RIP Windows 7: We’re Going to Miss You

[RV_]

Today all support except paid support for Windows 7 ceases! I loved Windows 7 too, but Windows 10 is a much more capable and secure version.

Excerpt:

" More than a decade after its release, Windows 7 support ends on January 14, 2020. Let’s look back at what made Windows 7 so awesome and why it’s a great operating system we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.

Windows 7 was also designed from day one for security. It’s easy to forget, but Windows XP’s initial versions were somewhat vulnerable to malware as they exposed critical services to the internet by default. That led to the “Trustworthy Computing” initiative and Windows XP Service Pack 2, which enabled the Windows Firewall by default. Windows 7 was much more secure out of the box.

Windows 8 came out three years after Windows 7, and that’s when we started appreciating Windows 7 even more.

At the time, Microsoft’s vision was all about touch screens. Windows 8 didn’t include a Start menu and forced you to boot to the full-screen “Metro” environment. Even on desktops, Microsoft figured that a huge full-screen “Metro” application was the future. Who needs windows on an operating system named Windows, anyway?

Windows users balked, and many of the craziest changes—the lack of a Start menu, for example—were quickly walked back in Windows 8.1. Other changes, like the ability to run these new-style applications in desktop windows, materialized in Windows 10.

But, while Windows was undergoing its most traumatic changes in decades, most Windows users didn’t skip a beat. We all had Windows 7 to hold on to. The crazy changes in Windows 8 didn’t matter. In fact, most people skipped Windows 8 and went straight to Windows 10.

So Why Do We Recommend Upgrading?

We could reminisce about Windows 7 endlessly, and we’ll remember it fondly. But, despite all that, we still recommend leaving Windows 7 behind after Microsoft axes it.

If you want to keep using Windows, you should upgrade to Windows 10. Security updates are essential to staying safe online, and Windows 10 is getting them while Windows 7 isn’t. Many flaws found in Windows 10 will also apply to Windows 7. Attackers will hear about them and can start attacking those vulnerable Windows 7 systems. As more time goes by, more unpatched, known flaws will exist in Windows 7 for exploiting.

Hardware manufacturers are also supporting Windows 10 instead of Windows 7. This will only get truer after the end-of-support date. Even software companies will one day stop releasing new versions of their web browsers and other software for Windows 7.

While it’s easy to focus on the negatives with Windows 10, there are many positives. A lot of under-the-hood work has gone into making Windows 10 (and Windows 8 before it) more secure and speedy. For example, if you have an older CPU, it’ll perform better on Windows 10 than Windows 7 thanks to more optimized patches for the Spectre flaw on this more modern operating system.

Windows 10 has basically the same hardware requirements as Windows 7 and will work on your existing computer.

You Don’t Have to Use Windows 10

And, if you don’t want to keep using Windows, you have more options than ever! From Macs to Chromebooks to iPads to desktop Linux, there are so many solid computing platforms out there. With the web being more important than ever, platforms like Chrome OS and Linux are very usable.

Yes, you can run Chrome (or Firefox) and do everything Chrome (or Firefox) does on Linux, including watching Netflix and other streaming services.

We’re not trying to sell you on Windows 10 here—we just think it’s time Windows 7 users upgraded to a modern platform that’s supported with security patches and optimized for use with the latest hardware. It’s 2020, and Windows 7’s era has come to an end.

If you do want to upgrade to Windows 10, however, you can still get Windows 10 for free on a Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC. We don’t know if Microsoft will end this offer after the company officially ends support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020."

Read the details and a lot of related hot links in the full article here: https://www.howtogeek.com/469859/rip-windows-7-were-going-to-miss-you/

[markandkim]

Not going to miss any windows version.

[Pieere]

I use the windows 7 style as the startup menu! The Classic Shell has it as a download option! Hope it is always available on computers as it is my 31 preference.

 

[charles dale]

I am still using windows 7 on my pc since 2014 without even single formatting and its still works like butter