Win7 SP2

[1001gear]

Hooray and read the label(s)

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/228779-microsoft-releases-unofficial-service-pack-for-windows-7

[nice keetee]

 

I'm stuck here at W7 because I have some hardware without drivers for W8 etc

 

{censored}stem/system works fine

[1001gear]

Win7 updates have been on stuck. It's been 20 minutes now. 100mb just finished coming down. Now phase 2 - waiting for Win Update to decide to install the ****.

[Phil O'Keefe]

Thanks for the tip... I'll see about (cautiously) trying to update it later tonight. I'll be reading everything very carefully, lest M$ put in a "we can turn on your PC and remotely install Win10 any time we feel like it and totally hose your finely-tuned DAW" message somewhere deep in the legalese.

[144dB]

I like Win7 a lot. It's not perfect, but it's a good stable platform and I have no desire to upgrade.

 

My employer is switching to Win 10 later in the year, which is a bit of a surprise, in that we are not early adopters and we usually hang onto an OS for ten years. But MS isn't supporting OSs like they used to, so we almost have no choice.

 

I would still love to see MS make a Science & Engineering edition, stripped down completely with no drivers, no bells and whistles, etc. Just the kernel and GUI. It would be great for DAWs and CAD.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I would still love to see MS make a Science & Engineering edition, stripped down completely with no drivers, no bells and whistles, etc. Just the kernel and GUI. It would be great for DAWs and CAD.

 

Wouldn't that be terrific? It will probably never happen, but I'd be all over it if they released something like that.

 

Of course, the science and engineering communities (beyond the smaller music engineering community) use Unix for a lot of things, and you can get fairly stripped down versions of that very easily.

[nat whilk II]

I wonder if anyone is successfully running Windows programs on Linux. Using something like Wine or VMware, etc? Anyone heard of someone doing this (without death-dealing performance hits and crashes, etc.)?

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

I think the biggest problem you'd run into there is the lack of drivers.

[*BLEEP*]

Hooray and read the label(s)

 

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/228779-microsoft-releases-unofficial-service-pack-for-windows-7

 

 

 

That article is rather misleading as there will most likely never be a Service Pack 2 for Windows 7. A real Service Pack will add new features and restart the obsolescence clock on that operating system as well. Support for Windows 7 will end in 2020 or early 2021. A Service Pack 2 would probably push that date to 2026.

 

This latest update is actually what's called a "rollup." Microsoft has released a few dozen rollups over the years, so, this is hardly anything new. This particular rollup is being referred to as a "convenience rollup."

 

This convenience rollup only contains the latest (or final) versions of the many security and stability patches that have been released in the past for Windows Home / Professional / Enterprise SP1 and Windows Server 2008 /R2. It does not contain any patches for Internet Explorer or for any Microsoft application software (Office, SQL Server, Exchange Server, IIS, etc).

 

Should you install this rollup? Yes! You will then have the latest versions of all the previous patches installed -- provided that you are not at the same version level already on whatever patches are supplied in the rollup -- and will have missing patches installed that the rollup supplies.

 

Of note" There will be a new "convenience rollup" every month. It will contain critical patches form last month, all the older unchanged patches the rollup had last month, and any newly updated older patches.

 

Will you need to install this large-ish convenience rollup each and every month? No. But it might be a good thing to download and install it once every 6 months so that you catch any updates you could be missing. Windows Update *should* reinstall older updates if they have been significantly changed. In some cases, Microsoft has issued new versions of earlier patches by simply declaring the new version of the old patch as a patch with a new KB number. They even occasionally release a single new patch that replaces multiple old patches.

 

Also, if you are installing a brand new installation of Windows 7 (or Server 2008 /R2), you will simply download the latest convenience rollup and install it first, or slipstream the convenience rollup during installation. After the final reboot during the operating system installation, there will be only be a few odd patches left to install -- mainly patches for IE -- before you are fully caught up. In other words, you won't be downloading and installing 130+ patches, rebooting, and installing another 20 or 30 patches and rebooting again, and maybe a downloading yet a few more patches and rebooting again before you are done. The convenience rollup will really live up to its name if you are installing or reinstalling Windows 7 (or Server 2008 /R2).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrKnobs]

I find it alarming that Microsoft has essentially become malware with regard to Win7. Many users now report that rather than just spam and nag you to "upgrade" to Win10, MS has now resorted to forceware. They've been using a forced update to Win10 with no cancel button. Instead, they just install Win10 and then ask if you'd like to revert to 7 or 8. I kinda doubt that lengthy process and its reversal would put your computer back the way it was.

 

I can personally attest to the fact that some of the "Important" Windows 7 updates are Win10 preps, nags, and spyware in disguise. You CAN see this is so by going to the MS website for every single update description but what a pain that is! They should include "Win10 related" in the short description you see during the update process, I think.

 

In any case, for me it would be a disaster to have my machines update to 10 as I have a lot of old, expensive, irreplaceable hardware and software that I could barely manage to get working on 7. So, I've resorted to this:

 

http://blog.ultimateoutsider.com/2015/08/using-gwx-stopper-to-permanently-remove.html

 

So far it seems to work great.

 

Terry D.

[1001gear]

I don't have an anti 10 app but I do as you do; meticulously sifting through the updates for Win10 references. Security patches seem alright but I still take a look regardless.

[MikeRivers]

Does turning off automatic updates and never looking for new updates still work? That's how I have my Win7 computers set up.

 

Why update if it's working?

[1001gear]

This is my surf box. It has to be current.

[*BLEEP*]

Why update if it's working?

 

 

 

Because, if it's a computer on a routable non-air-gapped network -- sooner rather than later -- you'll end up with this...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransomware