Windows 7 support ending this year

[Chinmay]

So, first of all, i love windows 7. I heard recently about closing the support for Windows 7. Why can't they make an alternate LITE version of Windows, which could be run easily on the older machines. Just like Apple did with iphone SE(yeah, i know it's a different thing, but just try to understand my point) or like Google did with Android One programme. There are many example for such "LITE" versions. I have seen many systems running Windows 10, which basically slows down the computer (for ex, 100% disc usage problem). I hope, the next Windows would be much better than 10.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Chinmay
Correction. Thanks for updating info.

[GoodBytes]

10 minutes ago, Chinmay said:

So, first of all, i love windows 7. I heard recently about closing the support for Windows 7. This decision could make things difficult for many users as you know that it is the most used Windows version today. Why can't they make an alternate LITE version of Windows, which could be run easily on the older machines. Just like Apple did with iphone SE(yeah, i know it's a different thing, but just try to understand my point) or like Google did with Android One programme. There are many example for such "LITE" versions. I have seen many systems running Windows 10, which basically slows down the computer (for ex, 100% disc usage problem). I hope, the next Windows would be much better than 10.

Windows 7 is installed on ~37% of Windows powered PCs only and dropping. Windows 10 is on ~52% of Windows powered PCs.

http://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide

 

If you look at Steam hardware survey (which includes all supported OS), Windows 10 is on 74%, Windows 7 is on 27%.

 

Windows 10 runs great on a Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. Windows 10 is actually leaner than Windows 7. People even got it working on a Raspberry Pi 3 without any drivers.

 

 

[SupaKomputa]

9 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Windows 10 runs great on a Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM. Windows 10 is actually leaner than Windows 7.

I agree with it running on a core 2 duo, but idle ram is bigger, win 7 only cost around 1gb at startup, win10 can be 2gb.

Yes it is still good on old pc.

If you have any optimization to lean it up, i would like to hear it.

I also still have some c2d running on win10.

[GoodBytes]

32 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

I agree with it running on a core 2 duo, but idle ram is bigger, win 7 only cost around 1gb at startup, win10 can be 2gb.

Yes it is still good on old pc.

If you have any optimization to lean it up, i would like to hear it.

I also still have some c2d running on win10.

Since Windows 8, Windows adapts more with your RAM than 7.

The more RAM you have, the more Windows will take. Of course, if you do need the RAM, Windows will dynamically free what it, itself, consumes.

I already showed this in action on a thread, where my system has 6GB of RAM, the system consumes almost 3.5GB of RAM. But remove 2x RAM sticks out of 3, to get 2GB of RAM, and now Windows consumes 1GB at startup dropping to ~700MB. Same specs, same startup programs, same everything. Just removed sticks of RAM. Now I don't have a system where I can remove RAM to get only 1GB. But in any case, 64-bit version of Windows 10 minimum specs for RAM is 2GB, which is the same as Windows 7. So if it doesn't fair well, technically, Microsoft is in the safe. You need to switch to 32-bit version of Windows for 1GB of RAM for either OS.

 

As mentioned, the more RAM you have the more Windows takes, this is because it tried to load the most it can on your RAM (which not taking full amount so you have more then plenty for your programs and projects as possible), plus uses Super Fetch technology, which pre-loads programs before you do as it leans from you, all in order to provide the a fast and responsive experience, and minimize mostly used programs.

 

Personally, For either Windows 7 or 10:

I suggest to upgrade the system with:

 - 4GB of RAM

 - Get an SSD. No need to get any super fast ones, (as probably you are on SATA-2,t other things will bottleneck things, like the CPU in any case), that said, don't get the cheapest no-name brand thing you can get without DRAM on the SSD. Get something reasonable. For example, you can get a Crucial BX300 120GB on Amazon for 40$ Canadian, or 25$ at Amazon US.

 

If you have driver support problems, of course get the cheapest Nvidia/AMD graphics card you can get with support. You don't care about driver optimization in games, you don't care about anything other than image output and 1080p video playback at this point... so like a Geforce 730 is plenty. I recommend fanless ones, as those low end cards have the cheapest fans the manufacture could get their hands on. The fan WILL break, and WILL be loud. The GPU are so weak that, just a large, basic heatsink is all you need.
 

Example (GeForce GT 730 2GB shown):

 

These can also be adapted for thinner cases, if the system is a PC.

 

While I did make Windows 10 work on a first gen dual core 64-bit Intel Atom system with 4GB of RAM. I don't recommend it.

The system had trouble running Windows XP for reference, but I don't recommend it. I had to overclock the CPU the max that the motherboard allowed to to pass from 1.6GHz to 2.2GHz, SSD is useless, a 7200RPM HDD is overkill on the system as the CPU is insanely slow, and is the bottleneck of a 7200RPM HDD, and I had to cut a lot of stuff, including basic security to get a barely acceptable experience. I did similar when the system used to run Windows 7, but I have to admit, not as much, but programs, like web browser where all less demanding than today, which helped a lot.

 

 

[Chinmay]

16 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Since Windows 8, Windows adapts more with your RAM than 7.

The more RAM you have, the more Windows will take. Of course, if you do need the RAM, Windows will dynamically free what it, itself, consumes.

I already showed this in action on a thread, where my system has 6GB of RAM, the system consumes almost 3.5GB of RAM. But remove 2x RAM sticks out of 3, to get 2GB of RAM, and now Windows consumes 1GB at startup dropping to ~700MB. Same specs, same startup programs, same everything. Just removed sticks of RAM. Now I don't have a system where I can remove RAM to get only 1GB. But in any case, 64-bit version of Windows 10 minimum specs for RAM is 2GB, which is the same as Windows 7. So if it doesn't fair well, technically, Microsoft is in the safe. You need to switch to 32-bit version of Windows for 1GB of RAM for either OS.

 

As mentioned, the more RAM you have the more Windows takes, this is because it tried to load the most it can on your RAM (which not taking full amount so you have more then plenty for your programs and projects as possible), plus uses Super Fetch technology, which pre-loads programs before you do as it leans from you, all in order to provide the a fast and responsive experience, and minimize mostly used programs.

 

Personally, For either Windows 7 or 10:

I suggest to upgrade the system with:

 - 4GB of RAM

 - Get an SSD. No need to get any super fast ones, (as probably you are on SATA-2,t other things will bottleneck things, like the CPU in any case), that said, don't get the cheapest no-name brand thing you can get without DRAM on the SSD. Get something reasonable. For example, you can get a Crucial BX300 120GB on Amazon for 40$ Canadian, or 25$ at Amazon US.

 

If you have driver support problems, of course get the cheapest Nvidia/AMD graphics card you can get with support. You don't care about driver optimization in games, you don't care about anything other than image output and 1080p video playback at this point... so like a Geforce 730 is plenty. I recommend fanless ones, as those low end cards have the cheapest fans the manufacture could get their hands on. The fan WILL break, and WILL be loud. The GPU are so weak that, just a large, basic heatsink is all you need.
 

Example (GeForce GT 730 2GB shown):

 

These can also be adapted for thinner cases, if the system is a PC.

 

While I did make Windows 10 work on a first gen dual core 64-bit Intel Atom system with 4GB of RAM. I don't recommend it.

The system had trouble running Windows XP for reference, but I don't recommend it. I had to overclock the CPU the max that the motherboard allowed to to pass from 1.6GHz to 2.2GHz, SSD is useless, a 7200RPM HDD is overkill on the system as the CPU is insanely slow, and is the bottleneck of a 7200RPM HDD, and I had to cut a lot of stuff, including basic security to get a barely acceptable experience. I did similar when the system used to run Windows 7, but I have to admit, not as much, but programs, like web browser where all less demanding than today, which helped a lot.

 

 

Thanks for sharing this knowledge!

[Pasi123]

I still use Windows 7 on my main PC and I'm probably going to switch to Xubuntu when the support ends. I don't like the phone like GUI and forced updates of Win10.

 

If anyone wants to update to Win10, I highly recommend getting an SSD (and at least 8gb of ram). Windows 10 will be a lot slower on a 7200RPM HDD than Windows 7 (or 8.1). I've used i7-4770, 16gb ram PC's with Win10 on HDD and they were really, really slow.