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quote:
"There is a relatively old—though still fundamentally true—adage about Windows: Microsoft's biggest competition is Microsoft,
as a specific subset of users (and businesses) only upgrade to the latest version of Windows kicking and screaming."
No support means no more security fixes. Security fixes are the thing that keeps hackers out of your computer. There are nasty, automated viruses that can take over your machine and hold it ransom. Security fixes are the best protection you have from those. Anyone who ignores security patches is playing with fire.
I also prefer Win 7 but my machine that has Win 7 on it is getting weird - unexplained crashes, hard disk space disappearing etc so I have to get a new machine, which only come with Win 10.
I just assume that a new OS follows along with new hardware. I could never stand to pay retail for Windows as that $120 is quite a discount on a new PC. Obviously, over time, your old machine breaks or you run into driver issues / API issues when replacing external hardware, expansion cards, or applications.
But then, I just assume that the average person probably just needs a Chromebook. If I were to buy a 'new' Win10 machine, I'd probably just get an old Thinkpad on eBay. All bets would be off in the case of needing a great big loud workstation for some reason.
quote:
"There is a relatively old—though still fundamentally true—adage about Windows: Microsoft's biggest competition is Microsoft,
as a specific subset of users (and businesses) only upgrade to the latest version of Windows kicking and screaming."
Just like some people had to be dragged kicking and screaming to buy cars with power windows. Or give up landlines. Or cut the cable cord.
Anyone think that MS will quietly extend Win7 security updates past the deadline?
Not on a continuous basis. But they have released patches for unsupported OSs if they are critical enough. Wannacry was an example as well as the recent RDP vulnerability - patches were created for XP and 2003.
I'm not going to tell anyone they "need" to have supported software. But it's certainly a best practice from a information security perspective. The exception would be if you have compensating controls.
I get that paying for a new version of Windows is a bit of an investment. But I guess one has to weigh that cost to the potential of having your system breached. For most businesses, that's not really an option.
I don't know how many people here would choose do business with banks or medical facilities that are primarily using unsupported platforms.
Realistically, businesses may have legacy systems that they simply cannot upgrade for now or is not worth the cost.
I even had to pay for a restore back to factory mode CD.
That isn't the fault of of MS, the manufacture of the computer is responsible for providing you with the tools to restore it to factory defaults. There is usually a restore partition on the drive that should be copied to disc/USB in case of drive failure. There is multiple other options for this from MS or third parties to create your own restoration media. Worse case is you can download a copy of windows 10 from MS and install it, it should activate however it will not include any software the manufacture of the computer included. I actually prefer this as it's easy way to wipe out all the crap they install.
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