gave up win 7 a long time ago, so all the rest are on an ungodly mixture of FreeBSD, AntiX, MX or Mint and continue to perform even better than they did under their final windows guise.
"There are plenty of videos on Youtube on how to install Windows 11 on any PC."
Not watching a video. I assume it's some hack? Why would you want to do that?
Why would you want Win 11 in the first place? What does it bring that's new? (Rounded corners? No obvious way to enter Sleep from the login screen? Some more cosmetic changes?)
There was a time when with each new windows release we looked forward to the new sleek desktop innovations and the new look and feel of the OS. When window managers and desktop UI were written solely for the PC desktop and could take full advantage of the x86 architecture. With Win8, there began the push for the OS to work not only on the desktop, but on a tablet and phone as well. Compromises were forged to be able to cannibalize as much from desktop as possible to find a least-common-denominator that could be the base of all three.
Instead of the eye-candy that admittedly does nothing but make a boring desktop a bit more exiting, Aero was gone and replaced with a nondescript titlebar painted across the top of the application window that looking vaguely similar to the plane titlebar around icon-groups in Win3.1 (remember those -- but even those had raised edges and shadow). The ability to tailor the desktop to your liking also disappeared, no more choosing the titlebar height or scrollbar width without a registry hack.
So, in my eyes, what is lost with the passing of Win7 is the last desktop UI dedicated to the PC desktop. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking Win10 for being Win10 or Win11 for that matter, well maintained (and freed from most of the bundled cripple-ware they ship with, and with a careful trip through every [yes every] setting), all Win releases have functioned just fine for the time-periods they involved and we have all became skilled in the game of patching security holes on the 2nd Tuesday of the month.
Windows 10 runs just fine, no complaints. However, it has the desktop appeal of roughly a '48 Studebaker compared to a what once looked closer to a sports car. Windows 11 is no different. (I skipped Win8, 8.1 entirely)
The look-and-feel and the ability to tailor the look-and-feel to my liking is what I will miss most with Win7 gone.
Welcome to the age of the drab multi-architecture base desktop UIs with all the appeal of warm-tapioca. But hey, err.., the code could have run on the Windows tablet and phone -- is we still had such things....
Yup, I still miss 7. The wife is still using it with ESU bypass, but it'll soon be time to change to win 10 2022 ltsc iot enterprise, the one true version of windows 10.
That, plus a good go with O&O ShutUp! 10, and OpenShell with win 7 start menu means you end up with something as usable and clean as 10 could ever be. It's perfectly serviceable, but win 7 is still more attractive. Still!
When the wife's somewhat elderly laptop needed to be upgraded from windows 7, I put Ubuntu Mate on it, and configured the "Redmond" look (as Win7 had been in classic mode). Pretty well everything worked as before, Firefox, thunderbird, etc. Found a screen backdrop rotator to match the old Windows behavior so her phone snaps ate shown. All happy.
Upvoted. I'll also add it was the last environment designed purely for the desktop PC which was also designed to look pretty whilst being powerful and flexible.
Win 10 is quite flexible, but has the style and aesthetics of a sheet of A4 paper. Then there is Win 11 which was designed to look nice, but has all the flexibility of a concrete block.
Farewell Windows 7. The last Microsoft OS to be both pretty and powerful.
Given the size and low price of SSDs the actual size of a windows install isnt really a problem these days and if anything old systems benefit no end. As for the windows 11 the user interface is another new design but not for the end user just for designs sake the same as the utterly stupid windows 8 interface that put people right off it.
than throwing away a perfectly good old PC that is. If you don't want to use Linux yourself then donate the old PC to someone who does or a local charity. There are plenty of people out there whose needs are amply served by LibreOffice and Firefox, not to mention the opportunity to learn some coding.
You'll want to use virt-p2v
It's been a while since I did this but from memory you boot from the virt-p2v iso on the machine that you want to virtualise and connect to the KVM host (which has virt-v2v installed on it) via ssh
https://libguestfs.org/virt-p2v.1.html covers the basics
I'd start by getting Macrum Reflect. That can image your Windows PC to a file that you can boot in VirtualBox or Proxmox. The trick is to install the drivers for the VM before you convert it to a VM. As long as you keep your real machine going until you're happy with the VM you have infinite lives to make this work.
I installed Linux in a dual-boot setup alongside Windows 7 in 2015 on my main PC, after the first Win 10 feature update came along. I had foolishly expected MS to listen to criticism and improve the product as they had with previous Windows versions, but with "Threshold 2," aka 1511, I saw that none of the egregious issues I had with 10 had been fixed (because they were not bugs, they were features... that benefit Microsoft).
I even upgraded to 8.1 when I realized that I could de-stupidize it to a very large degree. The idea was to get more time to gradually move to a full Linux setup. Turns out, though, that I did not need it. One day I realized I had not booted Windows in several weeks, and that I had no real need for it anymore. It had happened, almost without me being aware of it.
I kept Windows on for a while, on that and on my laptops, but in time I removed it from each of them, as it was just taking up space.
For those rare times that I do need Windows, and WINE/Proton will not do, I have Windows in a VM. Keeping in its little cage tames it... it can try to hold my PC hostage with update demands or the like, but I can just shut it down from the VM software, giving it no choice, and starting from the same snapshot again the next time I need it. It's kinda cute, trying to control my PC, when it's not even really a PC it is running on.
The only time I have needed bare-metal Windows since then is when the PC manufacturer releases some firmware update for one of the devices within the unit. I've had a couple of touchpad updates, and even one LCD panel update (to address a flicker that the Dell XPS 9310 used to have when on battery power). For that I used "Win2USB" to create a Windows to Go installation using a consumer Win 10 ISO (normally Windows to Go is an enterprise feature). I have an external USB 3.2 housing for a NVMe SSD, and I have a bunch of spare (small) SSDs that I can use for that. Boot Windows, do the update, get on with life in non-Windows-land.
"... will you upgrade or buy a new PC? "
ROFL . Perhaps if they changed W10/11 to not reject host hardware on which Live-adapted Windows 10 on an external USB SSD will run.
(I only tried that to experiment with the hardware issue; it cannot access the host hard drive - one of the reasons it was created I guess.
No,for me it's remains W7 on a Linux VM on the rare occasions that I need it.
In all my experience with Microsoft from DOS 2.0 on up, I've never seen anything but the most newsworthy problems addressed. There are always dozens of issues with the OS after an update, and in many cases many more, having been added to by the supposed update itself. The continual threat of loss of support is a red herring. Unaddressed, legacy vulnerabilities and bugs continue to exist even in the most recent Windows iterations. So what, exactly, does one lose when so-called 'support' is dropped, aside from the joy of trying to get previously stable programs to run on the new release?
I miss Windows 7. It ran quite efficiently and had a logical UI.
Windows 8 was a total mess UI wise. Clearly a tablet OS ported to the desktop. The UI probably did work quite well on a touch screen, but was horrible to use with a mouse/keyboard.
Windows 10 did a fairly good job of merging the Windows 7 and 8 UIs into a UI that takes the best bits from both UIs, but also the worst.
Windows 11 is pretty boting..
With this policy change, Windows 7 ...
1) No longer provides the illusion of (useable) technical support.
2) Stops the weekly update disruptions.
3) Finally delivers a stable version of edge.
And all I have to do is stay on Win7 ?
On the down side, my hardware will be, by definition, "less sleek"
hmmm.
I'm having to use a friend's Windows 8.1 laptop for a meeting, and I could chuck it through a window. Things keep popping up all over the place, they dodn't go away when I press Escape, the damn things don't have close buttons. I open a PDF with the meeting agenda, and it takes over the whole screen, with no way to read anything else, The whole things's a pile of steaming do do. Gove me back my XP!
My Win7 machine just keeps working along, fine and dandy. I am glad MSFT has officially stopped trying to 'fix' it. (Yes, I have quality 3rd party security deployed to keep it safe from any unexpected nasties.)
My blasted Win10 machine wants to reboot all the time to install updates. Even worse is my corporate managed machine that forces the WU reboots whether I want them or not. Re-open all the apps, find my email in the Drafts folder, recover my spreadsheet, etc.
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Just like last time a couple of years ago, the fact that a ton of hospital equipment (and some .eu and .uk mil equipment, as well as swaths of ATMs) runs unupgradable Windows 7 (14% or so https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/windows/desktop/worldwide) will make MS revisit this decision lest the headlines read: MS refuses security updates, patients dead.
> MS refuses security updates, patients dead.
Such nonsense: Any Hospital with decent IT has put those into their own DMZ years ago, together with the windows-XP boxes and various stone age unix-es which run on that medical equipment. Specified ports to transpot the DICOM results to the picture server, and some printers which are directly connected via USB or IP, without any print server in between. Internet? No f- way. Even DNS is off when not really needed.
It is not MS at fault when a patient dies, MS communicated the end long enough and clear enough.
BTW: You forgot those Windows 98, Windows 95, Windows 3.0 and DOS boxes out there controlling various medical equipment. As long as you use those OS-es only for that purpose they are surprisingly stable with high uptimes.
died a long time ago for me
Thats when its HDD died destroying the OS in the process..
Fitted the machine with another HDD and hit 'install win 10' since I have a valid win 7 key still..
God what a waste of time..... spends anywhere between 40 mins and 90 mins thrashing the HDD to death doing god knows what before it will allow you to actually use the machine.
And thats when I found the GParted live USB, and the mint live USB.
And its a happy dual booter now and although mint boots rather slowly for my taste(about 2 mins to the desktop), at least I can use MY computer for doing computery type stuff while win 10 might be booted once every couple of weeks(if its lucky)
Oh and for the record its a I7 quad core with 16GB RAM and a 500 gig HDD and it used to blast along with win 7 ......................
An SSD, or preferably an NVMe is the best upgrade you could possibly make. A small one isn't particularly expensive at this point. I still keep spinning rust about for mounds of data, but they are not so good for an OS anymore.
With no other OS installed, boot-to-desktop is essentially as fast as the BIOS allows. Literally a matter of seconds to usable desktop under appropriate Linux. With dual boot a bit longer is needed to allow for the GRUB menu.
Under my telly is the PC I built 10 years ago, in a hifi style case, which records TV for me, has all my music, a library of 100s of films, etc
I'm probably one of the last hold outs still running media centre, but I like it and there's no obvious replacement that does everything I want, so I'll be sticking with it, and Windows 7, for a while yet
Despite the claim that the free upgrade is no longer available....
... it still works.
Now some will say that it's easier to go to *insert linux flavour here* but seriously, Win10 isn't that bad and it's a significant improvement on 8.x
I prefer 10 to 7, honestly. YMMV.
Windows 11, that's a different story.
With these 'ancient' machines, I found it was wise to ensure they were fully uptodate and then use the online upgrade (rather than the ISO burnt to USB), these systems tended to find the correct W10 drivers for the hardware. It can be frustrating to use the offline option and discover on booting into W10 to find it hasn't recognise the network adaptor nor the USB controller...
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