windows 7 end of support

[scotia]

I have just received an on-line notification from Microsoft that states that Windows 7 support ceases in January 2020. I spurned the free update to Windows 10 on this PC, although I allowed it to update a second PC - which it carried out smoothly. My reason for continuing with Windows 7 was my clients were still using Windows 7. The free update to Windows 10 is now no longer available, and surprisingly Microsoft are no longer suggesting that you should purchase a software update to Windows 10 - rather they are strongly suggesting that you buy a new PC with Windows 10 installed. I'm a bit puzzled by this suggestion - since I was not aware of any major problems with their free update. I watched David Attenborough last night suggesting measures we could take to ameliorate Global Warming - and one of the suggestions was that we should not casually discard equipment (which uses energy to create) - and yet Microsoft seem to be proposing the opposite. My experience with my other updated PC suggests that Windows 10 would work perfectly satisfactorily on a large number of PCs currently running Windows 7. I appreciate that they may not wish to expend resources to support Windows 7 - but if they care for the planet then it would make much more sense to permit a free update to Windows 10. Since they probably make very little profit on installations on new PCs, even a minor charge for an update would not harm them financially.

[Lanark]

You may still be able to get the free upgrade
https://windowsreport.com/windows-10-free-upgrade-2018/

They dont advertise it any more, but I dont think they have blocked genuine W7 registration keys from working with Windows 10.

If they did then any W7 user who upgraded years ago and now needed to re-install would find themselves locked out.

and if it doesnt work you can always install Linux

[Breelander]

I have just received an on-line notification from Microsoft that states that Windows 7 support ceases in January 2020. I spurned the free update to Windows 10 on this PC....

They dont advertise it any more, but I dont think they have blocked genuine W7 registration keys from working with Windows 10...

Nor do they block upgrading your existing Windows 7 to Windows 10. I can confirm that if you download the install media from Microsoft and use it to upgrade a Windows 7 PC it will upgrade, keeping all your installed apps and files, and Windows 10 will be activated with a digital licence.

On the Win7 PC, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/softwar ... /windows10 and click the 'download tool now' button. This will download the Media Creation Tool. Run the MCT and select 'Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD or ISO file) for another PC'. Use the 'recommended options for this PC'. For a W7 machine, as W7 cannot natively mount an ISO the most convenient option is to make a USB. Then from within Windows 7 run the Setup.exe you'll find on the root of the USB to begin the upgrade. Remember to remove the USB when it says it is about to reboot, you need to boot from the PC's HDD to complete the upgrade.

[Breelander]

PS: If on the other hand you (or others) want to keep using Windows 7, but would prefer not to get the 'nagging' about end of life, then uninstal (then hide) the KB4493132 update.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/hel ... -kb4493132

[scotia]

Breelander & Lanark - many thanks for your responses. I think I'll give the update a try.
But I remain puzzled as to why Microsoft are strongly urging Windows 7 users to buy a new PC with Windows 10 installed!
Maybe there were a number of older PCs that had problems with their free update, and they don't want their resources dissipated in attempting to rectify odd configurations in an unprofitable manner.

[production100]

Unfortunately, in my experience, Windows 10 is still full of bugs. Particularly around the networking area. Networking pc's is sometimes a nightmare and sometimes very simple. It seems to depend on luck of the draw. File Explorer seems to be particularly problematic with networking, sometimes showing the networked pc's and sometimes not, and often refusing to connect to a particular pc even though you can map the drive on the pc without a problem. I even have one pc where it will see another pc on the network, see one of it's drives but refuse to see the other drive. Permissions and security are the same on both drives...

So by all means upgrade - many of Windows 10 features are excellent - but if you use networking expect to have problems and count yourself lucky if you do not.

As for updates stopping Office 2019 outlook emails from sending emails with an attachment, that is another saga of bugs and problems. Each time one pc updates I have to reinstall the pc from scratch to get it to work. Sometimes that works and sometimes it does not. All other pc's with the exact same settings, same software etc work each time without problem.

Windows 7 just worked; Windows 10 sometimes works.

Excuse my frustrated post. Have just had to completely reinstall everything on the pc with outlook again. - even reinstalling the backup and redoing the update did not work.

P100

[Breelander]

... I remain puzzled as to why Microsoft are strongly urging Windows 7 users to buy a new PC with Windows 10 installed!

Microsoft want you to experience the full range of new features Windows 10 has to offer, there are a few that older machines won't support. For example, Miracast that allows you to project wirelessly to your PC from your phone or another PC. Your view and Microsoft's on what is a 'must have' feature may differ

[ReformedCharacter]

Windows 7 just worked; Windows 10 sometimes works.

Excuse my frustrated post. Have just had to completely reinstall everything on the pc with outlook again. - even reinstalling the backup and redoing the update did not work.

P100

I like Win 7 a lot but my - albeit limited - experience with Win 10 has put me off using it. A pity really since I've been using MS products since DOS 3.x. I decided to give Linux a go and have been very happy with Debian for the last 18 months or so. Compared with Win 10 updates are pain free. I get a notification that updates are available every few months and then when convenient I let them happen. About 90 seconds later they're all done. I do still use Win 7 courtesy of VirtualBox but only because I still use Excel and sometimes do some programming for Windows.

RC

[bungeejumper]

I like Win 7 a lot but my - albeit limited - experience with Win 10 has put me off using it. A pity really since I've been using MS products since DOS 3.x.

Me too, but I've had to agree that Windoze 10 has indeed sorted a fair number of the transitional problems that used to plague people who were upgrading from Win 7. My wife's 10 year old Acer is still doing a decent job with Win 10, including running a suite of Microsoft Office products from 2003 - but the problem is that the general profusion of fatware has slowed it down quite a bit. Everything works eventually, if you're patient.

Despite myself, I think the clock is probably running out on ten year old computers, and not just because their hard disks are living on borrowed time. If it helps, I recently bought a display model of a Dell Inspiron 3268 recently for £199, with eight gigs and an Intel i5 processor, and it's triffic. I am old enough to remember when a reasonably current computer would cost four months' salary. And that was without software!


BJ

[jfgw]

I think the clock is probably running out on ten year old computers, and not just because their hard disks are living on borrowed time.

The largest SSD on my 20-odd year old computer is only a few months old so I don't expect it to fail any time soon. I have a couple of older SSDs but they are only about a couple of years old. The motherboard is probably a little over 10 years old and i expect its solid capacitors to hold out for some time yet. I see no reason why it shouldn't last a few more decades with occasional upgrades.

Julian F. G. W.

[scotia]

Its not the cost that bothers me about buying a new PC - its getting the new PC to work as seamlessly with the same well loved software that I have currently running on my Windows 7 PC. OK - I know it can be done, but it involves a lot of effort. And there is also a little bit of me saying - why throw away a perfectly good PC - even if it is 9 years old.
The end of life of Windows 7 introduces potential security problems, hence my reason for contemplating an update. I think that Windows 7 has been one of the most stable Windows products, and, as has been remarked, I also have found some networking idiosyncrasies with Windows 10 on another PC. But long term I'll need to move if security is an issue.

[jfgw]

Its not the cost that bothers me about buying a new PC - its getting the new PC to work as seamlessly with the same well loved software that I have currently running on my Windows 7 PC.

That and hardware.

When I upgraded to 64 bit, with a bit of effort and an old Vista disk, I got the SCSI card working that I need for my flatbed and slide scanners. My very high quality Lacie CRT monitor is analogue only. A new PC may well require the replacement of some otherwise perfectly good peripherals.

Julian F. G. W.

[Infrasonic]

Just a quick thing......it will delete everything on your pen drive.

Luckily, I had a back up from Monday, so I've only lost a couple of documents and will have to update a few entries on a spreadsheet....but that could have been a monumental pain.

Is there any particular reason you didn't want it password protected? One of the big issues with network sharing is ransomware, especially where writes are freely available.

W10 defender has a ransomware protection 'controlled folder access' facility which can mitigate that somewhat, whereby it will block certain access activity unless you whitelist it using the file path (allow an app through controlled folder access).
It's a bit clunky but event viewer has the relevant file paths and alert id's (1123) and then it's relatively straightforward to manually whitelist if needed.
In event viewer it's...Events and service logs/Microsoft/Windows/ Windows defender/operational

[Breelander]

It's a bit clunky but event viewer has the relevant file paths and alert id's (1123) and then it's relatively straightforward to manually whitelist if needed...

It's much easier in 1809. When you click on 'Add an allowed app' it offers you a list of recently blocked apps to choose from as well as letting you browse for an app. In the upcoming 1903 ransomware protection now has an additional option to show the blocked apps history.

[Infrasonic]

It's a bit clunky but event viewer has the relevant file paths and alert id's (1123) and then it's relatively straightforward to manually whitelist if needed...

It's much easier in 1809. When you click on 'Add an allowed app' it offers you a list of recently blocked apps to choose from as well as letting you browse for an app. In the upcoming 1903 ransomware protection now has an additional option to show the blocked apps history.

Thanks for that Bree.
I'm still not being offered 1809 (I've got the latest 1809 on an MCT USB flash drive) which is a bit weird as one of the other W10 machines I look after that is significantly older with lower hardware specs got 1809 via Windows Update a while back (no issues so far).
I'm being cautious on this machine in case there's a valid reason for not being offered 1809 via Windows Update.

[Breelander]

I'm still not being offered 1809 ...

As of March 2019 you have that in common with two thirds of the world's PCs, 66.3% are still on 1803. MS seem to have stopped pushing 1809...

it looks more and more likely that Microsoft seems to be giving up on it in favor of upgrading users straight to the next version. Out of more than 100,000 PCs surveyed, only 26.8% run the October 2018 Update or newer builds.

https://reports.adduplex.com/#/r/2019-03

[tsr2]

Just a quick thing......it will delete everything on your pen drive.

I tried it a couple of days ago and it warned me that it would wipe the pen drive. I know it's easy to skip over all the warnings, but it definitely says something like "you will lose all the data on your USB stick."

I now have Windows 10 on my dual boot Windows/Mint laptop and I'm cogitating whether to update my wife's laptop. She actually uses Windows most of the time. I'll probably buy her a new laptop this year anyway, but I'm not seeing any that I can spec up the way I want.

[Dod101]

I tried Bree's instructions in his post of 20 April some time ago and gave up because I ran out of time, so today, it being wet I have followed his guidance meticulously. I got the USB loaded and when trying to install on my PC, MS tells me that the upgrade cannot happen because the latest version of updates (1903?) will not allow with a USB stick attached and it asks me to download its contents to my hard drive which seems to not get me very far as that is the very thing I was trying to avoid surely?

The problem seems to be with a driver or drivers. Any bright ideas?

Dod

[Breelander]

I tried Bree's instructions in his post of 20 April some time ago and gave up because I ran out of time, so today, it being wet I have followed his guidance meticulously. I got the USB loaded and when trying to install on my PC, MS tells me that the upgrade cannot happen because the latest version of updates (1903?) will not allow with a USB stick attached and it asks me to download its contents to my hard drive which seems to not get me very far as that is the very thing I was trying to avoid surely?

The problem seems to be with a driver or drivers. Any bright ideas?

Dod

There is a known issue in build 18362.116 that will not allow you to do an in-place upgrade while a usb drive is attached. The Catch 22 is that your setup files are on a usb!

If you have an external USB device or SD memory card attached when installing Windows 10, version 1903, you may get an error message stating "This PC can't be upgraded to Windows 10." This is caused by inappropriate drive reassignment during installation.

Sample scenario: An update to Windows 10, version 1903 is attempted on a computer that has a thumb drive inserted into its USB port. Before the update, the thumb drive is mounted in the system as drive G based on the existing drive configuration. After the feature update is installed; however, the device is reassigned a different drive letter (e.g., drive H).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/window ... 442msgdesc

The workaround, if you have enough space, is to create a temporary folder (anywhere on your HDD will do) then copy the contents of the install usb to this folder. Remove the usb then run Setup from the temp folder and it will allow you to upgrade. You can delete the temp folder when done.

Alternatively, wait until the next cumulative update for 1903 is released, this is expected to fix this issue (at the latest, at 6pm UK time on 'Patch Tuesday', June 11th). Provided you are internet connected and let Setup check for updates as part of the upgrade (this is the default) then you should be able to upgrade using your usb.

[Dod101]

[Alternatively, wait until the next cumulative update for 1903 is released, this is expected to fix this issue (at the latest, at 6pm UK time on 'Patch Tuesday', June 11th). Provided you are internet connected and let Setup check for updates as part of the upgrade (this is the default) then you should be able to upgrade using your usb.

I am so very glad to hear that I am not being dim. I am in no great rush, just thought it would be good to give it a go. My W7 is working fine. I will wait.

Thanks for your ever helpful comments.

Dod