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Goodbye Windows 7

lilysthings.org

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Windows 7 remains Microsoft's best operating system.

- Works pretty well.

- No ads

- Doesn't really need updates.

The soundest Microsoft OSs were probably NT 3.51, Windows 2000, and Windows 7.

> The soundest Microsoft OSs were probably NT 3.51, Windows 2000, and Windows 7.

Indeed.

Has anyone done a blog/video retrospective on the internal team structures and leadership which shipped Sound Editions™ of Windows?

My memory is foggy over the years but... yeah... Windows 7 could be their best, perhaps a year or two after its initial release. Then again, I think anything could be given rave reviews if it is coming after Windows Vista.

Personally I always have a soft spot for Windows 95 and most of that is likely due to its jump from Windows 3.1 or DOS. I think it was pretty good at the time. Looking back, it probably did crash more than I remember.

I always remember my Dad coming from one day and telling me he saw Windows NT 4.1 at work today. Someone turned it on and the startup screen was not the flashy Windows 95 loader, but a blue screen with text. That on its own my Dad was like "I am not touching that! That looks serious!"

I remember trying Windows 98 for the first time. This was the beginnings of the internet era. I remember it looking the same as Windows 95 except it had all these shortcuts to CNN, Microsoft, and others... it already made me started to dislike it tries to give you more than simply be an Operating System with needed software. I just want the OS.. not crap on top. If I want something, I will install it seperately. Windows 11, of course, has gone all out with this!

Windows XP was a good Operating System. A University friend installed XP on its release and it was crashing a lot. I waited for a bit. Eventually, it was pretty good.

I dont think I used Windows 8 enough to even have an opinion. :-)

Windows 7 is eminently usable, mature and now perma-stable OS for stateless Windows on a platform that can enforce mandatory network isolation.

Long live one of the best network-optional client operating systems to achieve mass adoption by users and developers.

> Btw if you’re still on Windows 7 please fucking upgrade to something else do not stay on it you should’ve quit using it years ago

Needlessly rude and needlessly pro-e-waste. I don't have any non-Embedded (with EWF so they are fresh at every boot) Windows 7 systems but am really really sick of the forced upgrade treadmill in all of computing.

You're not forced to upgrade.

It's not like Windows 7 will suddenly stop working. If you have it installed already, you can keep using it. It's just a "continue at your own risk" situation.

> Needlessly rude and needlessly pro-e-waste.

I've got to disagree with you there.

The hardware isn't safe enough for windows to run on it anymore, it's too much of an easy target.

If you want to keep using that hardware then put linux on it.

> put linux on it

Then run Windows 7 in a VM on Linux.

Lots of embedded systems (including mine) are used to control specialized expensive hardware and aren't something one can just “put Linux on”. I say this as someone with several Linux desktops/laptops, so it's not like I'm averse to non-Windows.

>it's too much of an easy target.

If you're letting people use your PC for target practice, I guess so :)

> Btw if you’re still on Windows 7 please fucking upgrade to something else do not stay on it you should’ve quit using it years ago

No, thank you.

My solution is to disable the routing for the windows machine on the router and use a proxy server instead. Only Firefox knows the proxy password, not Windows.

I bet nobody wrote a bot(net) yet that searches for the proxy settings in FF settings if it fails a direct connection. Besides, if that ever happens, I have daily incremental backups for years. Win7 is not that big.

The only problem will be when FF stops supporting Win7. I would need a Linux VM then.

You can pry Windows 7 from my cold, dead hands. As long as ESET NOD32 is still being updated, and as long as the half-dozen applications and tools I use on my two desktop machines still works, I will keep using it.

And please, no specious replies about "Oh noes! The botnets!" or "Linux is so much more awesome!". Do not care. Do not want. W7 was the peak Windows OS, and everything after it was varying degrees of a dumpster fire and/or spyware.

Totally cromulent position if it works for you and you can still get hardware that runs it, AND you can keep it offline? No security updates is kind of a big deal.

I don't know. Is it? This is a legit question, even though the tone might come across as sarcastic. But what exactly is the concern?

I guess I don't buy the "outdated operating system will be hijacked" argument, for not having received its security updates and simply being plugged in.

Let's say you have a decent NAT router that doesn't allow inbound traffic. And let's say that you run a reasonably secure web browser and that's pretty much the sum total of your internet traffic. And let's say you're smart and don't download shareware, screensavers, and the like, only trusted applications from reputable vendors. And let's also suggest that you're not using things like Outlook or other vectors for undesirable inbound junk.

What exactly is the threat model here? An operating system isn't going to get hacked over thin air. I don't see the concern, particularly if you are a savvy computer user. I wouldn't want to run grandma on this setup, but still, I feel reasonably safe with this model.

It's the same reason why I don't advocate or believe in running antivirus software. It's just bloatware and introduces an array of vulnerabilities to my computer (c.f. CrowdStrike or any AV vendor hacks).

I think most vulnerabilities you'll see now are not port attacks but browser ones. For example, there was a jpg one a ways back that has probably been in there forever. So any app you run that links with libjpg and opens that image will be vulnerable. If the OS vendor isn't patching those (win7) any more, down you go.

Was it? I remember people saying the same about 2000 and XP. I don't really know, haven't really admined windows since 98 or used it since XP

Will people be saying the same about windows 10 in 10 years time?

But XP was a good Windows.

I don't think it's true that "$current_version - 4 is always the best version in people's mind!". It's very clear to me which Windows versions were good and which were crap.

Sibling comment says windows 10 is the new windows 7. Presumably people will be saying "you can take windows 10 from my cold dead hands" in the future, just like people said it about 7 and XP

My argument was that "7 was good and 10 was bad" is something I say now and I will still say in the future, as it has been for past versions.

XP was OK, but Win7 was great. I have a number of systems that still run Windows 7 and they are chugging along just fine.

Windows 10 LTSC became the new Windows 7, after Win7 inherited the Windows XP crown.

Sometimes people really do build treadmills to be more exhausting and costly than you could have sensibly imagined :\

I never did like a treadmill so I always liked to keep PCs having the original Windows version that they were built for, and when a new version came out I would eventually install that to a different partition and go forward from there with the traditional built-in multibooting approach.

I've even still got two XP machines running Windows 11 that can also boot to 10 or 8 or 7 at a moment's notice, and I've got plenty of drive space to spare.

I like Windows 7 for its native ability to play DVDs like you don't get with newer Windows, so I'm always going to want one partition for W7 on every PC that actually still has a DVD player. With W7 I'm just doing office work or watching DVDs, not even doing vintage games.

Windows 11 really is continuing to increase its failure rate on millions more perfectly working hardware items with each revision, in what can only be recognized as a rehash of the old anti-recycling approach. Tonnes of unnecessary e-waste just in the last year. Is it really worth it just to get an incremental bump for a software business which could otherwise be handled as one of the most environmentally responsible companies if they really tried?

There's supposed to be a net advantage to more digital communication and cutting down less trees for paperwork. I don't know how that includes more 18-wheelers full of perfectly operational electronics being scrapped all the time just because "support" was dropped in order to sell something shiny and new. I know, you've really got to pull out all the stops when the shiny and new is not really what people want as much, and one tactic is to put up hurdles to what people actually want. And you need to make money doing it, and once that pays off numerically, the more you keep people from what they really want, the more it pays off and it can be habit forming and difficult to quit.

I'm not one to mindlessly stay connected to the internet at all times, and never allow Windows to connect except one of the fully-updated partitions, but if the trend I see continues it's only going to get easier for Linux to gain ground in the office simply by dropping the ball when it could have been carried so much further.

Kind of a stern warning that some of the major bastions of enterprise value, such as backward compatibility, may be crumbling faster than realized and it may be later than you think already.

onedrive is evil

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