I thought Windows 7 would be insecure now?

[atikovi]

Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.

 

[Pew]

I still have a couple XP systems at work when we have to access our old accounting database. Those things are a pain to look at.

 

[slo town]

Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.

I have an old XP system that I use to convert 35mm slides into digital format. Whenever I use this system I connect to the internet only when necessary. Your Wndows 7 machine is safe when there's no internet access, but that doesn't mean that it hasn't been previously infected. Other than using it to convert my slides, I don't use it for any "official" business.

Scott

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.


WIS should work just fine (not sure about the others) as we did all the workstations at the local Mercedes dealer and all the software works with 10 including WIS, EVA...etc.

I'd expect almost all software that runs on 7 to work on 10, I've got dental software that was originally installed on Windows 98 working on it for example.

 

[Hall]

Originally Posted by SLO_Town
I have an old XP system that I use to convert 35mm slides into digital format. Whenever I use this system I connect to the internet only when necessary.

"only when necessary" isn't keeping it safe. It's admittedly a luck of the draw (for you and/or for the exploiter) but in the right circumstances, no amount of time is "safe".

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.

Even if you use compatibility mode?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUJjuft2yN8

 

[Wolf359]

Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.


I have WIS/EPC, it works fine on Windows 10.

 

[nthach]

There are companies - mostly banks, hospitals and governments paying Microsoft for extended support on Windows 7. Bank of America and Chase are still running W7 on their endpoints. It's not your endpoint protection against malware but the updates to the OS that are more important. One of the local heathcare/hospital systems just upgraded to W10 last year - they were still holding out on XP. It looked like pushing out a new image to their newer HPs and replacing the rest in the hospitals.

Lots of ATMs, POS systems and even on-board equipment on buses/trains for ITS are running W7 Embedded. I've seen W7 boot up on a Clever Devices in-bus MDT/AVL/CAD system. There are still POS systems, mostly smaller ones in restaurants running XP. You'd think Oracle would push Linux on their Micros POS systems since their hospitality and XStore specialty mall retail POS front-end is a Java app.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted by atikovi
But I have Microsoft Security Essentials and it's still showing as system being protected. Everybody said once support ended a few weeks ago, W7 would be unsafe to use.


A really great question!

They are continuing to maintain support and updates to Microsoft Security Essentials(Win 7 product only) despite End of Life for Windows itself. Basically the virus level stuff will continue to be updated by Microsoft however moving forward since Jan 2019 they no longer will patch or maintain Windows itself if a security or vulnerability happens.

If it were me I'd make sure your key data is backed up or in cloud and not use your computer for stuff like banking online or other financial critical stuff. Surfing BITOG or selling cars like you do likely fine.

Think if someone walked off with the outdated computer and knew the password I would not leave any information you care about on it. It is fair game now.

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by nthach
There are companies


DOS, System/360, AS400, OS/2 and a variety of monolithic antiques still reside in many companies, up until 4 years ago our lube rack was NT3.1

It's unfortunate we need to break what works

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703

It's unfortunate we need to break what works

Yep - but in those cases you have to be very savvy with the terminal and how non-Microsoft operating systems work to wreak havoc - granted there are more exploits for Mac and iOS but that comes with market share and Apple tends to a good job playing cat & mouse.

Costco and Walmart are still using AS400-based systems especially for POS. It's worked for them and IBM/Toshiba are in it for the long run with them.

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all. I loved Windows 7 and waited until the end to update to WIN10. I remember the early adopters hating it and even installing apps. to make 10 look and act like 7.

At least on my computer, 10 does seem to be a tiny bit more fickle and seems to take a few more seconds to "think" when navigating. I.E., something simple like opening Outlook seems to take a few more seconds to get started. It sometimes takes a few more clicks to get somewhere and/or you wonder what they were thinking with some features. Just a mild annoyance. I'm no computer genius and 10 was not difficult to adapt to.


I've mentioned this before on here I think, but I found W10 to be much quicker to find what I'm looking for following this method:

1. Depress physical "Windows" icon key on your keyboard

2. Type what you want

From programs to pictures to specific windows panels, such as the 'Control Panel', I found everything to pop up much faster than W7.

//

I was an early-adopter and found W10 to be SO similar to W7 that posts saying they NEEDED apps to make their W10 build look and operate like their previous W7 build made me chuckle. Holding out on the free W10 update did and still does seem utterly foolish to me. If you have a program that won't run on W10, the compatibility monitor will say so and THEN you can make your mind up about whether to upgrade. For me, I didn't have many old, old programs to begin with, and all of my old games (circa Vista) still work flawlessly.

My wife had W8 and W8.1 before we updated it to W10 and THAT OS definitely needed some apps, especially before 8.1 was rolled out! Goodbye forever, CHARMS!

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by atikovi
But I have Microsoft Security Essentials and it's still showing as system being protected. Everybody said once support ended a few weeks ago, W7 would be unsafe to use.


If (when) there is an exploit into the OS discovered by the world's tech-savvy miscreants and ne'er-do-wells, and Microsoft does nothing to patch it, an intruder could compromise your system in myriad ways not considered a "virus" and therefore not detected by anti-virus software. Securing a computer goes WAY deeper than ensuring there is a piece of software monitoring that .exe file your kid downloaded for viruses.

It would be very, very smart to update your system to Win10. If your uses are pretty pedestrian and you care about privacy, stability, security and ease-of-use and enjoy keeping all of your money then maybe consider a user-friendly form of Linux like Ubuntu or Mint. If you care about privacy, stability, security and ease-of-use and enjoy parting with a lot of money and being told what to do with your devices then maybe consider a Mac.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted by atikovi
But I have Microsoft Security Essentials and it's still showing as system being protected. Everybody said once support ended a few weeks ago, W7 would be unsafe to use.

Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by doitmyself
Atikovi, the upgrade to 10 is not painful at all.


Unless you have programs that won't work with it. Mercedes WIS, Volvo Vadis, VW/Audi ELSAWin, etc.


If this is your "work-on-cars" laptop/machine, disable the wifi , don't connect it EVER to the "net", and (!!!) make sure you have backed up the whole system so you can restore it at any time.

If not, get a cheap Thinkpad, and do exactly ^^^

 

[John_Conrad]

i appreciate this thread, i'm not computer savvy at all, so i am going to upgrade old laptop with w7 to windows 10........

adding to this though, this w7 machine is still receiving updates. ?
not sure what those are, can someone explain what i may be getting, hopefully before its too late.

I use this laptop to mainly get on a few forums, watch amazon prime old movies etc and order a few things from amazon too, which I think is a risk for my account information.

hammer away, i learn at the school of hard knocks

 

[mbacfp]

I just upgraded mine and my Window 7 license carried over to Windows 10. Appreciate the info in this thread...saved me some money.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Originally Posted by John_Conrad
adding to this though, this w7 machine is still receiving updates. ?
not sure what those are, can someone explain what i may be getting, hopefully before its too late.

There are components of your system that could still be receiving updates; notably the anti-virus and the some Microsoft applications (eg. Microsoft Office versions that still support Windows 7).
Keep in mind, too, that the non-Microsoft applications (eg. Adobe Acrobat Reader) you have installed ought to still receive updates individually until those developers choose to stop supporting Windows 7.

 

[John_Conrad]

thanks again

 

[gathermewool]

Originally Posted by uc50ic4more
Originally Posted by John_Conrad
adding to this though, this w7 machine is still receiving updates. ?
not sure what those are, can someone explain what i may be getting, hopefully before its too late.

There are components of your system that could still be receiving updates; notably the anti-virus and the some Microsoft applications (eg. Microsoft Office versions that still support Windows 7).
Keep in mind, too, that the non-Microsoft applications (eg. Adobe Acrobat Reader) you have installed ought to still receive updates individually until those developers choose to stop supporting Windows 7.


This, Windows Update has done a pretty good job over the past 5+ years of including as much as possible in its updates, including some drivers.

Like W7, many programs eventually lose support due to lack of market share or difficulty for the manufacturer to maintain updates for too many versions of the same program.

For me, I've been getting warnings since the end of last year that support for my MS Office 2010 suite of programs will run out soon, if it hasn't run out already. That means I won't see any updates for it in Windows Update in the future, though I'll still receive many others for W10 itself.