Software that no longer works on Windows 7

[michael diemer]

Awhile back, I saw a tutorial somewhere on how to make software that no longer works on Windows 7, be able to work again on Windows 7. But I can't find the tutorial. It was fairly involved, but looked doable. does anyone know about this?

 

[torchwood]

Hi,

likely this tutorial
https://www.google.com/url?client=i...sQFnoECAAQAg&usg=AOvVaw2RHDWSp9SEiRumzqjEgXwO

 

[michael diemer]

Thanks, but I was thinking of one where you make registry changes, essentially doing some serious hacking. I just can't seem to find it again.

 

[flavallee]

Mike:

If you can advise the names and versions of the software that you have concerns about not working in Windows 7, you might receive more responses and have more success.

 

[michael diemer]

I doubt if anyone would have heard of it. It's the Vienna Assistant, which is a software installer for Vienna Instruments. Actually, Vienna Assistant works, but the software now available on it, are newer versions which need Windows 8 or higher.

The tutorial I saw was not from this forum. I just thought someone might have seen it, or something like it. It is specifically to make software configured for Windows 10 work on windows 7.

 

[Alejandro85]

There is obviously no universal way of making every single program to work under Windows 7 when the developer didn't intend to do so. It depends on what the program does and why it doesn't works under Win7, be it a dependency on a function introduced in later versions, an artificial limitation or if it uses some feature from other versions.
You simply can't know what every thing uses and why it fails under 7, so it's a case-by-case correction, if at all possible.

That said, in your particular case, I would simply go to the developer website and download the earlier version that still runs on Win7 without problems, and avoid any further versions until you're ready to downgrade to Windows 10.

I was thinking of one where you make registry changes, essentially doing some serious hacking.

Editing registry is hardly any kind of "serious hacking", it's a simple configuration change. If it were possible to make a program work again just by editing the registry, you would find it very easy.

 

[michael diemer]

Thanks Alejandro. In this case, downloading an earlier version won't work. The problem here involves licensing. The company, Vienna Instruments, formerly used eLicenser, but they recently switched to iLok. And once you make the change, there is no going back. I can download the Synchron Player, but the current version only works on Windows 8 and up. Older versions would work, except they are licensed under eLicenser, and I have terminated my rights with that by doing the conversion to iLok. Why must companies make everything so complicated? Stuff like this is what makes people like me move to Linux. There, my Vienna software works fine. My fear is that one day it won't work, and I will have to go back to Windows. But I loathe Windows 10, I just can't bring myself to use it. So, I was hoping to keep things viable on Windows 7. It doesn't appear possible at this point. Oh well, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead - to Linux!

 

[michael diemer]

Well, I found a way. I saw here a thread on User Agent, and it worked. I 'fooled" vienna instruments into thinking I was on windows 10, and using Firefox 113. I was able to download and install the software, and it worked.

However, it was just too difficult setting things up to work on both Linux and windows 7. While it's good that I know I can do this, at least for awhile; things will no doubt continue to change, and make windows 7 just too much trouble to keep using, at least for this sort of thing. I decided it's way easier to just stay on Linux.

I still like Windows 7, it's a great OS, the last decent one MS made. But, as the saying goes, all things must pass. So sad that MS did not just keep building on the excellence of windows 7, instead of the ghastly products they foisted upon us since.