>>> the flaw... only exploitable on Windows 7 and older Windows systems, which are end-of-life and no longer supported by Microsoft
Windows 7 is supported until 2023 in enterprise. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a quarter of the userbase.
Windows 7 is supported until 2023 in enterprise. Wouldn't be surprised if it's a quarter of the userbase.
Not just enterprise; even a single user can easily acquire ESU:
https://tinyapps.org/blog/202001220700_windows_7_esu_smb.htm...
7 was really the last version of Windows I liked before the move to hybrid tablet PCs and Metro. It's the last one with the Classic theme which is more visually appealing to me. And there are no forced rolling updates.
But if a corporation is just not going to release security patches allowing for exploits like this then it slowly makes using it untenable.
It's just like with phones. I would be happy with my first generation OnePlus One if only the OS updates with the security patches didn't also tie in so many other features that decrease performance to unbearable levels. With Apple especially I feel like they're just updating things for the sake of updating them even though they already worked fine before, and Catalina is the end result of that strategy. We're running out of things to innovate on in the technology sphere so about all we can do is stick another two cameras on the back of the latest flagship on top of the previous three and call it progress. I once read a review that said something to the effect of, "but it only has two rear cameras."
And we can't go back either. Even though High Sierra is less annoying to use than Catalina, there's still another release cycle ahead. And another after that. Downgrading is not a sustainable business model, from people's perspective. Reddit won't just throw away their redesign and go back to old.reddit.com by default because it means taking away the livelihoods of the people they hired to "improve" everything. It means admitting it failed, and I don't think that's how they see their efforts. So what's the way out?
And software vendors will eventually start using Windows 10-exclusive APIs because they'd see no point in supporting a "dead" OS, so eventually you'd have no choice to upgrade if your requirement is running that software.
It's just out of our control.
Frankly, as time goes by I'm finding it harder and harder to keep using Windows/Mac as my primary computing OS because every new update adds things like forced (or extremely-hard-to-avoid) updates, nagware, analytics I don't agree with and is difficult to remove, more-prevalent DRM, UX regressions (IMO) and "change for the sake of change" that provides no measurable or perceivable benefit to the user. I could honestly keep going on and on about this.
It's like software companies never heard the idiom "don't fix what isn't broken", and they are interminably obsessed with reinventing the wheel on a biannual basis.
Re-reading what I wrote, it's interesting & telling that I started with "if it was up to me", and that's really the problem: it's basically NOT up to me what I run on my computer. Want to play the latest award-winning game that is revolutionary, life-changingly awesome? Hope you have absolute latest [whatever] OS with all the updates and whatever other stuff that is required to run it (anti-cheat spyware is my favorite). Heck, how about stuff required for your business, non-optional software (like Zoom)? You're just forced into it. If this stuff you're forced into has problems like, say, wiping your entire hard drive because of a bug in a forced Windows update?? Too bad I guess? That's what you get for using a computer? There are so many glaring problems with this situation, it boggles my mind that people seem completely fine with it.
in fact you are forced to replace your card just due to expiry every 1-4 years depending on issuer.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/993868/worldwide-windows...
What's wrong with using old software, especially when it works better than the new?
But an up to date anything is better than Windows 7.
If you're behind a NAT and don't browse strange websites and don't open email attachments and don't plug in strange devices, how are you going to get malwared?
I'm one of the dudes running Windows 7 on unsupported hardware (Ryzen 3900x, some mobo that isn't supported by W7 and modified drivers from some random Chinese dude on the internet so it actually works). I'm using it mostly to play games that don't support Linux (anti-cheat spyware, as someone nicely put it), while daily driving linux on the same machine on another HDD (can't be hit by cryptolockers because windows doesn't detect it ;) ).
Windows 10 is garbage. It's a mobile OS - the "File" menu in Microsoft Word opens across the whole screen with most of it being empty space, the start menu fucking shows ads and search can't help itself but do random internet searches. Always on "Cortana" for god knows what reason that you can't turn off without editing registry (can you even do that anymore). On top of that, it's basically spyware. How can you protect yourself from malware by installing more malware?
> the "File" menu in Microsoft Word opens across the whole screen with most of it being empty space,
Is this not to do with the version of word? My schools win 7 computers had this as well.
> the start menu fucking shows ads
I don't remember how I turned it off, but none of the win 10 computers I use show adds in the start menu. (They still do in solitaire though).
> search can't help itself but do random internet searches.
Yup, that's annoying as all get out.
> Always on "Cortana"
I think there's a way to turn off Cortana being used constantly, I don't know if it actually stops it in the background though.
> On top of that, it's basically spyware.
Yup. I only use it for games for this very reason.
...
What it comes down to is what you're willing to deal with. I'd rather risk M$ spying on my games then some (slightly) less ethical attacker getting a foothold onto my network.
Oh, also if you do ever wind up needing to move to 10, you may like this [1].
It probably is to do with word and was an unnecessary dig at W10.
It is still quite a frustrating "feature".
Supporting XP makes dollars, so supporting XP makes sense. Though it does make me want to tear my eyeballs out.