Looking at the comments on this site and sister sites, I am amazed at how many people use computers with outdated operating systems and features.
If the OS version is old, there are security issues and I also find it difficult to maintain.

Is there any advantage to using an older machine?

 

What security concerns? What hackers are going to go after ? Their coomer browse history or 10 dollars in their bank account?

 

hello, my friend

People use computers with outdated operating systems and features because they just wanna make music, they are producers, composers, they are happy and their music is good enough.

I'm on Win 10
My music production PC is a totally offline machine. there's no wifi card, there's no network
so I can get rid of the microsoft security essentials and another bloatwares

In fact, a good old friend said to me:

If your studio is running good, if you are producing good music, do you NEED to install the latest version of plugins or another EQ, or another Delay? Think, a lot of gorgeous music was recorded without all these gimmick. A lot of good music is produced with old OS & hardware.

Some people lost more time managing the OS & DAW than producing, composing, playing, having fun...

But, with piracy and a hundred of releases every day, it's hard for some people to resist

are you the producer/musician or the tech guy?

I was on Win 7 two years ago. My system was OK, I was producing every day, good music, I was happy. I didnt need the new VSTs that runs only on Win 10.

What made me stop my creativity flow to format my PC an re-installing everything was that some of my hardware (I have lots of synths and midi controllers) requires the Win 10 to work properly.

People use computers with outdated operating systems and features because they just wanna make music, they are producers, composers, they are happy and they're music is good enough

 

Last edited: Feb 8, 2025

When was the last time you heard a good track where you said to yourself, "oh, they had to have made this with some new (whatever)" ?

That will make one of us, because I haven't.

 

No, there are no advantages - it is more of a way of life or an attitude to life or even a love of the old.

I also have Windows 7 on my second PC, everything is just faster and easier there but my Windows 11 on the main PC is now set up correctly and runs stable, it's a lot of work, I quickly made a backup and I'm very happy with it, although I have permanently removed the Windows updates. Because Microsoft aggressively intervenes in my PC configuration and changes things to my disadvantage.

Many young people only think in black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, but a thing has many more aspects and some things are much more colorful.

Everyone has to know what they are doing and every user is an individual. Most users use modern operating systems because they are the only ones that support the latest software and external devices that they use.

With Windows 7 or Windows 8 you cannot use certain software. An operating system should support you in your varied work and leisure activities and not enslave you or make your life unnecessarily difficult. When you buy a new printer etc. there are usually no drivers for Windows anymore.

The fraudsters and criminals work 24 hours a day to get your money or your data. You live in the false security of Windows Defender or modern operating systems, most of it is user error - people usually open emails and click on file attachments and then get ripped off or infected.

If you are a politician or the head of a large company you have to be extra careful because people want to steal your business knowledge and formulas and blueprints. Espionage also occurs.

 

I have 2 main computers both very old, a core2quad q9650 @4ghz and a i7 2600k @4.4 GHz. Both run win10 and cubase perfectly. I have the i7 for avx, there are 2 plugins that need it. They are from 2008 and 2011. Cubase has always been without any issues from first releases. I have rme audio devices and can run low enough buffer. 128 or 256 which is fine for vsti playing. I can finish all my projects. I recently bought a back up machine for 50€ complete including ssd os drive.

 

I have 5 such computers fully upgraded, with i7 3770 on board, 16 GB of RAM and Quadro P620, each has space for 2 x 3.5" HDD drives and three x 2.5" SSD drives, I have Linux Mint on one, Windows 11 on the second, Windows 7 on the third, and the other two are spares, I normally play games on it, watch movies and surf the internet, all these big corporations are telling me bullshit that I need new equipment, and I do what I want because I am a free man
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20526845...+EasR4Ld05PUv8JtdkA9hG+57R|tkp:Bk9SR77Fus-cZQ

 

i have 2 laptops & the mothership PC, one laptop [offline]with windows 7 for quick ideas & classic old plugins.I use the other laptop [W11] for internet & downloads etc..& the mothership PC [offline] for finalizing tracks with all new & a few old plugins

 

Oh, Foster's back. Short time no see @carmenrinda

 

I have no security concerns, I use another PC to do m

I have almost this same configuration here.

just Yesterday my old win 7 laptop, from 2012, saved my life because a project cant recall the NI massive 1.4 preset and I cant remember which was. I used the w7 to open the project and so I could see the name of the preset

 

Nope.

 

because in audio world, technology doesn't really evolve that fast to make a notable advantage,
if people were making music 15 years ago on a certain computer, there is no valid reason why they couldn't keep doing so nowadays,

from hardware perspective, latest components aren't yet proven to perform reliably, while old tested hardware can perform rock solid (unless dying from its age ofc),
from OS perspective, it's more of a planned artificial software obsolescence, obviously if new plugins and DAWs are developed on latest OSes, they aren't guaranteed for backwards compatibility - but if you're fine with older plugins and DAWs, then in fact older OSes tend to yield better stability and performance,
from maintenance perspective, outdated systems where you can't do any more software updates and any more hardware upgrades actually aren't difficult to maintain at all, you just need to have everything backed up and keep an eye on used hardware in case some of the old components die suddenly,
last but not least, if you need to recall some old projects or templates, you may need that specific old DAW and plugin set to sound the same

 

nice spec! I still got some HP 800 G1 SFFs (i7-4770, 32GB RAM, some SATA SSDs...), some with Proxmox and some Win11 23H2 I think
so you had no issues installing latest Windows 11 ?
have you tried some PCIe NVME adapters to get even faster project drive (I'm pretty sure M.2 boot isn't supported on those old platforms) ?
have you considered nVidia RTX 4000 SFF graphics (which is low profile and doesn't need external power) for some local AI processing ?

 

If you're a person who wants to change plugin parameters five or ten years after the song's original creation, then you probably aren't making music professionally. In which case, do whatever works and good luck.

If that isn't the case, then bounce your audio.

 

"If it ain't broke, why fix it". That's the mindset.

You are more likely to break your projects and fuck up your system by constantly updating everything. Even if you are pedantic about keeping backups of your drives and restore points etc, as soon as your system breaks and you need to recover it with a backup/restore point you will have to deal with a bit of down and most likely some loss of work progress. This is the reason a lot of people leave their DAW machines offline and use a de-bloated and super stable version of their preferred OS. Most people like this ofc also have online machines which they keep up-to-date and use for other purposes. I have four PCs right now, two of which are offline and which I rarely ever update (usually only update Reaper on them maybe 1-2 times a year), one DAW machine that is online kept up-to-date and used for recording my own music as well as testing plugins and various other things, and one laptop which I use for both personal stuff and for portable recording together with an RME Babyface Pro.

 

Would it surprise you to learn my old and supposedly very outdated O/S is more secure than whatever O/S you are using, unless you have deep inside knowledge of how to set it up correctly?

 

Hey man, I am this person. I bounce my vst synths, but I keep a version of the project that I can recall in case I want to remix, reboot, remake the song.

Why I am not making music professionally? by the way, I wasn't offended, just curious. I am here to learn with you.

thank you in advance

 

@tzzsmk Normally I would buy something newer, but I really need 5.25" and 3.5" bays, the are the basis for the operation of my entire ecosystem.
I install such a HDD\SSD dock's there, I have a lot of them.

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-SST-FS202B-aluminiowa-przenośna-wewnętrzna/dp/B019LS5ULA?th=1
https://www.amazon.com.be/-/en/Thermaltake-Czarna-USB-SATA3-Inch/dp/B0085SMO7Q?language=en_GB

 

Can you please clarify what you are asking me?

 

There's a huge advantage to having the mindset of 'this machine is working fine', no matter how old it is. It means you're free to do the work.