Windows Vista support is officially dead–how to stay protected?

[Djole123]

Ok, so as you might know, Windows Vista is the least stable OS from Microsoft after Windows Millenium Edition. But, with thousands of people still running it, here's everything you need to know about the Windows Vista end of life.

 

Ok, so what does this mean? Well, anyone who's currently running Windows Vista and IE 9 will no more get the security updates for it. This means that your 2007 flagship with Vista may be unsecure.

 

How to stay secure?

 

1) Move away from Vista right now. Vista is not only quite unstable, but you're also much more vulnerable to viruses and other malicious code that may attack you.

 

Microsoft reccomends Windows 10, but any Windows from 7 onward will do the trick.

 

Any PC with a Pentium 4 or higher and at least 2GB of RAM will work with Windows 10 just fine.

 

2) If you for some reason really need to stay on Vista, make sure you have all the latest updates and that you have antivirus and/or antimalware protection.

 

3) If both options don't work for you or you get a downgrade in performance, get a new PC. Seriously, for less than 300$ you can build a really solid PC that may even play some of your favorite games even better than your old PC can. Just make sure you build it on your own. And maybe add some of that sweet RGB.

 

 

There you go, everything you need to know about Windows Vista end of life. I'll link the Microsoft article in case you want some additional info.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/22882/windows-vista-end-of-support

[flibberdipper]

I genuinely don't see why people still hate on Vista. So long as you have all the service packs and at least a Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 with 2GB of RAM, it'll run perfectly fine...

[myselfolli]

6 minutes ago, Djole123 said:

How to stay secure?

 

1) Move away from Vista right now.

'nuff said

[Orangeduck]

I was still using Vista until mid 2015 and my Dad was still using it until around 2 months ago. I never had any issues with it and the system it still worked fine especially since it had a Phenom x4 9550 and 6GBs of ram. The only issue was that Chrome stopped getting updated quite a few months ago and that the is as a whole was losing support soon.

[arbellason55]

My dad is still using Vista, trying to get him to move to a new computer but he is very stubborn about it.

[Donut417]

Wait till 2020 when Windows 7 is on the chopping block. Going to be a lot of pissed off people. 

 

The only issue with Windows Vista was MS understated the System Requirements needed to run, also Windows Vista was just obese. Which is why I call Windows 7, Windows Vista on a diet. LOL. 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

7 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Which is why I call Windows 7, Windows Vista on a diet.

Funnily enough, I did a comparison a little under 2 years ago and found it to be the opposite.  Fresh install vs fresh install on the exact same laptop, Vista SP2 used less disk space, RAM and CPU power than Win7 SP1.  I assume that this is because Win7 continued to grow with every Patch Tuesday and had tons of "features" (read as: telemetry, adware etc) added whereas Vista didn't really seem to have that problem. 

 

As for stability, I've had 2 bluescreens on Vista (on the same day) and those were due to a faulty RAM stick.  Linus also really loved it. 

 

 

I'm going to miss Vista, if only for it looking SO much better than all later Windows versions. 

 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Least stable? After SP2 and the Technology Update, Vista is basically Windows 7 without the UI tweaks. Or rather, Windows 7 is basically Windows Vista SP2 + TU with a better Taskbar and some new UI shortcuts.

 

Though I've used Vista since near launch and had almost zero issues with it. Most of Vista's stability issues were from shoddy drivers and programs doing things that in hindsight, they really shouldn't (like assuming administrative privileges were on by default).

[AresKrieger]

Meh it doesn't really matter, I don't keep windows 7 up to date and it has yet to be a problem simply using an adblocker and common sense prevents more viruses than any security patch ever could

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 hours ago, Nicholatian said:

Because Vista used to suck, and nobody cared after that even though it was basically just as good as 7 with SP2. Shame.

And it sucked because people expected it work on hardware that was no where near capable of doing so. You had systems with 512Mb of RAM shipped with Vista. Even that was barely enough to get Windows XP working smoothly.

[samcool55]

Not every P4 works with w10 btw, some of them lack x64 support which is required for w10...

[vorticalbox]

2 hours ago, Nicholatian said:

Still using Vista. Don’t connect it to the internet personally, because by and large Windows can’t be trusted anyway, EOL or not.

 

So I guess I have nothing to worry about?

to be fair even if you did connect to the internet you're not likely to confront a virus.

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I genuinely don't see why people still hate on Vista. So long as you have all the service packs and at least a Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 with 2GB of RAM, it'll run perfectly fine...

 

2 hours ago, Nicholatian said:

Because Vista used to suck, and nobody cared after that even though it was basically just as good as 7 with SP2. Shame.

This.

 

@Djole123, saying Vista is "the most unstable OS besides ME" is very misleading.

 

Windows Vista, on release day, was a buggy OS, yes. But most of the problems were driver issues.

 

Vista w/ SP2 is basically just as stable as Windows 7.

 

Do people forget that when Windows XP came out, it was BY FAR WAY WORSE than Vista ever got?

 

With that in mind, yes, people should ditch Vista. But that's because it's very old and is no longer supported... NOT because of any stability issues.

[Sauron]

3 hours ago, tmcclelland455 said:

I genuinely don't see why people still hate on Vista. So long as you have all the service packs and at least a Core 2 Duo/Athlon 64 X2 with 2GB of RAM, it'll run perfectly fine...

Mostly because you can do everything better on 7?

[Donut417]

54 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

Funnily enough, I did a comparison a little under 2 years ago and found it to be the opposite.  Fresh install vs fresh install on the exact same laptop, Vista SP2 used less disk space, RAM and CPU power than Win7 SP1.  I assume that this is because Win7 continued to grow with every Patch Tuesday and had tons of "features" (read as: telemetry, adware etc) added whereas Vista didn't really seem to have that problem. 

 

As for stability, I've had 2 bluescreens on Vista (in the same day) and those were due to a faulty RAM stick.  Linus also really loved it. 

 

 

I'm going to miss Vista, if only for it looking SO much better than all later Windows versions. 

 

 

Code wise there is not much difference between Vista and 7. Disk space usage really inst a good indicator. I would say CPU and RAM usage is more of a better way determine which is better. Ive never used Vista but according to what I read Win 7 uses system resources more efficiently than Vista. 

[flibberdipper]

43 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Mostly because you can do everything better on 7?

That's not even a valid reason to hate it lmao

 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

 

This.

 

@Djole123, saying Vista is "the most unstable OS besides ME" is very misleading.

 

Windows Vista, on release day, was a buggy OS, yes. But most of the problems were driver issues.

 

Vista w/ SP2 is basically just as stable as Windows 7.

 

Do people forget that when Windows XP came out, it was BY FAR WAY WORSE than Vista ever got?

 

With that in mind, yes, people should ditch Vista. But that's because it's very old and is no longer supported... NOT because of any stability issues.

Honestly if Vista was still supported I would find something to throw it on just for looks. Hell, if I ever get a less-ghetto way for internet in my room, I'll buy a new screen + bezel for my old laptop and use the Vista key on it.

[Hunter259]

4 hours ago, Djole123 said:

Any PC with a Pentium 4 or higher and at least 2GB of RAM will work with Windows 10 just fine.

This is not true. While you can get a 32Bit version of 10, your processor MUST support NX-Bit technology which is only in Later models of the Pentium 4.

[PlayStation 2]

Running Vista on a Pentium III/4 was about as smart as running Windows XP on an old Pentium, or running Windows 10 on the shitty Core 2-era Celerons.

It was demanding for the time, but it wasn't really shitty. If you had the proper hardware (which, to be fair, wasn't even that ridiculously pricey at the time) it ran and looked great.

[Jito463]

4 hours ago, Djole123 said:

Ok, so as you might know, Windows Vista is the least stable OS from Microsoft after Windows Millenium Edition.

I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion, that people should switch from Vista.  Especially people who don't understand computer security and don't know how to protect themselves online.  Having said that, I have to concur with other posters, that Vista was not an unstable OS.  Yes, it was bloated, and yes, it lacked optimization.  However, if you had sufficient hardware to run it, it ran perfectly fine.  I actually kind of miss running my Vista Ultimate license, because of the DreamScenes video background option (which they removed from 7 Ultimate).

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

25 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

I actually kind of miss running my Vista Ultimate license, because of the DreamScenes video background option (which they removed from 7 Ultimate)

If it's Dreamscene you want, I've had that running on Win7 Home no problem.  No lookalike or similar program, the real thing.

 

Sadly the forum rules forbid discussing that kind of stuff, so I can't even tell you what to Google for. 

Still, shouldn't be that hard to find if you know the name of that video wallpaper functionality and that of the OS you mentioned at the very end of your post. 

[Jito463]

Just now, Captain Chaos said:

If it's Dreamscene you want, I've had that running on Win7 Home no problem.  No lookalike or similar program, the real thing.

 

Sadly the forum rules forbid discussing that kind of stuff, so I can't even tell you what to Google for. 

Still, shouldn't be that hard to find if you know the name of that video wallpaper functionality and that of the OS you mentioned at the very end of your post. 

I'm running 10 now, but it doesn't matter.  I know there are ways to do it, I just haven't bothered to look them up.  It was kind of an interesting distraction that I look back fondly on, but not something essential that I'm desperate to have back.

[LukaH]

see ya, wouldn't wanna be ya.

[alamox]

the funny part is, when seven goes EOL, there will be a majority of PCs running EOL systems than on going support ( xp + 7 > windows 10 market share )

[NumLock21]

5 hours ago, arbellason55 said:

My dad is still using Vista, trying to get him to move to a new computer but he is very stubborn about it.

As long as the case it still the same, he won't notice what's on the inside.

[arbellason55]

6 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

As long as the case it still the same, he won't notice what's on the inside.

I'd need him to accept the change beforehand as that case is pretty terrible and because I'd need to save his bookmarks for him because he doesn't know how to and has being using mozilla for the longest time.