HOLY CRAP it's a computer apocalypse, what should I do?

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

So today is the day that Microsoft has declared all computers running Windows 7 to be useless, vulnerable pieces of crap.

I am really surprised that in the recent months, I have not been inundated by "offers" from Dell and other companies urging -- begging! -- me to buy new Win10 machines to avoid the certain doom and destruction that's bound to occur probably around midnight tonight after I've gone to sleep.

All kidding aside, what do you film-techers think I should do? Between my store, the theatre and my house, I have 10 computers in my own personal universe. All of them are on Win7, except one that we use to control the projection booth from the office, which is an old beater running Windows Vista.

We have the following facts:

- Four of my computers were supplied by Carquest and they have advised us NOT to upgrade to Win10 because our store POS software won't work reliably on 10. So, those four machines are out of the running for the moment.

- The one in my office at work is definitely ready for replacement -- it's old, slow and getting full of "stuff." I need to replace that one for sure, so it's a no-brainer.

- I have two in my home office. I use the newer one (about 5 years old) to do things like make signs, update our website, etc. The other one is mostly for music and video editing, and not all that much of that.... I have mainly hung on to it becauuse it has all of my projects on it and I'm a little leery of moving all that crap to a new machine. But it really should go, too... it's pushing 10 years old. So I should probably replace those two with one kick-ass machine. So that's two computers I need to buy for sure.

- That leaves:
-- The theatre boxoffice machine (it runs RTS and the internet and doesn't do much else) - it's probably six or seven years old but runs perfect and has lots of space on it
-- The theatre concession machine (it runs RTS and nothing else) - it runs well, but the touch screen on it is unreliable, so it might need a new touch monitor but it has plenty of hard drive space
-- The Vista one that controls the booth (we could probably integrate this into a new boxoffice machine, I guess) -- I got it used and no idea how old it is.

I guess my biggest question is: Should I try to upgrade any of these to Win10 or should I bite the bullet and start replacing them? Every one of them is at least 5 or 6 years old, that's my big worry about converting them to 10. Microsoft is doing its best to convince me that I am a complete blubbering idiot if I don't get all new Win10 machines delivered overnight, or sooner if possible. But if I don't do anything to some of them, what are my chances of going down some horrible virus phishing ransomware rabbit hole? I know what Microsoft says, but what do real users say?

It should be noted that I make it a point to never click on "links" just about anywhere, and I do have a good junk filter on my email. I've never installed "virus protection" on any of these machines -- they're all running Windows Essentials and I've never had a problem with any of them. (Knocks on wood)

Any sage advice would be appreciated.

Actually there are great deals on Win 10, and Win 11 right now.
Not to throw more shrimp in the kettle, but Windblows 12 is right around the corner... There will be a 2024 release, and support for Win 10 ends October 2025. I've barely worked with Win 11, and because it's so bizarre straight out of the box, most of the time I worked with 11 was to make it look and operate like Win 10. Doing that isn't so easy, plus once 11 updates to ver 23H12, some of the changes I made disappeared. So, I'd reccomend you also add Windows 12 to your cooking pot and get used to it from the get go.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Your examples of specialized software that runs only on Windows is relevant only if you happen to need the specialized software that runs only on Windows. And most people aren't in the commercial sign making business -- they just want to check their email, surf the Internet, look at pretty pictures and play cat videos.

This is the exact problem Frank. Most of the people posting on here have D-Cinema gear that runs on Linux, but requires a manufacturer written Windows interface to access. Also, most of the TMS programs, ticketing programs, and viable accounting programs I know of all run on Windows. If one wanted to access these pieces of equipment then the manufacturers would have to write entire new access apps. That's just not gonna happen as there are so few windows apps now in the field, and they are generally free to technicians.

[Harold Hallikainen]

This is the exact problem Frank. Most of the people posting on here have D-Cinema gear that runs on Linux, but requires a manufacturer written Windows interface to access.

In the equipment I designed, I put in a web server for the UI, so any OS with a web browser could control it. In one product we did, the front panel interface was a web browser that accessed the same server code that an external browser accessed. It's nice to have one set of code doing everything. In several recent products, all control was through a text based command interpreter. Javascript in the web pages turned user web input to command strings that were posted to the product which then ran those commands through the command interpreter. Saved configuration was also done as a bunch of text commands. All interface runs through the same command interpreter so I did not have to write more code for the front panel, remote TCP control, web control, configuration loading, etc.

I run a server (Virtual Private Server) running Alma Linux. I started with Red Hat back in the 1990s and am pretty comfortable with it. I have an old Dell machine (USL discard) that is still running. It started with Win 7 and got the free upgrade to Win 10. It was getting pretty slow, and I was getting occasional hard drive errors on boot up (hard drive could not be found). I replaced the 500 GB HDD with a 1 TB SDD, and all is well! The machine is a lot faster. I'm doing some development work with Microchip MPLAB X, which is written in java (netbeans). It was unbearably slow, but is quite reasonable now. On backups, I rsync the Documents directory to a directory on the server. I also do a G4L bare metal backup monthly to a local USB drive. I used the G4L backup to bring up the new SDD. Finally, I copy the server to Google Drive as a monthly cron job. In general, having backups keeps things from failing since the hardware "knows" such a failure will not be a major event.

Every few days, the Win 10 machine wants to do an update, which then fails, and is reversed. I wonder if it will ever succeed?

Oh, and for typical stuff like reading email and FilmTech, I use a Chromebook. Nice lightweight computer with a real keyboard (I hate doing stuff on a phone or my wife's iPad). Great battery life.

Harold

[Mike Blakesley]

You guys realize this thread is almost four years old, don't you? I think I've replaced all of the computers I wrote about back in the beginning.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

When this was originally posted doesn't really matter much. Your post hasn't gone obsolete like Microsoft's OS's do. It helps point out the now relatively short lifespan of Microsoft's operating systems, and how easy we had it with Windows 7's long lifespan.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Here is an article that I caught this morning...
It certainly appears there may be some influence directed at MS by the chip makers so they can survive. Plus, MS may extend W-10 updates for a price...

[Marcel Birgelen]

You guys realize this thread is almost four years old, don't you? I think I've replaced all of the computers I wrote about back in the beginning.

Thanks for making me feel old.

Marry Christmas everyone.

[Leo Enticknap]

Merry belated Christmas!

I saw the "end of W10 support could send millions of computers to landfill" story, too, and before then had wondered how long it would be before the eco/recycling angle of PC artificial obsolescence would start to become a news story.

It's going to be more severe with the W10 > W11 transition, because of the hardware requirements. I would guess that at least 90% of the PCs that ran W7 were upgradable to 10, and almost 100% in terms of their basic hardware spec alone. Some would have needed a bit more RAM, but that was really it. As Mike points out, the other 10% either have bespoke software, specialist hardware peripherals requiring drivers, or both, that made the switch impossible.

That is not the case with W10 to 11. The biggest hurdle is the requirement for a version 2.0 trusted platform module. I have encountered literally dozens of PCs, including three of my own, that meet all the hardware requirements except that one, and add-on TPMs (either as a USB dongle or an internal PCI card for desktops) seem to be completely unavailable. IMHO, a lot fewer computers would be headed to landfill but for that requirement. The other major one, UEFI with secure boot, has been available on almost all consumer and server motherboards made for the last decade or so, although many OEMs didn't use it on the system images with which their PCs shipped, thereby making the upgrade process more difficult (you have to change the BIOS configuration and run the "convert MBR to GPT" script in Windows safe mode). But it's still possible.

It helps point out the now relatively short lifespan of Microsoft's operating systems, and how easy we had it with Windows 7's long lifespan.

W7 was released in October 2009, and extended support ended in January 2020; Windows 10 was released in July 2015, and M$ have announced the end of extended support as being in October 2025, meaning that (assuming that this actually happens) the support cycle for both operating systems is ten years and three months. This seems to me reasonable for a mass produced piece of software that is bought as a one-time purchase. My only issue with them is that the post-EOL support for users who cannot upgrade (e.g. Mike's point of sale computers) is hellish pricey. In other words, they are exploiting a captive audience that effectively has no choice but to cough up.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

It actually IS possible to install W-11 on older machines. Even Microsoft has an official work aroung that is on-line. I am running it on a Lenovo M93P Tiny with a Generation 4 Intel i7-4770 CPU and 16 G of ram. Everything works just as it should. There are several other ways to load it in if your computer doesn't have TPM 2.0. There are a number of good YouTube videos that also cover the how to aspect.

My concern is less about W-11 and more with the release of W-12 this coming year. I have yet to find an article stating machine requirements and such, or if it will allow one to load it in using a back door like has been done with W-11, or will there be a TPM 3.0 or similar? What I really hated about W-11 is that it's so bloated with unnecessary junk. And it operates in a completely different way from W-10. But you can fix some of that yourself, and then use free add on software to fix the rest of the kludge MS put together. Makes me wonder if they are going to do the same to W-12... I'll guess I'll just have to wait and see next year.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Here is a link to Microsoft instructions for installing W-11 on older machines. I assume this is for doing an upgrade as it uses the W-10 digital key. I used Rufus to do my installs as it offers way more options during the install. Links are below.

[James Biggins]

Here is a link to Microsoft instructions for installing W-11 on older machines.

Where? I can only see the Rufus link.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Google is your friend .

There are quite a few articles out there describing how you can get Windows 11 running on "unsupported hardware". While Microsoft seemingly is keeping the backdoor open, Microsoft doesn't officially support this and neither will your hardware supplier provide any kind of support.

Yet, Microsoft got rightfully blasted for relegating massive amounts of hardware to the junkyard with their TPM 2.0 move, so I guess they're leaving the backdoor open as a form of damage control.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Where? I can only see the Rufus link.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...4-c82dc8f414a4

I still reccomend using Rufus though. It offers the installer more options.

[Leo Enticknap]

I did install a doctored W11 image on one of my older laptops (bought in 2014), which has UEFI and secure boot capability, but only a 1.2 TPM, and a graphics chip that doesn't quite meet the official W11 requirements (only supports DirectX 11). It installed, and works, but I've noticed that it doesn't receive some of the updates that a computer that meets all the hardware specs does. On one occasion, about a month ago, I updated my fully compliant main desktop, and it downloaded nine updates (five for Windows, and four for Office). I then did that laptop immediately afterwards, and it only received one (the Patch Tuesday cumulative update bundle) for Windows, plus the Office ones. There was a .net update, a subsystem for Linux update, and a security definitions update that the unofficial W11 installation wasn't offered.

From this, I infer that the "Microsoft doesn't officially support this" includes not offering many of the maintenance updates; likely only the updates needed to prevent the computer from becoming a security risk to others it is (or could be) in contact with; and that therefore in terms of functionality, a W11 PC on which the operating system was installed from an image that had been hacked to ignore some of the hardware requirements will be frozen at what is on that image.

That is not a problem with that older laptop, which we only ever use when on vacation and don't have my work-issued laptop with me (i.e. for about two weeks a year), for email and web. But I guess it could be for computers that receive more regular use, and/or need to run more recent software than Office 2016.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Leo, it's not going to download updates for stuff that is not in your computer. Mostly driver updates and such. Microsoft automatically runs a check to see what's in each computer before the downloads begin. It's mainly going to download OS updates. At least that's what I see mine do. (Lenovo M93P Tiny)