This might sound like a joke, but it's not: https://www.grc.com/never10.htm It seems like a nice program that makes sure you will never upgrade to Windows 10 without your consent.

Watching all the drama unfold while using Debian is much fun. I'd feel like an idiot running Windows 10 now. Honestly.

 

Linux Mint here, it's nice and user friendly. F*ck M$

 

While it's relatively easy to avoid ever encountering Win8/Win10 in home environment using cracked copies (or legit ones on older hardware), it's difficult if not impossible to avoid it in business environment.
With 100 PCs with upgrades set to autopilot, it's much easier to run into issues. Several discounted M$ licenses offer Windows installations with enforced upgrades when those roll off.
There's a working tactics of buying yourself business laptop with WIn7 OEM, which I did a while back. This way the upgrade enforcement was ineffective.

Also going the usual way, how can you actually get legit Win7 nowadays?
Downgrade from WIn10 gets you Win8.1 license.
Base support ended in January.
I'm not sure about whether Win7 Refurb licenses are still being sold.

By the way, where do you obtain fresh legit WinXP/WinXPx64 licenses?
I'm honestly interested.

 

Here you go...

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/lifecycle

 

http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/

 

I have an ISO file for W7 x64 Ultimate that I downloaded from the MS servers (in a bootable USB drive and DVD). What I do is to install it with the internet and the automatic updates disabled.

Then I only install updates up to mid 2015 which is before all the W10 and Telemetry crap started out and finally check for all the offending updates (you can find lists on the internet) and hide them or uninstall them in case I did by accident.

Then I disable Windows update forever. Windows 7 support ended anyways so any update they throw at us is going to be based in this sort of crap (telemetry or force to update w10).

So far, so good.

 

I bought an older Lenovo T410 laptop with Firewire and I got a Windows 7 Pro license with it. The Windows XPx64 I use is cracked, and also NLited to a barebone OS only for audio. It's a very slim and efficient OS, so easy and fast to work with. It is a bit harder to acquire an XPx64 license nowadays so I just didn't bother. MS couldn't care less anyway, I think. All they care about now is W10.

What's going to happen, I think, is I'm going to use these WXP and W7 until I can work with audio in Debian. It will take a couple of years for sure.

And I love my hardware samplers and synths, and they like XP a lot. I'm not going to get rid of them any time soon because there is a newer MS OS. IDGF!

 

@SineWave @Zenarcist I went for ubuntu for linux in virtualbox.
And in France you can still buy Win 7 OEM version, I thought a bit about that but M$, as @Andrew said, gave up on it, so that would be really throwing money outside my window (pun intended).
Ideally sound in Linux would be heaven, but until then I'll stick with Win 7 and do pretty much what @Torrao does, I have a concice list of the updates I need and tolerate then win update is always off.

 

Smart decision on Ubuntu in VirtualBox Talmi! You will feel immediate relief. Using Linux for Internet is like taking a really good painkiller, and any Linux I tried works great in VB. Contrary to some people, I think that choice of many different distributions is Linux' advantage. Choosing how your OS should work and look like is great! Try doing that with Windows...

VirtualBox is such a great program. I've got VB installed in every OS here. It comes in so handy for Internet and for installing and testing programs and I don't need to reboot into another OS just to try something. Interesting that I find low latency audio working better in VB under Debian than in VB on XP or W7, so I use VB XPx64 installation in Debian rather often. Usually to prepare programs and plugins for manual installation in my main audio OS.

Cheers!

 

I actually like that possibility to test different distrib too. I ran my PC only on Linux a few years back when I was still a student and I hadn't chosen music yet, I spent 6 months going from one to the other, those were good times . I retried after starting doing music but I never could use the first sound card I had bought.
Virtual Box is a real plus, I took on it mostly for the internet browsing first, but it ends being a great tool for OS managment (which I'm kind of obsessed with I confess), installing first the vsts on the win 7 I also have in Virtual Box - you gave that advice on another thread so I gave it a go - the snapshots function, it's a super usefull tool. And surprisingly easy to use. My main system has never been so clean in the long run (which is not very long usually, but now a setup might last longer).
Cheers

 

Try Kubuntu it is based on KDE Plasma, and it runs smoother on a USB 2.0 memory stick than Windows 10 does on my SSD hardrive

 

Last edited: May 31, 2016

Thanks for the tip @Zenarcist I'll give this one a go

 

That's what I was talking about, one can "give it a go" easily, unlike Windows. I'm testing different flavours of Linux just for fun occasionally, too. But I'm a minimalist, so OpenBox, LXDE, Xfce, and lately MATE works best for me. I got in love with MATE because it looks as simple as XP, but there's nothing lacking and it's still really fast, stable, and low on resources. I must test drive KDE some day, though. I tested GNOME 2 and 3.

It is easy to have 3 or 5, or whatever the number of Linux OSes installed, as it really doesn't matter much where you install it. e.g. USB flash drive. I've always had this problem with Windows that it is not that simple to install multiple different Windows. Especially 8 or 10. I would like to install W10 somewhere just for kicks, but it does take over a whole hard disk and its MBR. It is just not so friendly towards having other OSes on your PC. Even OSX is more friendly and I like it, but not for audio. My wife actually uses OSX the most on her Macbook, of course. Nice system.

 

Last edited: May 31, 2016

I was very hesitant upgrading from 7 to 10 but I have was having some system instability issues so I took the plunge. Everything went really smoothly and all my software/hardware works fine. The only issue I had was that the upgrade seemed to turn off my iLok process from running in the background so my licenses were not working. I checked online though and it was a simple process to go into Administrative tools and restart it again. All is fine now. The biggest difference I've noticed is that my computer starts a lot faster than it used to which i really like!

 

This was exactly my experience too until after a few months Windows 10 went to war with me and my system is now virtually unusable. Constant BSOD, my DAW freezes, half of my plugins were deleted, 5 seconds of YouTube crashes my audio, web pages freeze etc. M$ don't give a feck, they just continue to throw out untested updates at a rapid pace.

 

Last edited: May 31, 2016

@Zenarcist ...gosh sorry to hear that I hope you can get it sorted out. Did you try to downgrade ? (Edit: oh i see you went Linux!)

I do have a back up cloned hard drive with my old system in store just in case things get really bad.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 31, 2016

If it works for you it is the most important, but as @Zenarcist underlines it watch out for the updates (do restoration points before) and I would also remove the numerous spiying devices that are in this system. Btw did you manage to test the izotope products you wanted to ? The Mobius Filter ?

 

It's a wise move to keep a backup No downgrade, I'm just having fun observing what will happen next. Soon I will move to modified Win 7 offline/Linux online.

https://audiosex.pro/threads/windows-7-ice-extreme-closed.19130/

On a positive note, I really appreciate that Microsoft made the boot times faster, as I need to do it at least 20 times a day. Thank you Microsoft

 

Last edited: May 31, 2016

So because people have run into plugin issues on Win 10 an prefer to stick with Win 7 then their 'dull', well, according to your logic anyway!
I listened to people like you and installed it, but I had quite a few issues with plugins not working, which I didn't have on Win 7.

I am now rolling back to Win 7, but what a waste of time it's been really. So it's not about being 'dull' at all, it's about wanting to be able to write music without issues.

 

@jeffglobal
"Upgrade all you want ppl, we're still going down the toilet. In fact, MY CITY is now a toilet, because it was racist (sic) to enforce laws about not pissing, drinking or littering in the streets!"

Look at the bright side.In a few years NY will look as shitty as it did in the 70s and movies made in NY will look gritty and raw again,lol.
Also some new Ramones will emerge from the ruins of the future shitty NY.