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Comment by HenryBemis | Hacker News Reader

Pro tip: find and copy mspaint and notepad from a previous Win OS version. Also the old calculator ;)

I am not saying that I have done so, but let's say that I keep copies of some older .exe files 'because'. Now that I read this I laughed a bit because those will come in handy.

Also I always suggest that you find WindowsFirewallControl v4.9.x.x and install it, and set it on "Medium Filtering" and "Display Notifications". They block all the garbage MS bloatware apps that want to 'speak to the internet' and trust me when I tell you, 99% of the apps in your PC don't need to have 24/7/365 access. You want to update your VLC? Good! Allow it for 5mins, update, block it again. Same for the myriad other Microsoft .exe files that do not serve OUR purpose.

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They can have my MS Word and Excel 2010 install binaries when they pry them from my cold, dead hard drive. I've been using them for 15 years and so far have no need to pay a penny more for what is essentially the same thing, only with more bloat and less control.

Same, except it's Word and Excel 97. I run them in an NT4 VM and the whole thing still starts faster than newer versions.

Is there a 2010-era feature you're relying on that LibreOffice doesn't have yet?

When was the last security update for MS Office 2010? Wikipedia reckons sometime in late 2020. It might be worth looking at alternatives if you ever open potentially untrusted documents - maybe ones that appear to have been sent by people you know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office#Support_polic...

I'm not relying on anything in particular my current versions of Excel and Word. I'm just sticking with them through sheer inertia.

By default they don't allow macros (or editing/saving) documents downloaded from the Internet, which means I have to enable editing on documents I download. The few times a year I get a document from an untrusted source and don't want to open it on my computer, I open it with Google Docs.

If I'm ever forced to upgrade, I'll likely go with LibreOffice. But so far it ain't broke.

I've kept every version of Windows and major releases of popular Linux distros, but didn't know exactly what to do with them other than test certain things when I'm teaching someone an ecosystem.

Add binary storage and versioning to the list of reasons I keep my NAS going.

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