Risks of continuing using Windows 7

TheOracle said:
There is no excuse to still be using Windows 7 after today. I don't care who you are, or what you do. Poor horizon scanning.

Remember the NHS wannacry fiasco.

If my team of three can move 4,000 machines from 7 to 10 which contains huge amounts of old software and/or legacy hardware devices anyone can! Hell, whilst we were at it, we also moved over to part zero terminals and VDI/AppV where possible so that in 18 months when Windows 10 version xxxx goes end of life we can easily and quickly upgrade.

The technology exists to make life easy. Most of our PCs were 10 years old and all kind of makes and models. We managed.

My comment may seem a bit harsh, but it's more for the senior leadership team not the IT dept. In very special cases, you can pay Microsoft for extended support but my take on it, is that they've had years of warning so what's going to change now which could not have done years ago?

I hear excuses like 'special software', ok...fair enough, but they should have been looking/researching/developing years ago if they intend to stick with Windows. It was the same excuse with XP. Microsoft made it very clear when the support ran out. Amazingly our local university hasn't even started a windows 10 upgrade project! Then again, most of their servers are 2008 and unpatched lol

Unless cyber threats isn't high on the priority list for a company, they can't cry when they get hacked.

Anything can be achieved with the right amount of resources.
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The problem with this software is will only run on Windows 7 32 bit. Its no longer made and their isn't an affordable alternative. basically it was a few hundred pounds. The equivalent now is a few thousand pounds and subscription based and doesn't do as much as the old software (in the same situation). So there has never been a real reason to upgrade.

.. I will add that I have already warned him if the PCs die hardware wise I wont be able to re-build windows 7 on a newer PC. I also wont be able to install the older software anyway as it wont activate. At some point will have to bite the bullet. I will do the processes I mentioned about AV and Backups. and Re-iterate that he needs to find viable alternative product asap

oh and office365 will give up at some point too as that wont be supported. eventually his hand will be forced
 
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Kurgen said:
.. I will add that I have already warned him if the PCs die hardware wise I wont be able to re-build windows 7 on a newer PC. I also wont be able to install the older software anyway as it wont activate. At some point will have to bite the bullet. I will do the processes I mentioned about AV and Backups. and Re-iterate that he needs to find viable alternative product asap
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If it was me I would plan right now for a new system with windows 10 on and a way to migrate all data to new software.
 
Kurgen said:
The problem with this software is will only run on Windows 7 32 bit. Its no longer made and their isn't an affordable alternative. basically it was a few hundred pounds. The equivalent now is a few thousand pounds and subscription based and doesn't do as much as the old software (in the same situation). So there has never been a real reason to upgrade.
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I'll give you a good reason, 14th Jan 2020

We've been there mate, we had loads of software which wouldn't run on Windows 10. You just have to get through it.

They should have paid and upgraded ages ago. Perhaps even adapting business process to suit.

You need to take the heat out the fire. Before you had old software....now you have old software AND an unpatched version of windows. Your suituation was only going to get worse.

So long as someone in the business has accepted the risk (and it's logged on a risk register), your ass is covered.

Actually, I'm having a battle right now with my finance dept. They won't change their finance system but they are going to have to as it runs on an old version of Java. It's not fun for anyone, I don't really want to do it, but I will as it's the right thing to do.
 
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Quite a few older games work fine on 7 but not on 10 - Quake 2 for instance the stock executable just hangs on Windows 10 but works fine in 7 - in this case as the source code is released people have built fixed versions that work fine in 10 but still.

Some games have problems with compatibility in 8/10 and either don't run or run limited to 30 FPS and/or only windowed mode unless you inject calls to SetAppCompatData into the process as well.
 
pastymuncher said:
My weather station software won't even run the installer on 10. Luckily my laptop running Windows 7 is just for the weather station.
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I've had a few bit of software like that - so far been able to just extract the installer with 7zip or install on an older system and copy the folder over and run stand alone but stuff which needs drivers, etc. that won't work for.
 
I agree with some of the comments
If you are big enough to have an IT department
Then yeah of course it should be sorted
But one man band outfits is totally different
Most people turn on the pc and just expect it to work they have no idea
What is occurring behind what they see on the screen
Or what to do if something doesn't do what it's meant to
The amount of times I have heard "but it worked before" from people about their pc is unreal
Yeah everything broken worked before why would pcs be different lol
 
pastymuncher said:
My weather station software won't even run the installer on 10. Luckily my laptop running Windows 7 is just for the weather station.
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In this instance when it's software/games you have to install there is no reason why someone can't learn how to install a virtual machine. In the OPS instance this is business critical by the sounds of it so there's a big difference here.
 
And if it does go bye bye
Yes you can install windows 7 on new hardware
But it's a pain to do usually
Involves USB utility software
Pci/pcie USB card
And a ps2 port to plug in old style mouse/ keyboard
So doable but not easily
 
I have nearly 100 pc's still to update to 10 from 7 and its a lot of work.
A lot of folk dont appreciate doing it (some actively want it) but they dont get a choice, we upgrade or i will take them off the network.
Here ...unless there is a very good reason for staying with an out of date OS then you will be getting moved on.
 
sideways14a said:
I have nearly 100 pc's still to update to 10 from 7 and its a lot of work.
A lot of folk dont appreciate doing it (some actively want it) but they dont get a choice, we upgrade or i will take them off the network.
Here ...unless there is a very good reason for staying with an out of date OS then you will be getting moved on.
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With 100 wouldn't you be mass deploying it over network?
Rather than manually doing each one?
 
We do indeed use system centre to deploy images across the network however... we do have to spend some time with the workstation being done as most of our users splatter documents, data and god knows all over the place and a lot of it ends up on the C drive.
Now you could argue that they shouldnt be allowed but we are in academia and individuals work flow is usually determined to be more important than IT spending a few more mins cleaning up the mess a user makes of a pc. So we go and ensure they have moved all there documents to the home drives, we copy shortcuts ect...
No i dont like that we have to do it but it keeps people happy, we are moving to onedrive along with other things so this will be less of a time consumer in the future.

We do not manually install from usb keys or DVD of course so while i say its a lot of work i mean its more a lot of hassle.
 
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