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Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on February 04, 2019, 10:36:13 AM

Title: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: Ben on February 04, 2019, 10:36:13 AM
Only a fraction of a percent, but after all this time, I thought it was interesting. Apparently some of it is people going from XP to 7. Still, Win 10 only has a ~40% user share, which is going to be interesting at Win7 EOL in less than a year.

https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-gains-users-but-so-does-windows-7-could-it-be-the-new-windows-xp
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: RocketMan on February 04, 2019, 01:28:33 PM
I've got a Windows 7 Pro laptop roughly four years old that I had upgraded to Windows 10 a year or two ago.  It got kind of kludgey after the upgrade, so I rolled it back to Windows 7.  I've been thinking about doing the free Windows 10 upgrade to it again (yes, there still is a free path if you are willing to look for it) since Win7 is going EOL.
The laptop I am using now is about 13 years old, one I upgraded to Win 10 when it first came out.  It's been pretty happy with Win 10 so far.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: Kingcreek on February 04, 2019, 01:51:19 PM
I’ve got 2 all in ones running 7 pro. Tried the W10 upgrade and it wasn’t smooth so reverted. Server is also 7pro. Other machines are running 10 and liking it but I might have to try upgrades again. Got some conflicting info about compatibility last time.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: BobR on February 04, 2019, 02:38:24 PM
I ended up with some kind of Mac thing and a Samsung windows laptop from my son so I am thinking about adding RAM and a SSD to it and then plugging in Win 10, right now it is a Win 7 of which I have 2 other laptops running that quite happily. I just want to play around with Win 10 now. My across the street neighbor is IT for a local company so he will load me up with whatever I want.

bob
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: zxcvbob on February 04, 2019, 03:07:22 PM
I've got a Windows 7 Pro laptop roughly four years old that I had upgraded to Windows 10 a year or two ago.  It got kind of kludgey after the upgrade, so I rolled it back to Windows 7.  I've been thinking about doing the free Windows 10 upgrade to it again (yes, there still is a free path if you are willing to look for it) since Win7 is going EOL.
The laptop I am using now is about 13 years old, one I upgraded to Win 10 when it first came out.  It's been pretty happy with Win 10 so far.

I'm getting ready to try the free win10 upgrade on my old laptop at work (company is phasing out win7 and making it increasingly difficult to stay "compliant" and be allowed on the network)  If the upgrade fails, I can get 10 install media from IT and do a clean install, I just want to see how the upgrade goes.

Not sure if I will upgrade my windows 7 desktop at home that I seldom use, it has printer and scanner drivers for hardware that I can't get to work in 10.  I may just block its access to the WAN at the router and the other LAN machines can use it as a server.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: lee n. field on February 04, 2019, 04:11:26 PM
Only a fraction of a percent, but after all this time, I thought it was interesting. Apparently some of it is people going from XP to 7. Still, Win 10 only has a ~40% user share, which is going to be interesting at Win7 EOL in less than a year.

https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-gains-users-but-so-does-windows-7-could-it-be-the-new-windows-xp

Yeah, just in time to hit end-of-life.   <sigh>.   We expect to be selling a lot of Win10 computers over the next year, and servers to go with them, to folks running Windows 7 and Server 08.,

What you run into past EOL is more than just no more MS security updates.  Vendors start stopping support for the old OS.   No new versions of Firefox, Chrome, and the various antiviruses.  I don't expect we'll see that with 7 for a while, but it's certainly a problem for the XP diehards, and those few running Vista.

I have a Win7 virtual on a desktop at home, that's there for a couple things for which it's either impossible, or greatly inconvenient, to run under Linux. I contemplate attempting the Win10 upgrade on that. Laptops that go with me dual boot Win10 and some Linux or other.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: Ben on February 04, 2019, 04:30:35 PM
Yeah, while I'm gonna hold out till EOL, at that time, I'll probably go to 10. I have it on my travel laptop, so can live with the GUI, but I really hate the way it updates.

By next year my current main laptop will be going on 6 years, so I'll be deciding if I'm going to do a 7/10 update or maybe getting a new laptop. I'd be happy to keep running 7 for years more, but lack of security updates is a no-go with me.

I'll keep at least one machine on it but off the Interwebz, because I have old work software I still dabble in that doesn't like 10. I actually do that right now with an old XP machine as well, for hooking up old hardware on a com port that won't run on one of those USB/COM dongles.

I dunno, I might try Linux as my main OS again at EOL. While I run it in VM, the last time I ran it as a main host, I was still finding some things too inconvenient and couldn't really get into Wine, though I probably didn't give it much of a chance. I just don't like dabbling in hardware/software stuff as much as I used to - I'm kinda becoming like an apple user in that regard.  :laugh:
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: Hawkmoon on February 04, 2019, 05:18:33 PM

What you run into past EOL is more than just no more MS security updates.  Vendors start stopping support for the old OS.   No new versions of Firefox, Chrome, and the various antiviruses.  I don't expect we'll see that with 7 for a while, but it's certainly a problem for the XP diehards, and those few running Vista.


Where that bit me is with a Sharp multi-function printer/copier/scanner. Works great with XP, but it was old enough even when Windows 7 came out that Sharp never provided any drivers for Windows 7. There's supposed to be a Vista driver for it that works with Win7 ... but it doesn't. I keep my oldest notebook computer with XP just to be able to use this machine on occasion.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: lee n. field on February 04, 2019, 07:22:46 PM
Where that bit me is with a Sharp multi-function printer/copier/scanner. Works great with XP, but it was old enough even when Windows 7 came out that Sharp never provided any drivers for Windows 7. There's supposed to be a Vista driver for it that works with Win7 ... but it doesn't. I keep my oldest notebook computer with XP just to be able to use this machine on occasion.

I had to set up an older HP laserjet for someone today.  2004 vintage, I think.   Current print driver for win7 through 10 was the "HP Universal Print Driver", which I really don't like working with.  I had to go back as far as Vista to find a standalone driver (that did in fact work with Win 10).
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: Hawkmoon on February 04, 2019, 07:33:47 PM
I used the HP Universal Printer Driver to get a LaserJet 1100 working with Windows 10. Unfortunately, Sharp doesn't seem to have an equivalent. And there's no way (that I could find) to spoof the UPD to mate up with the Sharp machine, even though Sharp reportedly uses HP Printer Control Language.
Title: Re: Windows 7 Users on the Rise
Post by: p12 on February 04, 2019, 08:23:00 PM
My Acer crashed on a W10 upgrade.

Installed a SSD and W10 fresh install. Updated drivers and been very happy.


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