Windows 7 in 2019

[networkdown]

I have just reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium on an old ssd in an old laptop. After a few hours of updates and downloading my daily use software, I have to say I miss Windows 7. Is anyone ells running windows 7 in 2019. I know we only have 6 more months of supported updates. So Maybe I will upgrade to windows 8.1 in 2020. 

[Princess Luna]

Nope because if you bother enough about it you can have Win10 look and behave identically to Win7 while keeping all the newer features in reach rendering Win 7 pointless nowadays.

[flibberdipper]

Still run it on my laptop since Windows 10 is driver hell and Linux is a quirky hoe with tethering my phone + SMB shares.

[OSBK]

6 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Nope because if you bother enough about it you can have Win10 look and behave identically to Win7 while keeping all the newer features in reach rendering Win 7 pointless nowadays.

Totally true, Win 10 is in no way inferior! it performs better, it got more support, it got more features, the only reason you might use Win 7 is for compatibility issues for older software or something, and most of the time the tiny features that Win 7 has and were removed in Win 10 can be replaced or brought back by third party tools as well.

If you just want something lighter on the resources Linux is always an option, a better one!

[Constantin]

When i first installed Win 7 almost 10 years ago, i instantly fell in love, it was like a dream.

But it is time to say goodbye ....

[porina]

I still have Win7 on one server, as I haven't yet attempted to try Win10 on it. Of particular concern is the lack of a graphics driver. 

 

I have Win7 on some ancient laptops that are old enough I'm not sure Win10 would even install on them. I know I couldn't install Win10 beta on one as it was missing some CPU instruction.

 

I use Win7 for competitive benchmarking on AMD systems, as it is immune to some clock manipulation cheats that Win10 is affected by. The lack of support isn't a problem in this use case. Some even still use XP for even more performance.

 

Pretty much all other systems I expect to use into next year have already been updated to Win10. It is still possible to get Win10 activated if you install on top of activated Win7.

[networkdown]

I am not 100% sure if you can get a free upgrade to windows 10 still. I might be possible. As an comment was stated earlier in the thread why dont i just use linux. I do, everyday. I enjoy linux and have since 2007. So many options and it works on almost anything. 

 

 

The Laptop I have installed windows 7 on was built for Windows 7. When I installed windows 10 on this laptop I was not able to adjust the brightness. It is stuck at 100% all the time. This is know to happen with older CPUs, I tried many suggestions from Microsoft to update the driver and enable settings. None of them worked. This was back in 2015, Microsoft could have fixed it by now.. Maybe I will  upgrade to windows 10 at some point this year. Maybe not. Time will tell.  

[NinJake]

Most drivers are able to automatically get installed as long as you have an internet connection while you're installing Windows 10. You can give it a shot and use the media creation tool if you want to try it out. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

[Alan G]

I run my television with Win7 and Windows Media Center (best piece of software MSFT ever developed) and plan on doing so as long as the hardware holds out.  I've got extra parts to keep this baby humming along.  It's only used for cable card TV and streaming on Amazon, Netflix and ESPN.  No other uses.

[networkdown]

On 6/5/2019 at 11:46 AM, NinJake said:

Most drivers are able to automatically get installed as long as you have an internet connection while you're installing Windows 10. You can give it a shot and use the media creation tool if you want to try it out. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I am going to make an image of my windows 7 disk. I then will try the windows 10 upgrade. If it sucks, as in performance wise.  I will go back to Windows 7.

[NinJake]

21 minutes ago, networkdown said:

I am going to make an image of my windows 7 disk. I then will try the windows 10 upgrade. If it sucks, as in performance wise.  I will go back to Windows 7.

I would recommend switching over to Windows 10 sooner than later if you are planning on sticking with Windows as an operating system. I would try to update any internet connected devices to Windows 10 by the end of this year (2019).

 

As of January 14'th of 2020 major updates will stop being pushed out to Windows 7 systems. However as we've seen from Microsoft in the past, they may end up pushing this further down the road.

 

Quote

Microsoft made a commitment to provide 10 years of product support for Windows 7 when it was released on October 22, 2009. When this 10-year period ends, Microsoft will discontinue Windows 7 support so that we can focus our investment on supporting newer technologies and great new experiences. The specific end of support day for Windows 7 will be January 14, 2020. After that, technical assistance and software updates from Windows Update that help protect your PC will no longer be available for the product. Microsoft strongly recommends that you move to Windows 10 sometime before January 2020 to avoid a situation where you need service or support that is no longer available.

--- https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4057281/windows-7-support-will-end-on-january-14-2020

[Donut417]

12 hours ago, networkdown said:

I have just reinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium on an old ssd in an old laptop. After a few hours of updates and downloading my daily use software, I have to say I miss Windows 7. Is anyone ells running windows 7 in 2019. I know we only have 6 more months of supported updates. So Maybe I will upgrade to windows 8.1 in 2020. 

I dont but I wish I still did. Windows 10 doesnt like older hardware. As my machine is from 2013 I have had numerous smaller problems with Windows 10, bugs that have survived thru multiple format and reinstall. 

[networkdown]

I have officially upgraded to windows 10 home build 1903. The screen brightness issue is gone.  The pc is running good so far. Its not as snappy on this old laptop as windows 7 was. Ill keep testing it. I am curious to see if the battery life is any different on W10. 

[Delicieuxz]

Windows 7 still does pretty much everything. And it's a quieter OS, much less running in the background.

 

To really get Windows 10 to behave like Windows 7, Win 10 Enterprise or LTSC are needed (can be purchased on eBay for $5 - $10) along with some in-depth Group Policy and other settings configuring, and some 3rd-party programs (like a start menu replacement). It's more difficult to do with Windows 10 Home, which doesn't have the Group Policy editor.

 

Either can be made workable, but I do find Windows 7 to be a more peaceful and reliable OS.

 

I personally don't worry about running Windows 7 without updates. There are people still running Windows XP without any updates. There are other ways to secure a PC, and more significant factors to security, such as safe browsing habits.

[Koeshi]

Still have a Windows 7 laptop though I haven't booted into Windows for a while.  Plan is to clean it up and get all the updates sorted before the end of the year and just keep it as a portable gaming station.  If W7 truly reaches the point of being unusable I will probably just switch the whole thing to Linux.

[MadmanRB]

Yeah perhaps a move to linux is a good idea, not saying linux is perfect but at least with time its not so bad once you get used to it

[networkdown]

Well I uninstalled windows 10 1903. It was using to much resources for this old laptop. I am trying windows 8.1 today. If this does not work out I will run Lubuntu Linux full time.  Here we go!

[MadmanRB]

Well what are your specs on this machine of yours?

Just because its old doesnt mean it has to use a low resource version of linux.

If this is a post 2006 laptop you should be fine.

If the machine can handle windows 7 then it should be able to handle say Linux mint cinnamon or Kubuntu

[networkdown]

This old laptop is from 2010. It has an Intel t4500 2.3 ghz duel-core cpu.

4 gigs ddr3 Ram.

120 GB Adata SSD.

wifi N

usb 2.0

dvd drive

Ethernet.

 

Since switching to Windows 8.1 Pro I have seen a drastic increase in operation overall. Things fee snappy and not as bogged down. I did have an issue getting Windows update to work, but after some careful research I was able to fix it with wsusoffline installer.

 

If things do go down hill from here. I will install Linux Mint or Ubuntu and see how they do.

 

[lloose]

I can’t imagine Windows 7 being that great on that old of hardware. Ubuntu and Mint might even be a little much.