How long should I keep Windows 7 and delay upgrading?

[TechnoMage2016]

XLCGROUP,

I must agree with at least one of the responses to far. I've run every MS OS since DOS 2.0, and I have copies of every version of Windows OS from Windows 95 to Windows 10 Pro/64. But out of them all, I run Windows 7, Ultimate/32 on my main/everyday PC. And I have the same OS running on this little laptop that I'm on now.
When I got this laptop, from a friend who thought it was dumpster food, it needed a new HD, DVD Drive, and more ram. I did all of the above, installing a new SSD, new DVD drive, and I maxed out the ram, and then had to make that hard decision, "What OS do I use?". I picked Win-7/Ultimate/32.

Something that nobody has mentioned,,,,,when you put a newer OS on an older PC, you might find out that the PC's manufacturer never did post drivers for their hardware for the newer OS's. So you might wind up with an upgraded PC and not have any sound, LAN or suitable video drivers. I've already been there and done that, because I'm a computer tech of 37 years, and I personally have 20 computers. Several of them, where I've tried a newer OS than they were made for, would have serious driver problems, and I wound up restoring the original OS, to get everything working again.

One very important step in EVER upgrading your PC to a newer OS, (any OS) is to make a clone copy of your existing HD, so if the new OS falls flat, you can restore your backup to your hard drive and mark that failure up to experience. I've had to do that way more times than I even care to recount.

OK, lets say that you have an older program or a really old 16 bit game that you dearly love to play.
You can just forget ever running that on any Windows 10 PC. It just ain't a gonna happen!

Windows 7, Ultimate/32 is my all time favorite, because it runs all my old programs and looks and acts very much like XP, my life long favorite. One very old saying that I like to live by, "If it works, don't mess with it!". (you know I cleaned that saying up a little bit....Right?)

So my closing remark, "as long as your Windows 7 is still running, make regular backups of C: and run it till it just can't run any further.
I have a car that I love, and I'm going to drive it till the wheels fall off.

Happy Trails, Mate!
TechnoMage

 

[Melchior]

lol NICE TechnoMage2016

yeah... I have only done fresh installs on New OS..
like when I did XP Pro 64bit,

then Win7 Ultimate 64bit... on my last PC...
then the same on a old laptop a friend gave me AND NOW on my ELITE GAMING RIG!! MWHAHAHA
new HDD and copied file from the old HDD..

I make regular backups of the REGISTRY HIVES.. especially.. as follows..

• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__ClassRoot_(2017-08-09).reg
• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__CU-Software_(2017-08-07).reg
• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__LM-Software_(2017-08-07).reg
• PC_(Laptop)(2008Toshiba)(Win7)_RegBackup__ClassRoot_(2017-07-30).reg

These are the most recent backups I have made...

 

[defrag1720]

My Dell Inspiron 1720 had been running full bore for 10 years and I just upgraded it to Win 7. I have been also upgrading parts to try to keep it running as long as possible. Recently stuck a trial copy of Windows 10 on it and for the most part it worked ok. Not great but ok. I had updated all the drivers that I could and had enough memory at 4 gb.
The WLAN card did not work in WIn 10 and would need to replace it if I go to 10 but I don't know if the Bios would take it.
I decided to revert to Win 7 because it does run very well with it and why push it. I have a machine with Win 10. Win 10 is nice and the new operating system nifty but most things can still be ran in Win 7 very well if you keep your machine up to date.

 

[xlcgroup]

HEAR! HEAR!! WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE SP1 x64 F.O.R.E.V.E.R.!!! lol

I just built my new Gaming Rig last June (June 2016)
so I'm GOOD for an ETERNITY OR TWO....

Win10 is the WORST M$ has ever done, followed by Win8, WinVista and WinME.. uuggh!!

it Win7 OR BUST!!
ps:
I LOVE OPEN-SOURCE/FREE-SOFTWARE,
I just don't like the Linux/Unix Architecture/API....

i just learned that you can actually make win 8 to look and even feel like 7 but i know i'm going to have to do some digging eventually. what are you looking at for when 7 is no longer safe to use?

 

[xlcgroup]

XLCGROUP,

I must agree with at least one of the responses to far. I've run every MS OS since DOS 2.0, and I have copies of every version of Windows OS from Windows 95 to Windows 10 Pro/64. But out of them all, I run Windows 7, Ultimate/32 on my main/everyday PC. And I have the same OS running on this little laptop that I'm on now.
When I got this laptop, from a friend who thought it was dumpster food, it needed a new HD, DVD Drive, and more ram. I did all of the above, installing a new SSD, new DVD drive, and I maxed out the ram, and then had to make that hard decision, "What OS do I use?". I picked Win-7/Ultimate/32.

Something that nobody has mentioned,,,,,when you put a newer OS on an older PC, you might find out that the PC's manufacturer never did post drivers for their hardware for the newer OS's. So you might wind up with an upgraded PC and not have any sound, LAN or suitable video drivers. I've already been there and done that, because I'm a computer tech of 37 years, and I personally have 20 computers. Several of them, where I've tried a newer OS than they were made for, would have serious driver problems, and I wound up restoring the original OS, to get everything working again.

One very important step in EVER upgrading your PC to a newer OS, (any OS) is to make a clone copy of your existing HD, so if the new OS falls flat, you can restore your backup to your hard drive and mark that failure up to experience. I've had to do that way more times than I even care to recount.

OK, lets say that you have an older program or a really old 16 bit game that you dearly love to play.
You can just forget ever running that on any Windows 10 PC. It just ain't a gonna happen!

Windows 7, Ultimate/32 is my all time favorite, because it runs all my old programs and looks and acts very much like XP, my life long favorite. One very old saying that I like to live by, "If it works, don't mess with it!". (you know I cleaned that saying up a little bit....Right?)

So my closing remark, "as long as your Windows 7 is still running, make regular backups of C: and run it till it just can't run any further.
I have a car that I love, and I'm going to drive it till the wheels fall off.

Happy Trails, Mate!
TechnoMage

thank you for your advice. i too have had to deal with much misery upgrading OS's too soon without considering the after effects, whether on my macbook pro, ipad, android, iphone and even ipod. the excitement of change is not worth the risk anymore... unless you take proactive steps like you mentioned. getting the hang of backing up androids and ipads are easy compared to laptops and desktops so it took me a lot longer to try. i have done some research on paid programs but they seemed really complicated just a few years ago. i have tried cloud storage and it was decent until the company went bankrupt and my lifetime subscription was worthless. in the case of corrupted or inoperable OS, that would not help at all but it was better than not protecting anything.

i ended up wasting a lot of money on software and games that no longer worked on the upgraded OS and have refused to upgrade OS's the past few years until absolutely necessary. Now that i think i know the basics of secure back ups, i can at least wait a year or two later after a new release so it gives the devs some time to work out the bugs, make improvements since i can now go back to familiar OS.

your post makes me want to use 7 on my laptop until for as long as XP has been running on my antique DELL desktop but every year, malware is multiplying and getting more dangerous and its becoming more and more common. restoring an OS is one thing but sensitive info that gets stolen is another. i have VPNs installed to help with that.

although i've been using computers since i was 15, i used it for games (who remembers wolfenstein 3d and doom), browsing and using apps like excel, i have never installed any hardware myself... at all until last year and that was just to upgrade RAM in my laptop. so yeah, i'm pretty useless when it comes to fixing serious issues or doing anything hardware related.

i REALLY do want to thank this forum for all the help in the short span i've become a member. not only do i have confidence in my machines now but i am slowly starting to realize i can fix my own issues if i am one step ahead of the dangers. i think i'm going to try to upgrade my primary HDD to a SSD soon. who knows, i may even try to upgrade my processor in the desktop too.

computer repair shops and geek squad will be

 

[xlcgroup]

lol NICE TechnoMage2016

yeah... I have only done fresh installs on New OS..
like when I did XP Pro 64bit,

then Win7 Ultimate 64bit... on my last PC...
then the same on a old laptop a friend gave me AND NOW on my ELITE GAMING RIG!! MWHAHAHA
new HDD and copied file from the old HDD..

I make regular backups of the REGISTRY HIVES.. especially.. as follows..

• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__ClassRoot_(2017-08-09).reg
• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__CU-Software_(2017-08-07).reg
• PC_(Desktop)(NewPC)(Win7)_RegBackup__LM-Software_(2017-08-07).reg
• PC_(Laptop)(2008Toshiba)(Win7)_RegBackup__ClassRoot_(2017-07-30).reg

These are the most recent backups I have made...

would a system image using reflect cover that too or do i specifically have to do that myself? please excuse the newbness.

 

[xlcgroup]

My Dell Inspiron 1720 had been running full bore for 10 years and I just upgraded it to Win 7. I have been also upgrading parts to try to keep it running as long as possible. Recently stuck a trial copy of Windows 10 on it and for the most part it worked ok. Not great but ok. I had updated all the drivers that I could and had enough memory at 4 gb.
The WLAN card did not work in WIn 10 and would need to replace it if I go to 10 but I don't know if the Bios would take it.
I decided to revert to Win 7 because it does run very well with it and why push it. I have a machine with Win 10. Win 10 is nice and the new operating system nifty but most things can still be ran in Win 7 very well if you keep your machine up to date.

when you say you push it, does that mean you leave it on overnight too? i too have a dell and these things are really solid, at least the ones from 10+ years ago. i haven't made a single change to it from day 1 which is pretty damn amazing too. what to do with this system has been on my mind for a while. someone suggested i just pull the HDD from it and install it into my new desktop but i like having one for researching and spreadsheets and the other for 3d rendering, surfing, and games. i do want to replace it completely but that's an impulsive thing and not out of necessity.

 

[Melchior]

i just learned that you can actually make win 8 to look and even feel like 7 but i know i'm going to have to do some digging eventually. what are you looking at for when 7 is no longer safe to use?

UNLESS.. M$ plans a NEW/GREAT Windows OS to replace the crap that is Win10...
I will will probably stik with Win-Ultimate-SP1-x64 F.O.R.E.V.E.R. AND EVER AND EVER!!

thank you for your advice. i too have had to deal with much misery upgrading OS's too soon without considering the after effects, whether on my macbook pro, ipad, android, iphone and even ipod. the excitement of change is not worth the risk anymore... unless you take proactive steps like you mentioned. getting the hang of backing up androids and ipads are easy compared to laptops and desktops so it took me a lot longer to try. i have done some research on paid programs but they seemed really complicated just a few years ago. i have tried cloud storage and it was decent until the company went bankrupt and my lifetime subscription was worthless. in the case of corrupted or inoperable OS, that would not help at all but it was better than not protecting anything.

i ended up wasting a lot of money on software and games that no longer worked on the upgraded OS and have refused to upgrade OS's the past few years until absolutely necessary. Now that i think i know the basics of secure back ups, i can at least wait a year or two later after a new release so it gives the devs some time to work out the bugs, make improvements since i can now go back to familiar OS.

your post makes me want to use 7 on my laptop until for as long as XP has been running on my antique DELL desktop but every year, malware is multiplying and getting more dangerous and its becoming more and more common. restoring an OS is one thing but sensitive info that gets stolen is another. i have VPNs installed to help with that.

although i've been using computers since i was 15, i used it for games (who remembers Wolfenstein 3d and doom), browsing and using apps like excel, i have never installed any hardware myself... at all until last year and that was just to upgrade RAM in my laptop. so yeah, i'm pretty useless when it comes to fixing serious issues or doing anything hardware related.

i REALLY do want to thank this forum for all the help in the short span i've become a member. not only do i have confidence in my machines now but i am slowly starting to realize i can fix my own issues if i am one step ahead of the dangers. i think i'm going to try to upgrade my primary HDD to a SSD soon. who knows, i may even try to upgrade my processor in the desktop too.

computer repair shops and geek squad will be

DOOM and Wolfenstein 3d CLASSICs lol had those myself back during the early 90s...

I started 2nd grade in fall of 1990 so... I was pretty young.. it was a
Compaq Presario.. Intel 486SX (SX didn't have the Math co-processor integrated into it back then.. the DX model did lol its called the FPU (Floating Point Unit) these days..
2-8MB of RAM (YEAH JUST SOO LITTLE LOL :sarc: )

and we added a Creative 4x speed CDROM and it came with an ORIGINAL Sound Blaster AUDIO CARD LOL

it came with a CD game pack...
my favorite to play back then from that disc was
Syndicate Plus..
https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(video_game)

 

[xlcgroup]

UNLESS.. M$ plans a NEW/GREAT Windows OS to replace the crap that is Win10...
I will will probably stik with Win-Ultimate-SP1-x64 F.O.R.E.V.E.R. AND EVER AND EVER!!




DOOM and Wolfenstein 3d CLASSICs lol had those myself back during the early 90s...

I started 2nd grade in fall of 1990 so... I was pretty young.. it was a
Compaq Presario.. Intel 486SX (SX didn't have the Math co-processor integrated into it back then.. the DX model did lol its called the FPU (Floating Point Unit) these days..
2-8MB of RAM (YEAH JUST SOO LITTLE LOL :sarc: )

and we added a Creative 4x speed CDROM and it came with an ORIGINAL Sound Blaster AUDIO CARD LOL

it came with a CD game pack...
my favorite to play back then from that disc was
Syndicate Plus..
https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(video_game)

yeah, those games broke the mold for all the first person shooters. lol, the only things i remember about my first desktop was it was a 486, there was a button on the tower that was named "turbo" and when you pressed it, the digits went from 16 to 64 and the tower was 3 feet tall. i seriously don't even think the turbo button did a damn thing, just a gimmick but i could be wrong. not soon after the "free aol discs" came into play. pretty impressive you remember the specs.

never heard of that game but man are those graphics sweet, 8 bits of heaven! seriously, the game does sound interesting and unique, even compared to today's games and that's saying a lot.

 

[Melchior]

YEAH I have a good memory

if your wanna try it you could BUY it from GoG.com... for.. $9.98 for both games..
it runs in DOS box so it should run on Win7....

Game detailsGenre: Action - Real-time - Tactical

Works on: Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 10) and Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Languages: Audio and text: English. Text only: español, français, italiano

Released: June 6, 1993 (June 6th also happens to be my Father birthday)


Size: 31.4 MB

Company: Bullfrog Productions / Electronic Arts

I own a copy of it on GoG.com
its like Steam by Valve.... GoG Galaxy Client that is... lol

ooH yeah the days of AOL HELL lol ;p

pretty sure this was the one my mom had...

Because it DIDN'T come with a CDROM at first... lol

as I mentioned above my mom and her friend bought a 4x CDROM/audio card combo..
which came with the above game(s)

well Bullfrog Productions did go outa biz a long time ago.. theymade a few games more. but only tose two of the Syndicate series...

 

[xlcgroup]

man, i'm afraid to get it bc then i'll want to get an emulator for other 8 bit classics. EA had a hand in it? whoa. the last pc game i played was 10+ years ago, starcraft and counterstrike. i am tempted, the plot is pretty unique. i think i remember aol came on hard disks before the cd, pretty sure. 'aohell' as some called it was pretty high-tech with a blistering 14.4k modem. remember they had tos'ers and punters?

 

[Melchior]

lol yeah 14.4K modems SLLOOOOWWW lol


it wouldn't cost you much to try it out..
EA was likely the the Publisher.. as Bullfrog was the developer...
I STILL my original CD that that game came on in way back in the early/mid 2000s I bought the
gold edition.. I figured they redid the programming to make it run on Windows XP/etc.... NOPE.. just the standalone FULL game
nothing nota not even DOS box...

I'll go pop it out and check a thing or two... brb
I'm getting photos of my [Syndicate Plus] game box..
I can't use it I just keep it for nostalgic reasons...

 

[Melchior]

here are the back(includes the antiquated system specs!! LOL ;p ) and front of the game boxes..

 

[Melchior]

I like/loved StarCraft too!

Blizzard has MADE the original StarCraft FREEWARE NOW!! YUP!!
and they have done a whole bunch of update to it to bring it up to speed with Windows 7+!!!

and the best part I saved for last.. the are doing a
"Starcraft - Remastered" version due out by the end of summer
- 4k GRAPHICS and a overhaul of the programming etc!!
ONLY $14.99!! lol

 

[iron7]

I mistakenly bought a new (kaby) laptop thinking I could use MS 7/8. I am very reticent to use 10 with privacy concerns + crappy look and because I honestly think 7 is divine.

I may wind up selling a pretty much brand new machine, but am trying to see how many lingering privacy & other concerns there are with 10 after making tweaks found such as here:
Windows 10 privacy problems: Heres how bad they are, and how to plug them.

 

[xlcgroup]

I like/loved StarCraft too!

Blizzard has MADE the original StarCraft FREEWARE NOW!! YUP!!
and they have done a whole bunch of update to it to bring it up to speed with Windows 7+!!!

and the best part I saved for last.. the are doing a
"Starcraft - Remastered" version due out by the end of summer
- 4k GRAPHICS and a overhaul of the programming etc!!
ONLY $14.99!! lol

i agree, the price is good, just like sc remastered. i've been mulling over getting it for the same reasons for almost a month. time commitment and my addictive personality. i used to play competitively way back when no one played KBK ladder games in the US, at least not too many. i have been stalking pro gamers in korea playing remastered as it's released there already and they have made some nice upgrades to it. i am torn. :drool:
i keep telling myself to play one game a day max but i know that ain't gonna happen.

 

[Melchior]

I mistakenly bought a new (kaby) laptop thinking I could use MS 7/8. I am very reticent to use 10 with privacy concerns + crappy look and because
I honestly think 7 is divine.

I may wind up selling a pretty much brand new machine, but am trying to see how many lingering privacy & other concerns there are with 10 after making tweaks found such as here:
Windows 10 privacy problems: Heres how bad they are, and how to plug them.

yeah.. lol.. Win7 is the best they made after WinXP/Server2003, 2000...

i agree, the price is good, just like sc remastered. i've been mulling over getting it for the same reasons for almost a month. time commitment and my addictive personality. i used to play competitively way back when no one played KBK ladder games in the US, at least not too many. i have been stalking pro gamers in korea playing remastered as it's released there already and they have made some nice upgrades to it. i am torn. :drool:
i keep telling myself to play one game a day max but i know that ain't gonna happen.

I have
- 104 games on Steam
- 46 games on GoG.con
- WoW, SC2, SC1, SC:R, etc
- BF2,
- ETC, ETC....

NOW I just need the motivation to PLAY ANYTHING lol...
I spend most of my time on Facebook news feeds listening to endless playlists on YouTube....

 

[iron7]

I may wind up selling a pretty much brand new machine, but am trying to see how many lingering privacy & other concerns there are with 10 after making tweaks found such as here:
Windows 10 privacy problems: Heres how bad they are, and how to plug them.

any thoughts anyone?

 

[xlcgroup]

yeah.. lol.. Win7 is the best they made after WinXP/Server2003, 2000...




I have
- 104 games on Steam
- 46 games on GoG.con
- WoW, SC2, SC1, SC:R, etc
- BF2,
- ETC, ETC....

NOW I just need the motivation to PLAY ANYTHING lol...
I spend most of my time on Facebook news feeds listening to endless playlists on YouTube....

wow, that is a ton of games. i spend a lot of time with poker so i cannot afford more screen time. i'm pretty much done with video games at this point besides the occasional CS 1.6 sess to blow off steam after a rough session of cards.

fb is good for keeping in touch with friends and family but do not get your news from fb. get newsletters delivered to your mailbox. the link below is a great source that will mail you daily articles and does not censor anything. truly unbiased and not funded by big bro in any way. so much so that they have been constantly battling to stay alive from huge corporations like amazon who is government funded, much like google, twitter, mainstream media, etc. if you use the search box in the upper right-hand corner and type in amazon, monsanto, facebook, etc. you will see loads of articles. this is mostly a site about health but they touch on important topics as well. do not get your news from MSM or social media, just look how they skewed the results, perspective, and information in the last election.

Facebook declares WAR on CHILDREN: Censors independent science that tries to protect infants from medical harm – NaturalNews.com

Natural News targeted in massive, well-funded, multi-nation DDoS attack to silence debate on vaccines – NaturalNews.com

Facebook blocks all Natural News article posts to 2.2M fans after site posts White House petition citing immunization dangers – NaturalNews.com

there still are some good and unbiased sources like breitbart, reuters, zerohedge, etc. but whatever you do, PLEASE don't get it from MSM or social media. that is absolutely the worst-case scenario.

 

[Melchior]

I have followed NaturalNews.com nice 2005!! lol