[jpzk]

Have you recently received this message when turning on your PC:
I realize this was going to happen (again) one day, so what are your plans?
Personally, I like my good old Win 7 and I am not quite sure when I will decide to move on.
I had previously (long ago) installed a little program which stopped Windows showing similar "warnings" ... can it be done again?
Thoughts?

Attached Images

 

[Fenwoodian]

.
Indeed, I also received this Windows 7 warning. I see 3 options for those with Windows 7 machines (like me).

1. Upgrade to Windows 10 (I can not do this on my Windows 7 machine because there's no printer driver available for my large format printer that is available for Windows 10).
2. Permanently disconnect the Windows 7 machine from the Internet (so the bad guys can not exploit it's weaknesses).
3. If you're still running an older Windows 7 computer, chances are you've already gotten your money's worth out of that old computer. Just bite the bullet and buy a new computer with Windows 10 (I own a number of computers, my Windows 10 computer works just as good at editing my photos in Light Room and Photoshop as my Windows 7 computer does).

[photoptimist]

The best advice if you want to continue using Windows 7 after this day is to disconnect it from the internet. As soon as Microsoft releases the next security update for the later, supported versions of Windows, criminals will have an excellent idea of all the unpatched vulnerabilities in the millions of Windows 7 machines on the net.

You might be able to keep a Windows 7 machine on your LAN with a good firewall, but any use of email or web on that machine is likely to expose it to attack.

[stevebrot]

Strangely, they are still offering security updates for my Win-XP machine.

Oh...and no, I have not gotten that warning.


Steve

[thazooo]

Haven't gotten the nag screen yet. My Box is Windows 7 Pro stays off the internet. This surfer box runs 7 and will be replaced when it smokes. The TV box is 10 and places DVD's, Netflix, and Hulu nicely. LOL

[nicolpa47]

I have 2 WinXP machines both normally unused except for occasional use running legacy programs. I need to keep at least one in this form until 2021. They were downgrades from Win7 at the time of purchase. They have protection from an up to date program and see only very occasional web use.

I have 2 Win7 machines which are the machines I currently use as my main machines and I have to decide what to do about them before next January.

I have 2 Win10 machines which, hopefully, will take over as my main machines although they seem to have some issues with some hardware.

Those issues, and my dislike of how MS have chosen to update Win10, have prompted me to start looking at Linux as an alternative. This is particularly because the older machines still work perfectly and I have no doubt would successfully run Linux for some time. The possible hardware issues with Linux are a disincentive, but the Win10 machines have some issues also. I have yet to scrap a machine because it had failed,but only because it had been superseded or had become too slow. In retirement and without the necessity to be compatible with others, I don't want to be throwing away serviceable computers or buy new ones. I am used to OpenOffice, GIMP, and other software available for Linux, and the only Windows program that I feel committed to is Outlook.

I will probably try Linux out late in the summer and maybe set up a dual boot system on one of the XP machines and see how I like it whilst not being under pressure to finalise a decision as the Win10 machines should be ok for a while yet.

These are my current thoughts.

---------- Post added 18th Apr 2019 at 02:16 PM ----------

Strangely, they are still offering security updates for my Win-XP machine.

Oh...and no, I have not gotten that warning.


Steve

I seem to recall that there was a "hack" or some such which kidded the update system into thinking it was on a machine running an embedded version of XP. Something tells me that this is also approaching its end date. Not sure, but someone will know?

[jeallen01]

..
I seem to recall that there was a "hack" or some such which kidded the update system into thinking it was on a machine running an embedded version of XP. Something tells me that this is also approaching its end date. Not sure, but someone will know?

From another forum (Sats UK : The digital TV support forum | SatsUK), where someone had identified the hack from a Computer Shopper mag
"
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\PosReady]
"Installed"=dword:00000001

Create a new plain text document.
Paste the contents displayed above into it.
Save the new document as xp.reg.
Double-click the Registry file afterwards to add the contents to the Registry."

Several members of the forum have tried this out and it appears to work and lots of embedded XP updates were downloaded - but new ones now seemed to have ceased (earlier this year?)

[RGlasel]

Have you recently received this message when turning on your PC:

I haven't, but I haven't rebooted the laptop with the Win 7 Home harddrive in it and the other two Win 7 machines run Pro, which has a longer support cycle. According to Computerworld : "Windows 7 dropped 1.9 points in March, falling to 36.5% of all PCs and 41.7% of those running Windows." Windows 7 users no longer outnumber Windows 10 (Windows 10 is 49.9% of all Windows users), but not even the pointed hair types at Microsoft would dare to stop issuing security fixes for Windows 7 in 8 months.

[beachgardener]

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Microsoft might offer extended support for Win. 7 if you pay for it. Not sure if they still will go with this, but that is most likely how it will go for Win. 10, a yearly fee for using their operating system. The newer Win 10 computers will most likely run from an operating system in the cloud.


Another option, to have greater control over what you do is to have Win. 7 as a guest in a Virtualbox host ie. a Linux flavour eg. Linuxmint.

[tokyoscape]

Microsoft offer free upgrade to Windows 10 some years ago. I upgrade all of my laptop, 7 of them, some ran win7(good) some ran win8(bad) to win10, along with changing hdd to ssd, best upgrade ever.
They extend it 3 times as I recall, first offer was officially expired sometime during 2016 then they said people using "assistive technology" still can do the free upgrade which ended on December 2017, basiclly we can just check a check box that say I am using the technology and bingo free upgrade option come back then later they changed the expirer date to some time in January 2018. Not sure if people still can do this now in 2019 but if anyone want to try follow the link below and google for a installation guidline on internet.

Download Windows 10

[jatrax]

I resisted Win10 for a long time, but when work shifted everything to it I finally moved all my personal stuff as well. I think to be honest Win10 is a far superior operating system. But I don't 'like' it the way I liked Win7. I was comfortable with Win7, it had its quirks but I could do most anything I needed with it. Win10 is just more modern, bland, flavorless.............

The free upgrade made it almost impossible to resist unless there were applications or drivers that never got ported over. Win10 does have extensive 'compatibility' settings though so even if something does not say it is certified for Win10 quite often it will work.

After two years of Win10 I am still at a loss where some settings are at. I'm not sure I will ever find everything but that is what the search function is for.

[pschlute]

If you're still running an older Windows 7 computer, chances are you've already gotten your money's worth out of that old computer. Just bite the bullet and buy a new computer with Windows 10 (I own a number of computers, my Windows 10 computer works just as good at editing my photos in Light Room and Photoshop as my Windows 7 computer does).

This is the preferred option in my view. I was a long term user of Win7 but changed just over a year ago. Get yourself a computer with a SSD as well as a traditional hard-drive. Your Win10 OS and programs should be installed on the SSD, and all your documents and photo files stored on the traditional hard drive. Enjoy watching your computer start up in seconds instead of minutes and the same for intensive programs like Lightroom and Photoshop.

[beachgardener]

not only new computers, but old computers can be given new life with up to date and modern Linux operating systems, thus lengthening the viability of that said hardware, rather than putting to scrap a heap hardware that is still working.

[Not a Number]

No warnings but then again I had disabled the Windows 10 update nags years ago.

As long as you keep your anti-virus / internet security packages up-to-date your systems aren't any more vulnerable than they are now. Mostly F.U.D. on Microsoft's part to sell you upgrades. The AV and firewall packages on my XP system are still updated regularly. There was no spike in security breeches when XP was pushed out to end-of-life-support.

[sqrrl]

.
Indeed, I also received this Windows 7 warning. I see 3 options for those with Windows 7 machines (like me).

1. Upgrade to Windows 10 (I can not do this on my Windows 7 machine because there's no printer driver available for my large format printer that is available for Windows 10).

As you say that you have a windows 10 machine, it's worth trying to install the windows 7 drivers manually to the win 10 machine to check if it works - I've found that in most cases it works due to Microsoft's obsession with backwards compatibility.

Can't really help with anything else, but I'm sure that someone will have come up with a solution.

My cruddiest computer is a WinCE 5 thin client (64mb ram) which I use for typing documents, it runs Wordpad and nothing else, not even a calculator. Which is just fine for my usage.