I'm not a fan of Win 7/8 being called "ancient"
this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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The tech industry moves fast. Win 7/8 are ancient in tech terms
Tell that to the MS Dos PCs I regularly have to maintain and provide safety to. They still live.
Something can be ancient and still function for purpose. We've uncovered ancient pottery intact.
Something that came out last week can be considered ancient in tech terms.
Windows 7 is 15 years old. If it was a person it would be able to get a learners permit to drive in many states.
It's also been EOL for over 4 years.
We don’t call 15 year old cars ancient. Blu rays aren’t ancient. CDs aren’t ancient. Tons of things are 15 years old and fallen out of general use but aren’t considered ancient.
I’d argue that XP is ancient but not Win7.
Cars have an expected lifespan of like 20 years, operating systems don't.
Windows 7 came out with very early support for efi boot which took explicit effort to get to work. At this point most OEM machines out there don't even support the legacy booting mode. That is ancient by tech standards.
Blu rays and CDs are considered ancient. Considering all the storage we have now, something like a CD is close to worthless for almost everyone. Blu rays could have their own niche still, but it's still considered ancient by modern standards. Technology evolves so fast, and it's hard to keep up.
I call shenanigans. Blu rays still make up most of physical sales and that video quality makes up the most consumed resolution.
I can kinda see the argument for CDs but they are still sold new in big name B&M stores. “Close to worthless” is hyperbole at the very least.
Just because they are still sold doesn't mean that they are not ancient.
You can still buy, for example, a GT 1030, which, compared to more modern graphics cards, is considered ancient.
Just because something is still being sold or bought doesn't mean that it's not ancient.
Windows 7 is as old now as Windows 3.5 was when Windows 7 released.
When Win7 reached EOL we were using Linux 5.4
That's pretty ancient.
But the kernel going 3.11 and not stopping at 3.10 was just yesterday... merely 10 years ago.
Sytems that don't receive security patches anymore well deserve that title. You'd hardly keep it airgapped if you care about Steam updates.
In computer time, it is pretty ancient.
"This could take like hundreds of nanoseconds... It could even take one. Whole. Second! 😱" - Enzo Matrix, Reboot
What value is there to using windows 7 nowadays. I genuinely don't understand
It's the last Windows that could look this comfy:
Inertia
Ancient! What does that make me!?
antediluvian
Starting to see an absolute flood of those. A literal deluge!
a Cosmic Horror
The ancestors. According to the new gen we are the ancestors.
Ancient... ME is ancient, XP is old, 7 is almost old (you still see it here and there).
I'm not ancient, you are ancient!
It’s time to install Nobara on those machines.
Personally, I dislike that Nobara is relying on patched Mesa and kernel versions. This is unnecessary risk of instability. AFAIK Bazzite doesn't do that.
There wasn't even a DOS 5 version of Steam ☹️
Friendly Reminder: You can install any KDE based Linux distribution and probably have an equivalent or better experience with security and regular steam updates.
Compatibility isn't really an excuse in this case, as Windows 7/8 will no longer be compatible with the most troubling games anyway. You'd be best off on a modern system with proper security patches.
? still works fine on my windows 7 pc.
I wouldn't type on that without rubber gloves, if I were you.
And yet it is just fine for your banking institutions, and a surprising amount of government machines.
I think it is just lovely on my media PC in my living room.
It is just lovely on any PC that doesn't connect to the internet.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Not sure what you mean, but I've never seen a banking or government machine that was raw-dogging the internet.
They're behind a firewall, a web filter, a content deconstructor, a hyperlink sandbox and an endpoint protection where processes need to be white-listed to run.
In such a setting, it may be safe to still run Windows 7 for some tasks, but it won't be for browsing and email.
Not sure how its done in your country, but there are very much windows 7 machines here "raw dogging" the internet. Its more about risk management then anything.
I mean we are in a world where right now the security solutions are worse then the risk of attack. Right now attacks are done mainly with social engineering and the new systems make bonzi buddy look tame.
There is little point punishing my self by changing my windows 7 machine that I like just so that I can change out old vulnerabilities with new ones. I swear software fear mongering runs half the industry right now on nothing other then inertia.