I hadn’t realised that Windows 7 is no longer supported by Microsoft. Strange, really, because only yesterday I performed a Windows update on my old (standby) W7 laptop. Admittedly, it took a lot longer than it used to do, but nevertheless upgrade it did.
I agree that Windows 7 still works just fine. It has been claimed that W10 is quicker than W7 which, in my case, is perfectly true, although that may have something to do with the fact that my W10 laptop is new and my W7 laptop is several years old and is not as highly specified.
Apart from that, I can’t really think of anything important that the one does and the other does not.
If we didn’t update as new versions come along, we would still be using Windows 95, so it is inevitable in the long run. I have two laptops, a Novatech that came with Win7 and a Fujitsu that came with Win8. They have the same spec for processor speed and Ram. I have upgraded the Fujitsu to 10, and it was quite seamless. It now boots up in less than 30 seconds and is much faster in every way. It is not difficult to make it look much same as Win7, but there is a learning curve for some things.
I have tried to upgrade my Novatech machine several times, and on each occasion it has worked for a few days then crashed, usually requiring complete reformat and clean install of the original Win7, followed by getting all the updates.
I have not managed to resolve the difficulty with this machine, but will keep trying. I would be interested to hear from anyone else with a Novatech machine with the same problem.
Good. As I said earlier, my experience is that downloading updates using Windows 7 seems to have become ridiculously slow and, presumably, this would be the same for downloading Windows 10.
I’ve heard that slowing down Windows 7 might be Microsoft’s way of trying to persuade us all to change to Windows 10!
It has been suggested that the servers which supply updates to W7 computers has been deliberately slowed down or access limited in some way. Not difficult to accomplish, I’d have thought.
Of course, I have no evidence to support that, but I have read it in a number of places.
My wife uses W8, now upgraded to W8.1. Having experienced W8 on her computer and W10 on mine, I completely agree that the latter is far better.
Microsoft have a history of bringing out versions of Windows, alternate versions being, shall we say, ‘crap’. The ones that come to mind instantly are Vista and Windows 8.
Always best to go to the Microsoft site. I know the upgrade can take a while, depending somewhat on the speed of the Internet connection and that of the the computer. Even with both being fast, it can still take a long time. I hope it all works out OK in the end.
All Microsoft operating systems are thought to be ‘crap’ to start with. I bought a computer just as Windows 95 was being released. Everyone said, “Windows 3.11 is fine, what do you want to get W.95 for?” Pretty soon everyone was upgrading to it. That wasn’t so bad as when I was an early adopter of XP. That initially criticised but now much loved operating system. How I defended that one at the time!
Same thing with Windows 7. I bought this very inexpensively on Microsoft’s pre-release offer. It was new computer time around the date it was released, so I installed it on that while people were saying how much they loved XP and weren’t going to shift to the latest OS.
I went with Windows 8 on its release too. Lots of people couldn’t get on with this but I always did. W.8 has been much discussed but it won’t be long before if fades into history and becomes something not to worry about any more. Skipping this OS (because it upsets people), the same thing is happening with Windows 10. Windows 7 in particular has become the OS and many don’t want to lose. History repeats.
One thing I do get out of being an early upgrader is not having to worry about keeping the upgrade at bay. I leave that to those who want to stay with previous operating systems. Since I choose to use a Microsoft OS, I’ll usually keep up with the latest one. Much the same as I keep up with the latest release of Linux Mint and upgrades for Mrs mart’s iPad.
If deciding to stay with Microsoft, I’d say to just go with it whatever and stop fighting. Find a way around any problems. Either that or change to another platform for home use.
Yes, there is always personal preference with just about anything. My wife, for example, is quite happy with W8.1 and doesn’t want the ‘free upgrade’ to W10.
Personally, I found W7 very good. XP too, but Vista was far from it. It was a while ago, but I seem to remember having all sorts of problems with it. Prior to that (like 3.11 and 3.1) I’m afraid I don’t remember, as that was back in the Iron Age; in fact I do remember that our first computer rejoiced in a 1GB HDD, and we still have some floppy discs although no means of accessing them!
Everything was going well until the first boot of the installation, and then it all went wrong.
There was an error and it reverted my system back to W 7
I got in touch with Microsoft and gave them permission for remote control of my laptop.
They made a few changes and downloaded the update app again and ran it…it stopped on 50% download of w10 and my laptop froze !
I got in touch with them again and they made some more changes, but when they went for a restart of the system, it froze again on shutdown !!
They will phone me again tomorrow at 8am ish and have another go.
I have been at it since 7am today and am now heartily sick.
Since it is an older laptop computer, could it be that the hardware isn’t suitable for W.10? It might be worth asking Microsoft about that in the morning.
Sorry to hear that Malcolm. Some computers do unfortunately end up being the victims of progress. No disk images you can restore from? Have you got the original installation disk?
Just a suggestion but if your laptop computer falls into the same category as my older computer (handy but not absolutely necessary), it could be a good candidate for installing Linux on. I was pleasantly surprised by Linux Mint. It can be used for all the usual operations such as running a browser, e-mail, word processing and editing photos. Pretty much all the things Windows can do and just as easy to work with after a while.
If the laptop needs to be a Windows computer and the system can’t be put to back how it was using Microsoft’s roll-back option, then restoring W.7 with a disk image or reinstalling it might have to be done.
Thanks for your help mart but I think I will bin it and get a new one.
As you say it is only used occasionally but I just can’t be troubled with it anymore, and if there is a bios fault that seemingly can’t be rectified I am somewhat reluctant to perform a disk image re-install and give myself further headaches.
I will just have to cut my losses…the laptop was bought in 2009 after all and I don’t think that ADVENT is even in the market anymore.
Such is life, and once again thanks for your help
A 3rd party can only influence your PC/Laptop if you are silly enough to download programmes from them. I don’t follow/believe the mentality of “MS have provided updates therefore I must install them”. That way madness lies and you open yourself up to all manner of “changes”.
Windows 7 works just great. I haven’t done any updates since the day I bought the laptop nor do I intend to. I don’t believe all the crap about security updates, that’s just a covert way MS exploit to put “changes” into your PC.
