More people started using Windows 7 last month

[lazer]

Maybe the unfamous win10 October update released in December has something to do with this trend. People are sick with the malware as a service doing business as usual. Others who appreciate it are just blind to the obvious for business or personal reasons.
I will never use win10 in the current form so after win7 is EOL next year I will upgrade to win8.1 with a few tweaks for UI and safety. My dilemma is that my new Ryzen/Radeon RX build has no drivers for win8.1 courtesy of AMD, so I have to mess with installing in compatibility mode or instead I have to keep my ol' Haswell/Maxwell build which is barely fast enough.

I had win8 on my computer: TERRIBLE, deleted it and put on win7. I do NOT update it and do not visit sites that have malware and have antivirus too. I like win7, hated win8 and won't use win10. recommend that you go in this direction too.....

 

[cliffordcooley]

Will any law firm have the balls to file it?

With fear over loosing their license after taking so many years getting it. I doubt it.

 

[gamingberry]

- better mouse input with correct translation
- 0 accel

I knew I wasn't going crazy with Windows 10 and poor mouse behaviour! Care to share any links about what's the culprit or how one might try and go mitigate it?

 

[trparky]

I do NOT update it and do not visit sites that have malware and have antivirus too.

The thing is you don't even have to visit a specific site that has malware, all you have to do is hit a site at the wrong time that's serving up an infected ad and boom... you're infected from here to next Tuesday. I've seen it happen all too often. You could go to the NYTimes site tomorrow, get an ad served up, and oh crap...

Operating system and browser patches are the first line of defense against being infected, all it takes is something to exploit the browser, break out of the sandbox, exploit the kernel and you're p0wned. People who attend Blackhat, the hacker convention in Las Vegas, tend to take great pleasure in finding exploits since there's prize money on the line but not everyone goes the right route in reporting them that way. Others want to laugh like Nero while Rome burns just because they're sadistic like that. Unfortunately there's far more sadistic hackers of the world than good ones that find exploits and report them.

As for taking media with me? How am I supposed to do that if I own the media on DVDs? Take a portable DVD player with me? Remember, DVDs are encrypted and even though there are tools to crack the encryption they're very much illegal to use in the US (and pretty much everywhere else in the world).

 

[Bats Dude]

Once again MS shows just how greedy their fat little worthless fingers actually are! Win 7 usage rises and greedy MS raises the support cost for it's alleged "security" which is, and always has been: nonexistent! My wifi on-off switch hasn't worked since the last time I allowed MS updates, which I will NEVER allow again! How about some Win 10 non security? MS showed they are as data farming greedy as Googoo when they came out with Win 10 which I will NEVER allow on my E6530! An OS with blatant security collection 'rules' which most people do not even know they are running, let alone block! Screw MS. Go Linux!!!

 

[captaincranky]

The thing is you don't even have to visit a specific site that has malware, all you have to do is hit a site at the wrong time that's serving up an infected ad and boom... you're infected from here to next Tuesday. I've seen it happen all too often. You could go to the NYTimes site tomorrow, get an ad served up, and oh crap...

Have you ever heard of ad blockers? Have you ever heard of script blockers? Because the way you're running on, it would seem not..

Operating system and browser patches are the first line of defense against being infected, all it takes is something to exploit the browser, break out of the sandbox, exploit the kernel and you're p0wned. People who attend Blackhat, the hacker convention in Las Vegas, tend to take great pleasure in finding exploits since there's prize money on the line but not everyone goes the right route in reporting them that way. Others want to laugh like Nero while Rome burns just because they're sadistic like that. Unfortunately there's far more sadistic hackers of the world than good ones that find exploits and report them.

Oh look, a new malady brought on by acute and chronic internet overdose, "black hat hacker envy". Better jump in the closet and suck your thumb dude, because they're coming for ya. They're going to steal your precious data. The internet sky is falling, quick put on your tinfoil hat and slam that closet door shut.

As for taking media with me? How am I supposed to do that if I own the media on DVDs? Take a portable DVD player with me? Remember, DVDs are encrypted and even though there are tools to crack the encryption they're very much illegal to use in the US (and pretty much everywhere else in the world).

You know it all, you figure it out.

Anybody that would post anything this naive and stupid on a supposedly savvy tech oriented forum either: 1: Shouldn't be here. 2: Works for the FBI. Or 3: (my favorite), is in desperate need of attention and is simply looking for an argument.

 

[wiyosaya]

Operating system and browser patches are the first line of defense against being infected, all it takes is something to exploit the browser, break out of the sandbox, exploit the kernel and you're p0wned.

When OS patches make a PC unusable, as many have reported that various Win 10 updates have and as I have experienced myself, SEVERAL TIMES, with Win 10 updates, the updates are in some ways worse than any hacker attack.

Why are they worse? In part, it is because these updates are thought to be "trusted," and the other part deals with what it takes to get out of the mess. For me, getting out of a update is an image backup before I preform a Windows Update - and if the update p0wns my PC, its image restore time - and a big middle finger lift to M$ - as well as an angry bug report to M$.

There are strategies that are recommended practice, and IMO, work well to reduce the risk of infection. I am sure it depends on who you follow, but these 10 practices at TechRepublic https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-ways-to-avoid-viruses-and-spyware/ do not include OS or browser updates.

Of those practices at the link, I have been practicing 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 for years, and I have recently implemented 10 for my entire network. Following these guidelines, fortunately, I've never gotten a virus in my 20+ years of internet use.

OS/software updates are the lowest on my list of priorities for "internet safety."

 

[trparky]

Win 7 usage rises and greedy MS raises the support cost for it's alleged "security" which is!

Do you really expect Microsoft to maintain a nearly ten year old OS with no payment? Please. They are a business after all and have a duty to their shareholders, a fiduciary duty, to make money and profits. It's just business, it's nothing personal.

Anybody that would post anything this naive and stupid on a supposedly savvy tech oriented forum either: 1: Shouldn't be here. 2: Works for the FBI. Or 3: (my favorite), is in desperate need of attention and is simply looking for an argument.

No, I simply choose to stay on the right side of the law. Since AT&T and Charter/Spectrum are the only two ISP choices that I have my area and I refuse to give one red cent to Charter/Spectrum I don't want to risk having a DMCA notice sent to me. So I buy my media like you should, stream media like you should, and not steal stuff even if I think I should have the right to do so because you know... stuff.

When OS patches make a PC unusable, as many have reported that various Win 10 updates have and as I have experienced myself, SEVERAL TIMES, with Win 10 updates, the updates are in some ways worse than any hacker attack.

I've never had any issues with any Windows 10 patches on any of the six machines that I service in my own home or any of the systems that I help maintain for friends and family.

 

[captaincranky]

Do you really expect Microsoft to maintain a nearly ten year old OS with no payment? Please. They are a business after all and have a duty to their shareholders, a fiduciary duty, to make money and profits. It's just business, it's nothing personal.

I don't give a flying booger what M$ does, or how much money it wants to bleed out of the public.

I don't expect them to support a 10 year old OSD. In fact, I expect to buy any OS or component, have it work right off the bat, including video card drivers, and not be bothered with it, (or you) again.

You sound more and more like a M$ shill each and every time you post.

As for your fear of copying media which you have bought and paid for, it is legal to make a backup of that media.

Unfortunately, it is illegal to circumvent any copyright protection which may be extant in said medium. Now, I'm hoping that will be enough of a quandary to make your poor little programmed by M$, the RIAA, and MPAA monopolies head to explode, and I'll be done with you.

If you'\re really that infatuated will following each and every rule to the letter, you should move to Great Britain. There, you can't even make a "mixed tape" legally with music you have purchased from iTunes.

That should give you great comfort in knowing the only safe and real place for your media, (which you purchase with YOUR money), is on that one Windows 10 machine you have thoroughly locked down, and appears to be the god you pray to.

 

[wiyosaya]

I've never had any issues with any Windows 10 patches on any of the six machines that I service in my own home or any of the systems that I help maintain for friends and family.

That may be your experience, however, it is not everyone's experience; regardless of either of our experiences, regularly updating an OS is not an absolute necessity to implement and maintain an environment that is hardened against attack.

 

[Vomit]

It's a shame for me personally because I have a system that cannot run Windows 10 despite meeting the basic requirements.

I recently acquired a 2010 era Asus gaming laptop from a friend. It runs Windows 7 just fine, but unfortunately, Asus has not updated the vendor specific Radeon drivers since 2010. You'd think I could use the generic AMD Crimson or Catalyst drivers for the device, but they aren't compatible with each other and cause blue screens.

The solution? Go back to Windows 7 with working drivers or use Windows 10 without any Radeon graphics drivers. Obviously the last option is unacceptable for a gaming system, so I have to stick Windows 7 and the laptop's vendor specific drivers.

That's my dilema. I have a 2500K and a MSI Board that doesn't support Win10. I installed Win10 and I only had access to the 2x SATA III ports and the 4x SATA II ports were a no go. I have 5 HDD on my machine so that leaves me with no choice but to stick with Win7. It's stupid and it sucks because I am willing to go Win10, hell I work and support Win10 as an Analyst, yet my board doesn't support Win10 even with Win8 drivers installed. Another co-worker of mine just so happens to have the same combo CPU+MOBO as I do and he doesn't have this issue but I can't get mine to function like his.

likely a setting in your bios differs to his, I had 2 sata ports that didnt work until I changed them to ahci mode in the bios, now they all work.

 

[captaincranky]

likely a setting in your bios differs to his, I had 2 sata ports that didnt work until I changed them to ahci mode in the bios, now they all work.

A RAID array notwithstanding, how else would you expect to run SATA 3 other than in "achi" (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode?

 

[Dimitrios]

I will be switching to W10 once more than 50% - 70% of games require DX12. I still have an old PC I built with W7 OEM with a Phenom 965BE @ 4.2GHZ, 8GB RAM, RX560 4GB, and the PC idles around 800---900MB RAM in TASK MANAGER. Never recalled a BLUE SCREEN, but sadly won't run FARCRY 5 due from the developers not patching SSE 4.1 or whatever it is. Other games patched it and you can play on medium-high settings. Plenty of YOUTUBE video's of the Phenom x 4 and 6 core still holding good FPS.

Funny part is that I was thinking W10 and DX12 will be a no brainer and matured by now but after seeing STEAM users complaining and even W10 sucking at old games I'm still holding back.

 

[cliffordcooley]

other than in "achi" (Advanced Host Controller Interface) mode?

They did initial the phrase correctly.

 

[captaincranky]

They did initial the phrase correctly.

I just didn't want anybody to think I spelled "achoo" incorrectly.

I am a bit confused as to what else you would set the drive mode to in 2019?

 

[Thrackerzod]

Win 7 usage rises and greedy MS raises the support cost for it's alleged "security" which is!

Do you really expect Microsoft to maintain a nearly ten year old OS with no payment? Please. They are a business after all and have a duty to their shareholders, a fiduciary duty, to make money and profits. It's just business, it's nothing personal.

Is that not precisely what they are doing with Windows 10? They said it is the last version of Windows and is supposed to be updated forever. A person who bought Windows 10 upon release should still be getting updates for it ten years from now without paying another cent. That is what Microsoft promised after all.

 

[Danny101]

Is that not precisely what they are doing with Windows 10? They said it is the last version of Windows and is supposed to be updated forever. A person who bought Windows 10 upon release should still be getting updates for it ten years from now without paying another cent. That is what Microsoft promised after all.

Even though Microsoft says Windows 10 is their last OS, it has happened that some old hardware aren't getting updated to newer builds.

 

[captaincranky]

Even though Microsoft says Windows 10 is their last OS, it has happened that some old hardware aren't getting updated to newer builds.

What that is, is manufacturers introducing planned obsolescence using M$ as a proxy.

M$, Intel, and AMD all put their heads together, and announced, "all new boards and CPUs will only be fully compatible with Windows 10". It;s quite logical to suggest that M$ won't bother to test newer builds of Windows 10 to insure it will work with older hardware. "Quid Pro Quo", what else could you call it.

But wait, there's more. With Intel, AMD, and M$ all in on the hoax, or ripoff, call it what you will, they become a mega-monopoly, Ir's one of them "smoky back room good old boy conspiracies", that everybody talks about, but like the weather, nobody can do anything about it.

The ravaging of the customer's wallet, will soon be proceeding on a grand scale, with Windows new, "simplified error message reporting". While it seems, (even to people here), that M$ is doing the user a grandiose favor, what it means is, that with a error message available to indicate, "a program on your computer is incompatible with the version of Windows, so remove it", M$ will no longer have to work to make Windows 10 compatible with older programs, saving them time, and money, and handing the bill for new programs directly to to the consumer.

They save money and time in R & D, then hand a bill for work they couldn't be bothered doing on top of the monies they've already pocketed, to you.

 

[veLa]

Did you really expect AMD to support a nine year old graphics card? If you asked AMD they'd probably laugh at you.

No reason to be a total turd about this, dude. At no point did I ever say I expected AMD to support products for 9 years. I just hoped that the generic drivers provided would be compatible with my system.

I'll also add that in addition to the ASUS vendor drivers for Windows 7, AMD does offer generic graphics drivers Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1, and Windows 10 for this particular card. This includes the last version of Catalyst all the way up to a 2016 beta version of Crimson.

So yeah, your point is null since 9 years later, there are supported drivers for the latest OS that happen to be incompatible with my vendor's particular implementation of the Radeon graphics card. See the quote below for why they aren't compatible.

Unfortunately the OEM is responsible for updating graphics drivers as laptops are typically custom solutions. This is the way Nvidia and AMD have had to do mobile for a long time now. Although it won't affect you, AMD did recently announce that it is working with OEMs to improve the amount of driver updates there will be for laptops using Radeon products..

You're absolute correct here. Each vendor has the freedom to implement the ICP to their own standards, which can result in a lack of updated drivers for the end user when the vendor, frankly, forgets about their older products.

I'll add that I've had much more luck, in regards to drivers, with mobile NVIDIA cards than with mobile AMD cards, but both brands have their occasional drivers quirks regardless of the particular adapter a user is utilizing.

That's my dilema. I have a 2500K and a MSI Board that doesn't support Win10. I installed Win10 and I only had access to the 2x SATA III ports and the 4x SATA II ports were a no go. I have 5 HDD on my machine so that leaves me with no choice but to stick with Win7. It's stupid and it sucks because I am willing to go Win10, hell I work and support Win10 as an Analyst, yet my board doesn't support Win10 even with Win8 drivers installed. Another co-worker of mine just so happens to have the same combo CPU+MOBO as I do and he doesn't have this issue but I can't get mine to function like his.

I'm grateful that at least one person feels my pain here. I'm not sure if MSI's website is similar, but with ASUS's website they have "ASUS recommends Windows 10 Pro" plastered all over the driver download page, but like I said, there aren't any vendor specific Windows 10 drivers for this older system. That, in addition to Microsoft's claim that all Windows 7 systems are compatible with Windows 10, drives me batty!

In your particular case, I did see that somebody replied and said it might be a BIOS setting. I'm sure you've traversed your board's settings back and forth dozens of times, but it might be worth looking into.

You can try and determine the specific adapter model and only install the the driver for that specific model and stay away from the catalyst manager package. Also, you can try installing it in compatibility mode allowing windows compatibility manager which basically uses the Windows 7 driver but wrapped inside a compatibility manager.

Simply put, I will have to look into this, but I did just get Windows 7 up and running again after a week or so of on-and-off troubleshooting.

 

[trparky]

I just hoped that the generic drivers provided would be compatible with my system.

You wouldn't want to run with generic drivers, they're pretty much only there to give you a picture on the monitor so you can go get the real stuff from the manufacturer.

So yeah, your point is null since 9 years later, there are supported drivers for the latest OS that happen to be incompatible with my vendor's particular implementation of the Radeon graphics card. See the quote below for why they aren't compatible.

OK, so you have working drivers but if you game at all you're really missing out. Both AMD and nVidia come out with new drivers on a semi-regular schedule, sometimes every month. Many times those new drivers fix bugs with their own stuff but also they come with performance fixes for games. If you play games and you don't have the latest drivers then you're really missing out on driver-level performance fixes.