Running Windows 7 on a 12 yr old desktop

[EnterLight]

Thanks for all the advice. My wife and I have been discussing this matter, and I may just break down and buy a laptop. She has a desktop that has Windows 10 with a large monitor(that we have been currently using for a bedroom TV) and we will move that into it's place.
Meanwhile, I may upgrade or retire the old 'puter. I'm still waffling. I hate replacing something that still works.

Linux isn't too bad as the other user described. If you're relatively computer savvy you shouldn't have a problem, bash and terminal commands in general is more for advanced users. I have a history of working with computers and multiple OS and have rarely had to use it. They have an app store that provides simple installing/uninstalling and you can even run windows software on it if absolutely neccesary. I'd still highly recommend it and if you need any help feel free to reach out. , Happy Computing

 

[linux.poet]

I may just break down and buy a laptop.

Be careful with neck strain with a laptop. I suffered from pain in the back of my neck for over 10 years during my junior high, high school, and early college years. I thought it was my mattress, and it turns out that it was my laptop.

Right now I have the laptop propped up on two textbooks and an external keyboard/touchpad, and my life has improved dramatically. The extra few inches of height that gives me really helps.

 

[CoreyD]

I really hope this is a personal thing and not you handling some clients.

Correct. But still a necessity.

4. Software you're actively using but haven't updated (such as Windows 7 or Office 2010) will have a major security flaw that isn't patched because support ended years ago.

5. Someone on a network you're connected to is infected (or a threat actor) and your computer is attacked through a major security flaw that isn't patched because support ended years ago.

6. You share storage devices with people or other computers and accidentally initiate a payload through a major security flaw that isn't patched because support ended years ago

That is definitely not true. Windows has a lot of flaws and threats (largely because the most commonly used OS platform is most commonly targeted, go figure), but Windows 10 is far more secure than 7. Microsoft have even recently started hardening more potential holes (which is causing issues in itself, but that's not unexpected) that will leave you even further behind if you're still using 7.


This just patently isn't true. It's the equivalent of not bothering to lock your doors, take care of your valuables, or be mindful when you're walking home at night because a determined enough threat will do harm to any degree.

Corporate cybersecurity is part of my living; there are so many major vulnerabilities and potential threat vectors even from every day used software like Adobe Reader, Chrome and Office. Oops, you opened the wrong PDF and your AV didn't catch it? Guess someone in Russia now has your 35 year old e-mail address and password.

Have iTunes or something that installs Bonjour? Your computer firewall now has open ports and someone standing on your e-porch greeting every single person that walks by.

Oh, that dormant keylogger used a hole that wasn't patched in W7? Guess they now have your banking details.

Seriously, the upgrade from 7 is free, 10 isn't really that different (and in most cases is generally more stable) and not upgrading because it looks different or you don't like change, or you heard from your best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend who heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who said that it's a huge downgrade from 7... is just asinine.

I am thinking on all the suggestions on this thread.

I'm guessing one reason some might not upgrade, is due to software incompatibility.
If one has brought software that works on Windows 7, but not later versions of Windows, that could be a deterrent.
Also, the knowledge that Windows 11 is not free, and Windows 10 too has an EOL, one might reason that in a few years they will be in the same boat. So why bother.
There are a number of reasons people are not upgrading, but primarily, having to keep up with the commercial giants, isn't easy, especially when your pay-pack isn't getting any bigger.

I remember when I was building computers, and realized that the new tower did not support memory I had available.
You then ended up with memory you had to throw away since no computer supported DDR, DDR2, DDR3, etc.
The greed of this world isn't easy on most folk, and in some cases, all the persons are trying to do, is relax, and enjoy a game, create music, art, etc.

Everyone, fortunately, isn't driven by greed. So, it's nice to see some persons keeping the poor in mind, and trying to support them by providing FOSS that fits their OS needs.

 

[Wookiee]

I'm guessing one reason some might not upgrade, is due to software incompatibility.
If one has brought software that works on Windows 7, but not later versions of Windows, that could be a deterrent.

Windows 7 and 10 (and even moreso, 11) are so closely related that there should be none. Any incompatibilities would have to be really specific software that requires something really old - again, only a handful of cases that require that and they should only be used in very extreme circumstances where it's just not possible, and handled appropriately (firewalled off, only used for that purpose, only able to communicate with the appropriate sites/ports, etc.).

Also, the knowledge that Windows 11 is not free, and Windows 10 too has an EOL, one might reason that in a few years they will be in the same boat. So why bother.

Well... mainly because you can still upgrade from 7-10 and even 11 for free.

There are a number of reasons people are not upgrading, but primarily, having to keep up with the commercial giants, isn't easy, especially when your pay-pack isn't getting any bigger.

Most end-users have never seen the need to upgrade. I literally had to do a 98->7 upgrade around 2013. Her accounting software was outdated and I'm pretty certain she still had it connected to the internet (it was running an entire business).

I remember when I was building computers, and realized that the new tower did not support memory I had available.
You then ended up with memory you had to throw away since no computer supported DDR, DDR2, DDR3, etc.
The greed of this world isn't easy on most folk, and in some cases, all the persons are trying to do, is relax, and enjoy a game, create music, art, etc.

There's a lot of technical reasons behind this. It sucks, it does. It's a lot of waste. But there's a plethora of practical and technical reasons you can't just keep it on an old socket or DDR beyond corporate greed.

Everyone, fortunately, isn't driven by greed. So, it's nice to see some persons keeping the poor in mind, and trying to support them by providing FOSS that fits their OS needs.

I'm more than happy for anyone and everyone to use some flavour of Linux or whatever. But that, again, comes back to your first very point:

I'm guessing one reason some might not upgrade, is due to software incompatibility.

 

[CoreyD]

Windows 7 and 10 (and even moreso, 11) are so closely related that there should be none. Any incompatibilities would have to be really specific software that requires something really old - again, only a handful of cases that require that and they should only be used in very extreme circumstances where it's just not possible, and handled appropriately (firewalled off, only used for that purpose, only able to communicate with the appropriate sites/ports, etc.).

I've had the issue, and it's a lot of work migrating.
Sometimes it involves manually adjusting things (for example - code).
It doesn't save you time, I can tell you.

Well... mainly because you can still upgrade from 7-10 and even 11 for free.

I didn't know that.
Would you recommend 10, or 11?

Most end-users have never seen the need to upgrade. I literally had to do a 98->7 upgrade around 2013. Her accounting software was outdated and I'm pretty certain she still had it connected to the internet (it was running an entire business).

There's a lot of technical reasons behind this. It sucks, it does. It's a lot of waste. But there's a plethora of practical and technical reasons you can't just keep it on an old socket or DDR beyond corporate greed.

I'm more than happy for anyone and everyone to use some flavour of Linux or whatever. But that, again, comes back to your first very point:

You get my point.
I uninstalled Linux, and went back to Windows for that reason.

 

[Wookiee]

I didn't know that.
Would you recommend 10, or 11?

If you need taskbar labels - upgrade to 10 and wait for the new build of Windows 11 when they (hopefully) put that back in (it's currently enabled in the Dev channel).

Otherwise there's no real reason not to go straight to 11 (do a fresh install, mind you - especially if your processor is unsupported). Windows 10 is end of support in just over 2 years, so you might as well go straight to current.

 

[CoreyD]

If you need taskbar labels - upgrade to 10 and wait for the new build of Windows 11 when they (hopefully) put that back in (it's currently enabled in the Dev channel).

Otherwise there's no real reason not to go straight to 11 (do a fresh install, mind you - especially if your processor is unsupported). Windows 10 is end of support in just over 2 years, so you might as well go straight to current.

That's another thing I was wondering about - if a 2008 computer can handle the OS properly.

 

[Wookiee]

That's another thing I was wondering about - if a 2008 computer can handle the OS properly.

If it's already running 7 perfectly fine and doesn't have a mechanical hard disk... it'll probably run okay (as long as you have at least 4GB of RAM). I only just replaced an antique OptiPlex (approximately that old) that was running two specific apps; we put an SSD in it and ran Windows 10 on it (I think it only had 2GB of RAM, but that was fine for what it needed).

At that point you've more than doubled its life expectancy though.

 

[Dave G.]

I have a 7 machine I use everyday and also a 10. My main computer I come on here with is the 7. It hasn't gotten Windows upgrades for years. I run it in Firefox and have decent antivirus software. Also a program called Privacy Badger that blocks backdoor attacks. By the way it's blocking 6 right now as I type right here in this site ! And I've seen it block as many as 15. This computer is a 2011 model so 12 years old. If it dies I have the Asus with Windows 10 . That hasn't been as reliable as this one though.

Now here is the hitch, some bluetooth and even hard wired device programming has started coming out that won't run in 7. I have a Cricut Maker and it's Design Program crashes this 7 Machine if I don't work quickly to get it saved, it even states a warning that they aren't compatible. Also should I manage to get a design made in the software and while this machine and the Maker machine will couple they won't talk to one another, so nothing happens. So there is that aspect to consider. It's not worth investing a lot in a 7 machine. I have the 10 and even my cell phone will cut a pattern on my Cricut once the pattern is saved to the Design Space library though. The cell phone is very clunky to design something with but it's fine to pick something from the library ready to cut and just hit the Make It button with. And it talks with the Cricut Maker machine fine on bluetooth. Same for my Canon printer, though the 7 will talk with that via bluetooth.

 

[CoreyD]

If it's already running 7 perfectly fine and doesn't have a mechanical hard disk... it'll probably run okay (as long as you have at least 4GB of RAM). I only just replaced an antique OptiPlex (approximately that old) that was running two specific apps; we put an SSD in it and ran Windows 10 on it (I think it only had 2GB of RAM, but that was fine for what it needed).

Okay, thanks.

At that point you've more than doubled its life expectancy though.

? Do you mean my computer should have died ever since?

 

[RoBo1988]

The machine with windows 7 is currently down (I think the graphics card quit) , so I'm now using a desktop my wife has with 10 installed in it. I still like 7 better

 

[Dogheaded]

Dell 64 bit 16.0 GB RAM
I just changed the graphics card, Hard drive is 5 years old, along with power supply. In spite of that, I'm quite the computer novice-no gaming, surfing, email, posting on CF Now I get messages that after Jan 14, 2023 Windows 7 will no longer be supported. Google also reminds of the same thing.

Does this mean I will no longer be able to use this for the internet? If so, are there inexpensive options to keep it running?

All functions of Windows 7 will be functional. However, some programs, like Steam, which requires online functionality are artificially designed to force obsoletion such that their software won't function after a certain date.

Unfortunately since Microsoft has failed to make an OS worth even sneezing at since 7, there are no worthwhile updates.

We must assume that Microsoft fired all of it's designers prior to the release of 8 due to the absolutely amateur and messy GUI philosophy or lack-there-of that is apparent in their products. Otherwise I could only recommend that such designers be fired and Microsoft shut down for it's complete failure in it's ability to ethically provide a product according to it's fiduciary duties.

 

[Dogheaded]

I would consider both Windows 10 and 11 to essentially be malware. The main difference is 11 is wholly in your face about being against the user.

 

[The Liturgist]

No offense @Wookiee but even the healthcare industry is using Windows 7 with Internet access. I am sure if one knows what they are doing and is being smart about being online, he/she will be fine. Its called common sense.

Indeed, in the late 2000s, I had a Windows 98 virtual machine with Firefox 2.0, which was still the latest version (this was in 2007 I think) and Opera 8.5 or Opera 9.0 installed, which were the last editions of both to support classic Win9x (95, 98, ME), and used them to access a small number of trusted sites for the pure heck of it, and the VM did not get pwned by any means, on the contrary, I had some fun with it. Using the browsers I was able to download the last version of ProcessExplorer that supported Win98, and was fascinated to discover that the Process IDs on Win9x are not integers like in Windows NT based operating systems like Windows XP or Windows 7 or Windows 10, but were rather hexadecimal values.

Unfortunately the Web moved on, and as a result these browsers are almost as incapable of rendering modern websites as the included version of Internet Explorer, version 3.0 I think, is at rendering websites from the 2000s. I actually wish the Web had not moved on from where it was in 2010-2011, because by then we were free of the tyranny of IE6 and Flash and for the most part Java Applets, but websites were still light enough so that the rendering engines like Chrome’s V8 seemed overkill, as opposed to the current era when they are absolutely necessary. There was a brief era when the lovely experimental desktop OS Haiku managed to port Webkit and write a simple browser which could render the vast majority of websites, and that era is behind us, and increasingly browsers impose such fabulous demands on desktop operating systems its a miracle the smaller projects haven’t died off.

 

[The Liturgist]

All functions of Windows 7 will be functional. However, some programs, like Steam, which requires online functionality are artificially designed to force obsoletion such that their software won't function after a certain date.

Unfortunately since Microsoft has failed to make an OS worth even sneezing at since 7, there are no worthwhile updates.

We must assume that Microsoft fired all of it's designers prior to the release of 8 due to the absolutely amateur and messy GUI philosophy or lack-there-of that is apparent in their products. Otherwise I could only recommend that such designers be fired and Microsoft shut down for it's complete failure in it's ability to ethically provide a product according to it's fiduciary duties.

Windows 8 was an attempt to create a cross platform paradigm that would work equally well on Windows Phone and on tablets, to compete with the iPad and the iPhone, and it was a disaster, hence Windows 8.1 and Windows 9 and Windows 10 seeing it reigned in considerably. And also in the interim Microsoft gave up on phones and scaled back their tablet involvement, and the main partner for Windows Phone, Nokia, went right out of business, which is remarkable since their products were once so ubiquitous that several orchestras used to play a setting of the Nokia music as a humorous way of warning people not to let their phone go off, or causing great chagrin for those who failed and thus interrupted the concert.

Nor alas can I say Nokia could have saved itself by adopting Android, because this did not work for HTC or Motorola. Rather I think Samsung engaged in some unethical behavior, since they were a major supplier to Apple for the original iPhones, and actually still are today, but now iPhone users and Android users have become segmented and iPhone has become a premium brand like the Mac, although Samsung does release luxury phones, and their tech is arguably superior, they are a bit like IBM’s PC division acquired by Lenovo, in that certain types of Mac users like graphics designers will never willingly buy a ThinkPad. ThinkCentre or ThinkStation no matter how much better the design, performance or value for money. And that won’t change despite the fact that Apple has now thrown away compatibility with Windows apps by migrating their desktops to Apple Silicon, although this won’t keep Linux or NetBSD off, with both OSes supporting the M1 and NetBSD already supporting the M2 IIRC.

NetBSD unlike Linux or Windows is also a beautiful operating system, free from bloat, with elegant simplicity and classical UNIX architecture, and supports the second largest range of devices next to Linux, and is arguably more portable due to its extreme simplicity, but you can still run a full featured desktop using Mate or other desktop environments on NetBSD, with modern browsers, and there is also virtualization software.

By the way, although the OpenDarwin OS, which was based on the open source parts of MacOS which were branded Darwin by Apple, such as the XNU/Mach kernel and the FreeBSD-derived userland, which you can access via terminal (it is what you get on the MacOS command line), folded years ago due to Apple ceasing to release to the community certain important bits of code, there is a new OS based on the open source parts of MacOS called Fuschia, which you can install on a raspberry PI like integrated computer.