Guys, this thread is about people using WiN7, not any other OS. Don't force us to close this thread please.

 

Hello buddies.

Could somebody recommend me a WIN7 customized edition? I knew that there are many choices from TEAM OS that are lighter than original WIN7 editions .I'd like to install it on a very very old computer with 2gb ram... just for browsing.

 

Just grab a free leech pre-activated (or get a kms_pico unattended activator) win 7 ultimate SP-1 and go to town. Once you get a base build optimized, pasteurized and homogenized do a ghost or acronis image of that base install and stow it for safe keeping. I would suggest shit-canning the windows 7 firewall and install outpost pro 9.1. Windows Aero Tweaker for 7 ultimate is a good one to have onboard. Grab spybotSD free and spyware blaster and keep them up to date manually once every week or two. Also, on your internet facing nic card DO NOT allow net bios or windows services like file sharing, printing, etc. My suggestion is to run dual homed (one nic card for your backend admin lan and one nic for your internet facing vlan). Older hardware is actually better for surfing/internet machines (especially DELL) because if it's old enough it will predate Intel ME. Early on Dell (post Intel ME) hardware has the ability to de-activate Intel ME at the BIOS level. For Anti-Virus get rid of win 7 defender and install symantec endpoint protection 14.3x or better.

You can grab the Win7 SP2 roll-up here -
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...ws-7-sp2/c2c7009f-3a10-4199-9c89-48e1e883051e

Once SP-2 is installed TURN OFF windows update and forget about it. After installing the sp-2 rollup go back thru the installed KB's and remove ones on the attached list. And remember keep those backup IMAGES current so if you screw something up you have a failsafe.

 

Last edited: May 21, 2023

The roll-up is up to 2016, you can find other iso releases that contain updates to 22/23 like these:
https://archive.org/details/windows-7-ultimate-x-64-sp-1-fully-updated
or
https://downloadbytes.com/operating-systems/windows-7-ultimate-with-sp1-download.html

I tried the first, seems fine.
I don't remember clearly but maybe even VC++ runtimes up to 2023 were already included.

 

Yup.
Old devices might not work with new OSes (support discontinued).
New devices might not work with old OSes (incompatible).

Digital has its age too.
Oldwares. Newwares.

 

Ok let's talk about Win 7 and why I am obsessed..... Because I have it. It works fine. Plugins and DAWs mostly works fine except some latest ones (arghhh.... Can I talk about DAWs and plugins that not work with Win7 here? Or there are special threads for DAWs/plugins for W7 to discuss?). Still good performance.
I won't talk about my experience with Windows XP, Windows 10, comparisons....because of
rules.. Let's talk about Win7 and its advantages and disadvantages vs. what o_O.... Vs nothing... Just Win7 only talking) everything else is not allowed for discussion. Limited)

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 21, 2023

I am highly against Planned Obsolescence, so i just use it to prove the point.
Not Just Win7
Kontakt V5
Ableton V8 V9
Traktor pro V2.1.X
Izotope ozone v6 etc. so on so forth.
I even have a ceiling fan that is much older than me, i just change its capacitor when it fails, never changed the coil once. But that just gets us to Theseus ship paradox, so lets drop it.

Yeah but seriously, Win 7 is the most stable OS that supports all the latest plugins, well 90% of them rest 2% its ok i can manage and another 8% i never need them in the first place. it has all i ever need and it does not run hidden process in background, and above all it does not have Cortana to annoy me.

 

I quoted that one because it's official from the OEM. Quite frankly there aren't any real "security updates" to be applied. Real security patches for TRULY critical issues will be available piecemeal for manual install. There's a lot of garbage that masquerades as so-called "updates" (check the list) that opens your system up to forced upgrades etc... If something you wish to install needs a specific code library update in order to install, one can usually find those easily with out fail by doing a quick search. No need to splatter your system with useless crap.

Check CISA.gov every six months or so to see if there any new REAL issues regarding patches and stick win update in a hole and bury it. If there is truly an issue needing a patch it will be outlined there and there will be a patch for ALL SYSTEMS AFFECTED (including win7, XP, Vista, server's...). These truly critically needed patches amount to no more than MAYBE 1 or two per YEAR. So what is actually IN the rest of those POS patch tuesday sessions????

 

Last edited: May 21, 2023

It's called capitalist industrial planned obsolescence. There is newer/faster/better system hardware being released every other minute it seems. However not EVERYONE needs it. As well, if ANYTHING but capitalist greed were at the heart of the "innovation" there would be backward compatibility built into everything so that landfills and the rest of the environment wouldn't be overrun with dumped "outdated" hardware.

 

I still miss good old Windows XP

 

The older I get, the more a "WHY?" has less meaning as a general rationale question.

People choose what suits them it is that simple. Whether it is cost, like, dislike of something else, peer pressure, convenience and many other human decisions based on pure choice.

For a long time, people refused to part with Windows XP too. It is what it is, neither better nor worse, only a different choice. So people still using Win 7 is no surprise. This kind of decision remains until it becomes completely obsolete and nothing new that is needed, will work anymore. This could be ten years or twenty for some people. Each to their own.

 

While we're on the subject there is one actual critical patch that needs to be applied. This is broad spectrum across all versions which are the only ones that you need to be concerned with if you're running win7 these days.

https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/en-US/vulnerability/CVE-2020-0611

Don't forget to make certain to apply the "black screen patch" FIRST, then the RDP patch.