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Update Win 7, or Not ?


taos

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Done, thanks! Well, yes, the very nature of the webpages already introduce some uncertainity as links change, pages die and even with the ginormous effort done by the Internet Archive, things fall into the memory hole without being actually intentionally thrown there. Besides this (which is, after all, due to entropy growing), we do have lots of cases of things very deliberately thrown into the memory hole, but it all becomes really outrageous when some agent (usually a corporation or other non-physical entity) reaches inside one's device at one's home or inside one's pocket to remove (pilfer?) content from inside it, no matter what kind of licence they purportedly have allowing them to do it legally (if at all). :crazy:

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That's why, anything I download for the Kindle, I convert it also to pdf and store it on my computer.  To my knowledge, there's no way that Amazon can get to it at that point.

Cheers and Regards

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I have 278 installed KB's.  When sorted the first and last 4 are:

KB976902, KB982018, KB2479943, KB2491683
(...)
KB3172605, KB3177725, KB3178034, KB3179573

This is for Win-7 SP1 Ultimate, 32-bit.  Of the 9 kb's mentioned on the previous page of this thread, I have these installed:

KB3020369, KB3033929, KB3071756

and do not have these:

KB3045999, KB3046049, KB3035131, KB3063858, KB3067505, KB3177467

I do not check for windows updates (not for more than a year anyways) and my current system has actually never installed any updates - what I have is what was rolled into my install image as of August or September 2016.

My application log is filled mostly with VSS event ID's 8193 and 13.   I don't believe (but who knows?) that these are the result of any kb's I have or don't have installed.

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A Haswell-based system running Win 7 and serving as a small server is working perfectly.  And when I say perfectly, I mean it doesn't even log anything more than an informational message in the System Event Log for months at a time.

It runs forever without fault, does its job with aplomb, has plenty of free storage, and will not likely be asked to do any more in the next few years than it already does.  It's layered with much more (and smarter) than typical security and its usage is such that it's not at risk from typical things like web pages loaded into a browser and downloads by a user.  Likely it won't need updating until the hardware actually fails.  Since it's high quality server hardware, that won't be for years.

So...  To update it or not?  I'm seriously leaning toward not.  Ever again. 

My father tried to teach me, "If it works, don't fix it".

I'm knowledgeable enough about networking and OS operations that I'm not affected by FUD and hype such as "OMG, if you don't update you'll be infected for sure".  I know how it could be attacked, and it's just very, very well protected.

I always try to keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't fixed anything since Win 7 went off mainstream support, and the only thing they've done lately is to slow the OS down...  Even if the heaviest patches are disabled (GRC InSpectre, anyone?) it's still slower than it was in 2017.

I can't believe I'm even considering whether to run another Windows Update on it.  The social engineering that has brought us to this point and made us feel dependent on Mother Microsoft to keep trickling out fixes for vulnerabilities they originally built in is mind boggling.

What price, (a false sense of) security?

-Noel

Edited by NoelC
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15 minutes ago, NoelC said:

A Haswell-based system running Win 7 and serving as a small server is working perfectly.  And when I say perfectly, I mean it doesn't even log anything more than an informational message in the System Event Log for months at a time.

It runs forever without fault, does its job with aplomb, has plenty of free storage, and will not likely be asked to do any more in the next few years than it already does.  It's layered with much more (and smarter) than typical security and its usage is such that it's not at risk from typical things like web pages loaded into a browser and downloads by a user.  Likely it won't need updating until the hardware actually fails.  Since it's high quality server hardware, that won't be for years.

So...  To update it or not?  I'm seriously leaning toward not.  Ever again. 

My father tried to teach me, "If it works, don't fix it".

I'm knowledgeable enough about networking and OS operations that I'm not affected by FUD and hype such as "OMG, if you don't update you'll be infected for sure".  I know how it could be attacked, and it's just very, very well protected.

I always try to keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't fixed anything since Win 7 went off mainstream support, and the only thing they've done lately is to slow the OS down...  Even if the heaviest patches are disabled (GRC InSpectre, anyone?) it's still slower than it was in 2017.

I can't believe I'm even considering whether to run another Windows Update on it.  The social engineering that has brought us to this point and made us feel dependent on Mother Microsoft to keep trickling out fixes for vulnerabilities they originally built in is mind boggling.

What price, (a false sense of) security?

-Noel

You've given me a lot to think about over the last few months when it comes to updating.  My system is running terrific right now, though I have to say, it's weird knowing that in a month from now, my newest update to the core OS will not have been issued since a year ago.  I had planned to run Windows 8  for five years, since I could update it until October 2023.  But yikes, should I leaved it at November 2017 update level for THAT long?  Wow!

But so far @NoelC, you seem to be on the money.

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9 hours ago, NoelC said:

I'm not affected by FUD and hype such as "OMG, if you don't update you'll be infected for sure".

Yes, this is so. The propaganda worked on me for a couple of years many years ago then I recognised it for what it was, a heap of sh*t.

9 hours ago, NoelC said:

The social engineering that has brought us to this point and made us feel dependent on Mother Microsoft to keep trickling out fixes for vulnerabilities they originally built in is mind boggling.

Yup, mostly propaganda too. It's like they say about the paid-for anti-virus vendors, "If viruses didn't exist they'd be coding them themselves." I do often think that Microsoft are in the same position when it comes to updates - code in something naff somewhere then somewhere down the line release a 'fix'. Keep the masses thinking they need to be suckling at the teat - tripe!

Only thing about Microsoft that isn't propaganda is that they're after your data, and at that, big-time now! Strongest case for not updating I know of - to Hell with them! Punting Spyware Suites and calling them Operating Systems. Of course with Win10 you get the Suite even if you don't update. It's a malignant joke. "It's just telemetry." "'Telemetry', what!" They think our heads zip up the back.

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On 10/25/2018 at 12:56 AM, NoelC said:

> A Haswell-based system running Win 7 and serving as a small server is working perfectly.
> And when I say perfectly, I mean it doesn't even log anything more than an informational
> message in the System Event Log for months at a time.

I have two NT4 servers that have been running since 1998, originally both using Gigabyte BX440 motherboards (but one became flaky a few years ago so I moved the drive to an i845-based board which was probably made in 2004/2005).  Hard drives for both cloned somewhat infrequently.  Used to run some corporate version of Symantec anti-virus, but that was at least 10 years ago, so there is really no "security" software running on them.  One handles our accounting database and CRM and email, the other is just for our website.  They just sit in the basement and do their job until I have to restart one of them because it ran out of licenses.

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  • 2 weeks later...

erpdude8, that article ends with the paragraph:

Quote

Unfortunately, sticking with Windows 7 isn’t a long-term commitment. The end of support is set for January 2020, and sooner or later, everyone would have to upgrade to Windows 10. It’s just a matter of time anyway.

Which to me seems presumptuous with its, "everyone would have to upgrade to Windows 10", why 'have to'? aren't there other options?, and Win10 is a downgrade, and "It's just a matter of time anyway."

If ever I'm forced off Win7 then I've got Win8.1 as my next OS, for a while. If I ever get pushed off that then I'll go back to Linux Mint and to hell with Microsoft. I would never in a million years install Win10 or any upstream derivatives thereof.

Of course there is the outlier of ReactOS but when, if ever, that will be stable and usable is anyone's guess at this point in time. But if the drip, drip, drip of its development continues then eventually it will fill the tub.

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End of support means absolutely nothing to people who don't install updates in the first place. :whistle:

And funny that the author of that doesn't know the product history of Windows Defender. Perhaps not, considering they think Windows 7 will become unusable after January 2020.

And I still wonder why MS hasn't been brought to task by the antitrust folks regarding the fact that Windows has antivirus built-in.

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14 hours ago, Tripredacus said:

And I still wonder why MS hasn't been brought to task by the antitrust folks regarding the fact that Windows has antivirus built-in.

You are not forced you to use it, you are free to install any other AV.

But on the other hand in the past they were forced to make N editionts without Windows Media Player, and also add an option to download and install other Internet browsers.

Edited by alacran
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  • 4 weeks later...

I just set up Win7 Ult in  a 2nd machine, and I used Dism++ to control the updates. It's fast, works unattended, and skips the telemetry and Forced Win10.

Sometimes you're forced to upgrade. I kept WinXPPro safe for 3 years after "support" ended, but had to move to 7 for online work, and many new programs are x64. Impractical for me to run 3 machines in not enough space. But I'm staying with 7 as long as I can. I have it almost 3 years and I'm still learning the ins and outs.

Where can I get a count of my updates, without counting them myself??

Edited by quadriped
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  • 1 month later...

I agree with all of you. It's just FUD.

I highly doubt that 7 will suddenly stop booting when it hits its EOL (it would be a very insidious thi0ng indeed if that were to happen). XP never did (I bought into the hype at first, but I've since smartened up, and now I use it (well, XP x64) in a VM on my MacBook semi regularly to do "PC things").

In fact, thanks to the efforts by roytam and other's (not to mention the POS hack) it's still quite alive and well, and, with so many talented and dedicated people, it will remain so for many years to come (as will Vista, 7, and 8.x).

An OS is only worthless when it loses all software support; this happened with Win2k; it is largely the same as XP, and indeed, at first, many programs, unless specifically written for one version or the other, were 100% compatible with both. After XP SP2, however, it and 2k diverged quite a bit, with the eventual result being that they became mostly incompatible with one another on an API level (2k-era programs mostly ran fine on XP, but but trying to run many XP programs (aside from the simplest) on 2k was hit or miss). Again, thanks to Black Wing Cat, this disadvantage has been largely negated (many things still don't work 100%, but the important stuff does, like newish browsers).

TL;DR is that when there's a certain percentage of very dedicated people who want to use a certain Windows version, no matter how unsupported it may become, they'll find a way to make it work.

c

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