Posts by intrigid

Microsoft breaks Microsoft account sign-ins in Windows 11 with latest update

Re: Headline error!

I approve of any operation that blocks undesired updates.

Microsoft Authenticator to nuke Entra creds on rooted and jailbroken phones

My employer tried for months and months to get me on Microsoft Authenticator on a personal device. I just politely let them know over and over that my personal phone is a flip phone / can't install apps, and the other devices I have are too old and don't meet the minimum requirements. How are they going to prove otherwise?

Bots are taking over the internet and AI users are to blame

Re: soon....

"Can't wait for them to start charging customers ... to cover what it's actually costing the AI companies to run the bots. "

Already a thing and has been for years. I decided last year to describe to a premium plan (~$20 a month) in order to have virtually unlimited access to deep-reasoning queries and the like. I don't regret the money spent at all.

Nothing to declare at border control except a Windows 7 certificate error

"it was possible to keep the lights on via Extended Security Updates"

Apparently my daily driver OS in 2026 has been powered off without me even realizing it.

Dell says Windows 11 transition is far slower than Win 10 shift as PC sales stall

Re: Meh

Hacking an older PC to be able to use Windows 11 is like modding a classic sports car to use a new engine from an 18-wheeler.

Re: "the potential of the AI PC"

I use Windows 7 on everything, and I have all the AI functionality I could possibly need immediately at hand.

I could conceivably boot up my Windows XP machine from 2001 and get all the AI I need on there as well.

AI is a server-side feature, not dependent on client hardware.

Developer puts Windows 7 on a crash diet, drops it to down to 69 MB

"While Windows 7 is long obsolete"

That's kind of like saying a Steinway grand piano or a Ferrari F40 is long obsolete.

Office 2016 and 2019 face October 14 execution date

I use Office 2007 and have been unable to find a single useful modern Office feature that it lacks.

Firefox ESR 115 won't quit Windows 7 – at least not until March 2026

That's a bit extreme. If you want to use an outdated OS, just don't do anything actually risky like using online banking, and you should have nothing to worry about. A router/firewall and ad-blocking is enough to achieve ~99.9% of the threat reduction compared to modern, supported OS. That doesn't even take into the account that just like software in general, a lot of modern malware and threats ONLY work on newer, modern OSes, as it's no longer worth it for bad actors to go to the hassle of trying to adapt their malware work for ~2% of the PC market.

Far from the only option remaining for Win 7

There is also Redfox, Supermium (de-googled Chromium), Waterfox 6.0.20 (based on Firefox 128), modded versions of more mainstream browsers, and some other more obscure browsers.

August update leaves Windows reset and recovery dead in the water

With each passing year

I am happier and happier to be using Windows 7 as my primary, and Windows 10 and Linux as my secondary PCs. Just opt out of the automatic-update treadmill into oblivion.

We're number 1! Windows 11 finally overtakes Windows 10

Re: 2.17%

"Security updates" are not a mandatory requirement, even though most people think of them as such. If you're really concerned that you might get hacked/ransomwared at some point, there is nothing stopping you from keeping regular OS image backups, and only doing your sensitive/financial tasks on a 2nd PC with the latest security updates.

Re: 2.17%

1) Older browser versions work; they are not cut off from the internet when a new version comes out. Security certificates eventually expire, but that won't be until 2038 at the earliest.

2) There exist open-source forks to Chromium and Firefox that restore Windows 7 support to the most recent versions and codebases of the browsers.

Re: 2.17%

Then it sucks to be them, having their employees doddle away on a bloated OS where they can hardly get anything done. I know because I work for such a large company.

I'm sympathy to your feel on this, but there are more importance.

2.17%

I still see no reason to quit using Windows 7. Everything (that matters) works.

Windows 11 stops freaking out over wallpaper customization

Re: Software Not Ready

"Why can't they release a software build when it's completely ready, rather than piecemeal to those computers not running certain software?"

Dysfunction is the point. It's a feature, not a bug to keep you always needing the next fix from your vendor, pun intended.

Yeah, I'm totally itching to drop Windows 7 and modernize with all the latest and greatest features, updates, and applications.

/sarcasm

Windows 2000 Server named peak Microsoft. Readers say it's all been downhill since Clippy

Re: From a home-user perspective, Windows 7 remains the best overall OS

I can respect XP as a #1 choice, given its essentially zero telemetry and its hyper-user-focused design. I was an XP holdout until 2015, in fact.

However, Windows 7 did objectively represent an actual upgrade in several significant ways: Practically unlimited RAM support being the biggest upgrade, proper support for SSDs instead of just hard drives, practically unlimited disk partition sizes, and proper implementation of video acceleration at the OS rendering level (Aero theme implementation in particular). Also, I think it's fair to say that the core OS stability of Windows 7 was superior as well. I've run my Windows 7 desktop for the better part of a year without having to reboot or getting a BSOD; I don't think I can say the same for XP.

As for being nagged about "Are you sure you want to install this?" I guess I never really noticed this, given that only install some new program maybe once a month on average.

Re: Ah, ya know what?

Your "people complaining about the latest Windows are whiners" tirade might have been valid if we lived in a world where nothing was ever good enough for us, and we were all just complaining about pie-in-the-sky ideas that ought to exist but don't.

But that's not the case. Our pie-in-the-sky ideals have, in fact, already been invented and widely used by a huge portion of the world for many years. Then, those near-perfect implementations have been systematically and forcibly dismantled and replaced over the years by systems that serve the creator rather than the end user, under the guise of "well, you have to use the latest version, it's not safe otherwise".

From a home-user perspective, Windows 7 remains the best overall OS

I can see how Windows 2000 (server) would have got the most love from the business-oriented users.

Microsoft lists seven habits of highly effective Windows 11 users

Using out-of-support tools is foolish

Please consider the fact that if you're using outdated hammers, saws, air compressors etc that are no longer receiving security updates, you're not just putting yourself at risk, but others as well.

Windows 11 adds auto-recovery, kills offline setup loophole

Re: Windows users are in an abusive relationship.

Some of us refused to get into the abusive relationship in the first place by blocking the Upgrade™ to Windows 8, and we never looked back.

And for Windows 7 holdouts:

The computing experience just keeps getting better and better every year, relatively speaking.

Get off that old Firefox by Friday or you'll be sorry, says Moz

Consider Waterfox 6.0.20. Last version that fully and officially supports Win 7, and is based on Firefox 128.

Windows 7 browsers

"So what is the fix for firefox users that still run Windows 7? We can't update to the latest firefox because it won't run on W7."

As some have mentioned, 115 ESR continues to work fine and receive updates.

Alternatively, (and I would strongly recommend this instead,) Waterfox 6.0.20. It is a privacy-oriented fork of Firefox. It is based on Firefox 128, and the updated root certificate expires on Jan 15, 2038. It supports all of the same extensions as Firefox, including the beloved uBlock Origin.

Other options, such as Plasmafox/Redfox, Supermium, Yandex etc exist as well, but won't necessarily have the same desired functionality.

Oh Brother. Printer giant denies dirty toner tricks as users cry foul

The dirty little secret no-one wants to admit

Firmware and other automatic were never about improving features or security for end users. They were always about improving profits for vendors. And I'm not just talking about printers. I'm talking about literally everything that receives automatic updates.

Does your device seem to be a little slower after the latest major update? Well, it is starting to get a bit old. Have you thought about getting an upgrade?

Windows 7 lives! How to keep your favorite fossil running

Problem with the "ticking time bomb" argument

"An unsupported OS is a ticking time bomb, keeping software up to date is not optional unless you're air-gapping your system. "

There's one major problem with this argument, which is this: The vast majority of things that the average person does on their home PC, or even what a power user does on their home PC, is not sensitive in nature. It's not an existential threat if a hacker gets into your PC and compromises your web browsing history, video game save files, hobbies and creative works, movies, TV shows, music collection etc. And a hacker is not interested in any of those things anyway. They are interested in installing ransomware (which can be fixed with proper backups and restores) and accessing social media and financial accounts.

If your only argument against using an "unsupported" operating system pertains to security, then why not simply offload the security-sensitive tasks onto a different PC or dual-booted OS that accommodates those tasks?

I disagree with your disagreement entirely.

Still using it today

I currently use Windows 7 as my main OS, both for desktop and laptop use. I only have Win 10 installed as a secondary OS on a laptop, and as a virtual machine on the desktop. I only use it for anything that won't work on 7, of which there really isn't much. However, I do have a lot of older peripheral hardware and custom configurations that are very likely to break on a different or newer OS, with no real alternative or substitute available.

Security? Number 1, nothing beats good quality, regular backups. If anything gets screwed up, restore the OS from a recent image. Want to do online banking and want to minimize any possibility of a breach. Have a cheap, dedicated Linux laptop and turn it on once a month.

Having used newer OSes for work, I can say 7 is simply better. Everything about it is pre-enshittification. It's faster, cleaner, more resource-efficient, and completely ad-free. Will there come a day where I can't feasibly use it any more? Frankly, I don't see that happening. It's difficult to imagine any use case that couldn't be easily transferred over to a virtual machine, remote desktop, or secondary PC.

Windows 10's demise nears, but Linux is forever

Windows 7 was the last truly commercial (customer-oriented) operating system

Around 10 years ago, when I saw a pop-up that said my Windows 7 would be automatically "upgraded" to Windows 8 within a certain amount of time, I immediately downloaded a program to block that from happening. At that moment, I knew the industry had permanently switched from a customer-serving model to a vendor-serving one.

I swore that I would continue using Windows 7 until either something bad happened as a result of using it, or until some use case stopped working on it for which there were no reasonable alternatives. To this date, I'm still running it, and in fact have expanded my usage of it to three additional PCs. And with the ease of accessing newer operating systems through VMs and remote desktop, it's difficult to imagine a scenario where I will feel the need to "upgrade" in the forseeable future. And if I do, it will almost certainly be moving individual use cases over to a parallel PC running something like Linux Mint.

Zuck says Facebook made an 'operational mistake' in not taking down US militia page mid-protests. TBH the whole social network is a mistake

Re: Wow -

He had a deadly amount of fentanyl in his body. He repeatedly complained that he couldn't breathe in the minutes leading up to being wrestled to the ground. Even if they locked him in the back seat of the police cruiser with handcuffs, he probably would have died of his overdose.

When the story came out, it looked like he was strangled to death. After the bodycam footage was released, it's pretty clear that the evidence that he was killed by police is basically zero.

NHS tests COVID-19 contact-tracing app that may actually work properly – EU neighbors lent a helping hand

Re: How will they know it's a false alarm?

The problem is the false notion that if a young person tests positive for the virus, has little to no symptoms (as is the majority of cases), and gets over it, that something bad has happened. This is silly; something very good has happened. Societal immunity has increased, and the potential for the virus to spread has been undermined.

This is why "number of cases" is such a useless, harmful statistic. It lumps in the good events with the bad events into one big number.

Re: "Talk of a second wave is nonsense"

You're confusing case fatality with infection fatality. You're factually wrong; flu case fatality is far higher than 3%. In most countries it's north of 10%. That's because very few people who get the flu go to the trouble of testing for it. Even if they go to the doctor complaining of flu symptoms, very few doctors will send away for a flu test. They save the actual flu tests for elderly and people with pre-existing conditions, which explains why the flu case fatality rate is so high.

If you can read this, your Windows 10 2004 PC really is connected to the internet no matter what the OS claims

Re: Error

I have a bottom-of-the-line Dell laptop with 32gb of eMMC and about 2gb free space. It brings a smile to my face every time Windows fails to update. It says it needs an additional 10 gigs.

The funny thing is that I don't have anything installed on it other than a few hundred megs worth of apps and some old games. Windows 10 is simply an insatiable monster that wants to grow and consume, for no particular end user benefit at all.

I love my top-of-the-line Windows 7 desktop.

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Fujitsu tells 80,000 of its Japan employees: From now on, you work remotely

Re: The hub idea is interesting.

I would be happier with the company estimating the net cost savings per employee of permanent work-from-home, and then offering say 25% of that savings to me in the form of a permanent bonus on my paycheck. Based on industry numbers I've heard thrown around, that would amount to me taking home at least an extra couple thousand a year.

Linux kernel coders propose inclusive terminology coding guidelines, note: 'Arguments about why people should not be offended do not scale'

Re: Loaded words replaced by euphemisms

In the great words of Homer Simpson: "We don't need a thinker, we need a doer! Someone who'll act without considering the consequences!"

Three UK: We're sending you this SMS to warn you not to pay attention to unsolicited texts

Re: Smishing?

It sounds like one of the steps in making wine.

Remember that black hole just 1,000 light years from Earth? Scientists queue up to say it may not exist after all

Re: Who is stealing the stars?

Not to mention the fact that while our Earthly computers are restricted in their capacity by time, space, and energy, there's absolutely no reason to believe that the computer running our simulation has to deal with such restrictions.

Facebook's cool with sharing the President's nonsense on its mega-platform – but don't you dare mention 'unionize' in its Workplace app

It's literally in the name. Also, there was a recent rally of democratic socialists in the USA where a troll managed to get the microphone and recite Alolf Hitler quotes to the crowd, word for word, and received uproarious applause and cheering from said crowd.

Re: It's 2020 people

I appreciate some of your sentiment, but your spelling and grammar, and your ability to organize coherent thought, is pretty brutal.

S20 Ultra 5G: Samsung unfurls Galaxy flagship with bonkers 108MP cam, 6.9-inch display

Have we reached peak phone absurdity yet?

When are we going to see a backlash against the trend of removing every possible useful feature from a phone in order to make internal room for 7 inches of screen covering 99% of the surface, which will shatter into a beautiful glass spider web the first time it slips out of your hand?

I could really, really use a sequel to the Galaxy S5.

Windows 7 will not go gentle into that good night: Ageing OS refuses to shut down

Re: Adobe testing

If you're going to hide your swear words in an acronym then wtf is the point

You think that's what OS updates are? Periodic reminders to the OS about how exactly it's supposed to function, just in case it forgot?

Captain's coffee calamity causes transatlantic flight diversion

Re: Elf-in-Safety

IANAE, but I don't see why you couldn't have some push-button type mechanism in a screw-on lid that releases the seal and allows liquid to flow. Accidentally knock the vessel over, no problem, the button isn't pushed and the seal remains intact, with the screw threads keeping the lid securely in place.

In fact, I'm pretty sure I _have_ a receptacle at home that is almost identical to what I just described.

Windows 7 and Server 2008 end of support: What will change on 14 January?

Re: "Although it is not unreasonable...

"Windows 3.11 is a lot better to use than 10."

You deserve an upvote for the edginess of this comment alone.

Re: "Although it is not unreasonable...

2000 was stable, intuitive, and incredibly fast, but software and hardware compatibility was bad. Then XP came along which hit the sweet spot perfectly, and (glossing over Vista), Win 7 took everything great about XP and made it better. And that was the final chapter of the glory days of Windows.

Re: " to just plug in a thumb drive and print straight from it. "

That's been the Linux "comic book guy" mentality for as long as I can remember. It's not Linux's fault for lacking compatibility and features. It's the user's fault for having those bizarre needs in the first place.

Re: Upgraded W7 to W10 via MS's continuing free offer last month

The problem with the "world didn't end" mentality is that there's no upper limit, literally nothing that can't be magically justified by uttering those three little words. So yes, downvoted.

Re: "Although it is not unreasonable...

Windows 95 was a dramatic improvement over Windows 3.11, and users everywhere were thrilled by the upgrade.

By the same token, Windows 10 was a dramatic downgrade from Windows 7, and users everywhere are desperately pining to go back to Windows 7. So your analogy doesn't hold.