View Single Post
  #9  
Old February 28th 19, 08:53 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Questions about the "end of Windows 7"

Art Todesco wrote:
Hi All,
When Windows 7 support ends, what are you all going to do? Pay for
additional support? Or what?

Can we still go to Windows 10 free?

Also, what's the best way to make Windows 10 better? I have a laptop
that came with 10. I've added several "improvements" like Classic
Shell, but it still isn't always good. Is there anything better?

Sorry for all the questions.


You can go to Windows 10 free.

If you make a backup of your Windows 7 SP1 C: drive, you
can do an Upgrade over top of it using a Windows 10 1809 DVD.
That's the version available at the moment. (Just download it
and use the DVD while Windows 7 is running. Look for setup.exe
when you're ready and your backup is secured on an external disk.)

The act of making the upgrade, secures your Digital Entitlement,
good for that one machine. The SKU installed by the ISO, should
match. Win7 Pro or Win7 Ultimate go to Win10 Pro. Win7 Home Premium
would be Win10 Home. If the old OS was x64, the new OS is x64
too (due to this being an Upgrade over the top).

Then, you can restore your Win7 SP1 backup image onto the
drive, wiping out Windows 10.

Later, like two years from now, you can again either Clean
Install (nuke) the C: drive and put a clean Win10 all by itself.
At that time, you could use an x86 or x64 DVD for the job. SKU
still has to match as before, for "key" reasons.

Win7 SP1 Ultimate x64 ----------- clean install Win10 Pro x32
clean install Win10 Pro x64

Win7 SP1 Home Premium x64 ------ clean install Win10 Home x32
clean install Win10 Home x64

And, it will still "activate", because the Digital Entitlement
for it, is stored on the Microsoft server. The "key" the OS
uses on the free upgrade is a bogus key that "doesn't
prove anything". It's just the entry stored on the Microsoft
server (that we can't see), for the hardware serial numbers
on your machine, that serve to activate Windows 10 on any
subsequent installs. If the hardware changes enough, the
Digital Entitlement no longer matches and your freebie is
trashed. (On a laptop, this is unlikely to happen. If you
change out mobo/CPU/ram on a desktop, it could happen.)

*******

As to whether Windows 10 is a good deal, that remains to be
seen. What I'm noticing (if you ignore Flappy Birds or
GUI issues or "that's not my favorite color of pink" issues),
is that the OS is becoming "lethargic". I was trying
to use IrfanView to do a batch convert yesterday, and it
would not rail a CPU core and was "dawdling". Now, I've
tested IrfanView in the past, and it can malloc at
around 1-2GB/sec (i.e. it's highly optimized code). I set the
Power Schema to "High Performance" and it didn't help.
Windows Defender "real time protection" was disabled for
the test. I could have used my freakin PIII computer
running Windows 98 and got that job done faster, because
it probably took 40 minutes to convert 170 pictures. I bumped
up task priority to "above normal", still didn't help. I'm
pretty sure the PIII and an old OS, would have whizzed
through that job.

I've also noticed that my old copy of HDTune, the benchmark
numbers are slightly off. Which could be caused by these
scheduler issues with tasks.

So if they continue in this direction, I'm sorry but
I can't recommend an OS that does **** like that.

In such a case, Win7 has pretty good performance. You won't
have a free copy of Flappy Birds on Windows 7, but at least
it'll still behave like a "computer you own".

One reason for me keeping and maintaining copies of
Windows 10, is precisely for these observational reasons.

Summary: Install Win10 now, solely for the purpose of
generating a usage key. Restore your old OS image
afterwards. Then, your "valid key" can be used to
install at a later date (as far as we know) on
that same computer. You can do a Clean or an Upgrade
install at a future date, using that "valid key" on
the server. On a Clean install, it can be x32 or x64.

My Win7 laptop doesn't have a supported video driver,
so Win10 is not getting fresh WDDM drivers from ATI for
support of that machine. The Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
can be used to run such machines, but with resolution
restrictions. And this is a limitation on older computing
devices. My newest desktop has a "new" video card in it,
which is still in support for another four years.

If your laptop is from the year 2002, the Win10 installer
will do an instruction set check. If it finds certain CPU
instructions missing, the install will not proceed and
you will have your answer.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

The very latest version of DVD has *12* OS versions. It
won't fit on a single-layer DVD for the x64 version. It would
require a dual layer DVD to be done with an optical disc. It
can instead be put on a USB key (by MediaCreationTool, the
stub you'll be getting from the web page). I still recommend
putting the OS on a DVD, as you need it for emergencies and
such. It's harder around here, to keep a USB key "stable"
without it getting erased and some other project going on it.

*******

The Heidoc tool is a URL generator. It will generate a URL
pointing to the Microsoft server, for older copies of Windows 10.
Even if you selected a copy of 1809 from the day it was
released, using this tool, that will still fit on a single
layer DVD. What this tool does, is it uses Internet Explorer
to interact with TechBench, and find the older copies. You
use the "Copy URL to buffer" button to copy the URL, then
paste the URL into Firefox and do the download. This
will give an x64 Win10 DVD that fits on single-layer discs.
Just don't select the very last disc, as the number of
OS flavors went from 8 flavors to 12 flavors on the latest
one. And some of those flavors are not mainstream and
don't belong on the media. It doesn't matter which exact
disc you use, as long as it suits your needs.

https://www.heidoc.net/joomla/techno...-download-tool

Download: Windows-ISO-Downloader.exe
Version: 8.03
Release Date: 24 February 2019

The very first 1809 had a bug where it deleted the "old"
folder from Reparse Points that a user had moved. The "bugged"
version was available for a while on Techbench. That's the beauty
of the MS Techbench archive, is it keeps everything. Since
I had neither moved my Home Directory nor my Program Files
folder, and I didn't have a OneDrive account set up, I
was not swacked by that bug. Others were. I was lucky
in that I didn't have the ingredients to trigger the bug.

This is a map of the significant events in 1809 DVD releases.

1809 ... 1809 ... 1809
Bug on Image too big
release Needs dual layer DVD

4.4GB 4.5GB 4.7GB

Try to select something from the middle, depending on
how many versions are there. Any 1809 disc should
patch up to the most recent Patch Tuesday after installation.

Picture of the Heidoc tool, with my annotations added.

https://i.postimg.cc/bJcKk24K/heidoc...-techbench.gif

HTH,
Paul
Ads