Is anyone still using Windows 7?

[maxseven]

I have subscribed to 0patch ever since MS stopped updating W7. Honestly I don't know what problems may have been avoided therefore what good it has done me, but I CAN say I've had zero problems in the years it has been installed.

 

[dg1261]

I had forgoten it was a Ukranian site. So maybe I should have said Russian speaking. OK?

Yes, Russian-speaking makes a different distinction vs. saying it's a Russian site. With the current anti-Russian political climate, it's important to make that distinction lest readers extrapolate that to mean Simplix could be a Putin-controlled malware vector against the West. AFAIK, it is not.

 

[quartz1]

Useful info here I am sure for my Windows 7 systems..

 

[teckneeculler]

Useful info here I am sure for my Windows 7 systems..

Windows 7 is like a good quality dinner set (or an old but well maintained Roller): Look after it and it'll last you for ever

 

[spapakons]

Windows 7 SP1 32-bit is the latest version for my old Intel Pentium 4 socket 478 computer. When I find some free time, I will do a clean install and load it with casual games. It is just fine for my 4 year old boy so he can play without risk ruining my main PC. He can even use it to download stuff for School a couple of years later. They ask them to download and print stuff from the School website.

 

[teckneeculler]

Windows 7 SP1 32-bit is the latest version for my old Intel Pentium 4 socket 478 computer. When I find some free time, I will do a clean install and load it with casual games. It is just fine for my 4 year old boy so he can play without risk ruining my main PC. He can even use it to download stuff for School a couple of years later. They ask them to download and print stuff from the School website.

Good for you. Though I fear that your young man might one day come home with a teacher's note recommending the adoption of a more modern Windows system. Stay strong

 

[spapakons]

Let them upgrade the school computers first that are over 10 years old, at least in public schools.

 

[siliconbeaver]

and those school Chromebooks are really crappy with many bans, can access webs only offered by school. nearly useless. their hardware setting had been out-of-date from first day in classroom. such as 2GB RAM, 16GB storage.
I was shocked on it when my kid brought with it home for his home work first time. absolutely a piece of hardware garbage.

Let them upgrade the school computers first that are over 10 years old, at least in public schools.

 

[quartz1]

Windows 7 is like a good quality dinner set (or an old but well maintained Roller): Look after it and it'll last you for ever

Seriously. My existing laptop was a Fujitsu A531 (i5 2nd gen), I got it in 2012-ish, and it's still going well, although the fan sounds like a plane taking off. (new SSD, new RAM, fan+vents cleaned out fairly regularly with a dob of heat paste)

in Feb 2024 I bought a Lenovo Ideapad 3 i5 11th gen to take some load off of the Fujitsu. I tried many things to get W7 working on the Lenovo, but the UEFI BIOS said no? 6 months of Windows 10 tells me I hate windows 10. I can back that up with a document.

Buying the Fujitsu A557 and the HP Probook 6570b, and installing W7 on them, and seeing everything compared to W10? it's almost like returning to an old friends house...

Win 10 with aero I may be able to live with. I tried a lot of things to get an aero theme on the Lenovo, which didn't work. there's been a few more suggestions in this thread I might try. I mean, seriously. W10 has 2 different control panels (settings and control panel), and 3 different settings interface styles. It's like Microsoft thought "yeah, let's change what all the main settings windows look like....but if you click "advanced options"?....goes back to Win 7 style settings interface. It's like re manufacturing the door of a car, but if you open it, the inner door trim is from the existing model. (yes, which happens, just a random example)

 

[spapakons]

Installing Windows 7 on a modern computer is not a new idea. Many have done it. One challenge is to find appropriate controller drivers so Setup can see the disk. Another is finding as many as possible Windows 7 drivers for the modern hardware. Of course the manufacturer is not going to offer Windows 7 drivers on his site, so you must download them directly from the individual device manufacturers. Some Windows 8 or even Windows 10 drivers might work if manually forced from Device Manager.

 

[teckneeculler]

Motherboard incompatibility is the main problem for anyone wanting to install W7, followed by the CPU type. My desktop hardware, which works perfectly well with my W7 Ultimate system, has an Asus 310M-E R.2 board with an Intel Core i5 9400 2.9GHZ 6 core Coffee Lake 14nm CPU. I recently upgraded my RAM from 16GB to 32GB, but the extra 16GB hasn't made much difference.

I also have W10 and W11 Enterprise systems running on other desk and lap computers (for comparison and experimental purposes) and they're not a patch, performance-wise, on my W7. Plus, and this is a BIG downside for me, they look terrible. Flat, bland and ugly, like a slice of stale white bread compared with a chocolate coated full cream donut with strawberry jam topping

 

[SIW2]

You could use any 300 series intel consumer motherboard with win7

It doesn't need to be 310 or r2.0

 

[quartz1]

Installing Windows 7 on a modern computer is not a new idea. Many have done it. One challenge is to find appropriate controller drivers so Setup can see the disk. Another is finding as many as possible Windows 7 drivers for the modern hardware. Of course the manufacturer is not going to offer Windows 7 drivers on his site, so you must download them directly from the individual device manufacturers. Some Windows 8 or even Windows 10 drivers might work if manually forced from Device Manager.

My reading so far has told me that W7 can't be installed on a Unified EFI BIOS - at least not without effort that I'm not educated with. I've put W7 on the Fujitsu i5 6th gen - windows update wasn't keen on it though. I kept getting "CPU too new for operating system" type messages, until I installed some random patch I found somewhere. In all honesty, I've just spent £150 on two laptops that officially support W7, which I'm reasonably happy with. fingers crossed that 10 year old hardware still has some life left in it.

tbh one of the purposes of a W7 system, is that my Fujitsu A531 has been as close to rock solid as it can be - so a W7 system that didn't have actual W7 drivers might be defeating the purpose. I mean it might work, but I'd always be thinking.....is it, isn't it (going to crash)

 

[teckneeculler]

You could use any 300 series intel consumer motherboard with win7
It doesn't need to be 310 or r2.0

Thanks. But are those boards still available? Last time I looked, I found a few listings but it turned out they were just clickbait. Actually I have a new, boxed Biostar H310MHC2 (takes an LGA1151 CPU) that I bought a few years back, but its features are limited, like no SSD M2 mount.

 

[siliconbeaver]

I have given up building home PC. it's bulky, took much room in Office. and NOT green.
my favorite is HP 800 DM (miniDesk), G4-G6 can do what I want. these mini PC are powerful. Just need a proper way to install Win7 on them.

HP EliteDesk 800 G5 Desktop Mini i5-9600T

SIW2 and SF Team are really helpful.

 

[SIW2]

But are those boards still available?

They crop up on places like ebay. Several on there now mostly z390 .

z390 will typically go for £60-£70. If you are going for a z390 worth checking it isn't festooned with those ghastly cheap brothel lights, and it is better to have at least one usb3 gen 2 C

b360/365 are not much less probably £50 if you keep your eye out.

I am typing from one of these
B365M DS3H (rev. 1.0) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

 

[teckneeculler]

Thanks SIW2, I'll look for those. So, pretty much any 300 series should be OK?

- - - Updated - - -

 

[spapakons]

Don't worry about M.2 slots or USB 3.0, SATA III. All these can be added with a PCIe expansion card. For instance, I use a PCIe USB 3.0 card in my Intel socket 1155 motherboard and I am fine. I could also use a PCIe M.2 card, but I don't have any free PCIe 1x slot. I don't care, my SATA SSD is fast enough for my needs. For those wondering, back when I bought my Intel socket 1155 motherboard I had 3-4 legacy PCI (not PCIe) cards in my old computer I wanted to keep using. This model, Asus P8H61, was the only one with three legacy PCI slots, but this had no SATA III or USB 3.0. I had to either choose new technology and one legacy PCI slot, or three legacy PCI slots so I chose the latter. I can add USB 3.0 or SATA III with a respective PCIe card, so I didn't care. Needless to say there are Windows 7 drivers for this old hardware, so I could run Windows 7 64-bit fine until I upgraded to Windows 8, then 8.1 and later 10. Now I am running Windows 11 without any issues. All I had to do was bypass hardware compatibility check to install or upgrade from one version of Windows 11 to the next.

PS: I too don't like the plain flat icons of Windows 10/11, so I used Customizer God to extract all system icons from Windows 7 and 8.1 and use them in Windows 10/11. I have replaced all those ugly system icons with the respective icons from Windows 7 or 8.1 (for those that didn't have a Windows 7 equivalent). I have also installed 8gadgetpack to use my old Windows 7 gadgets, Open Shell (formerly known as Classic Shell) to have the Windows 7 start button and start menu and Winaero utilities to get the old versions of Calculator, Microsoft Paint, Notepad and others. Now that I have completely transformed Windows 11, they are not that bad. I have even installed the good old "Windows Lite" theme (the one with the familiar red close icon on top right of each application).

PS2: I had downloaded the Beta version of Windows 10 and installed it on a virtual machine to have a look at the new features before I upgrade from 8.1 I was shocked to see VERY UGLY icons, almost seem like drawn by kindergarten children! I almost swear to never upgrade to Windows 10! Everyone was demanding to change these ridiculous icons, so the official release of Windows 10 had nicer redesigned icons, but they are still very flat compared to the 3D icons icons of Windows 7 and 8.1 I wouldn't mind using the original system icons of Windows 10/11 but they are too flat for my taste. The default Windows 11 icons are redesigned and a little nicer that those of 10, but still I prefer the Windows 7/8.1 icons and hence the customization. You can read all details in the respective threads in Personalization section of Tenforums and Elevenforum.

Windows 10 Beta vs 21H2 Release Icons! (youtube.com)

 

[SkyChimp]

My Dell Inspiron has been running strong with Windows 7 Ultimate ever since 2012. To this day it still does most of my Workhorse daily activities.

 

[spapakons]

If there was a way to hide Windows 7 from new applications and let us install them on Windows 7, would be great. There is a custom kernel for Windows 98 called Kernelex that adds Windows 2000 and XP compatibility mode to Windows 98. Of course not all applications work, but you can right-click on the shortcut, go to Compatibility tab and set to Windows XP SP3 and find out.