Windows 7 no longer supported....

[Baldo]

I logged onto my Windows 7 machine this morning and got the message that W7 is no longer supported..... It want's me to move over to Windows 10...

But I dont want to move to W10. W7 has been fine and worked a lot better that my W10 laptop.

What are other people doing about this?

Am I the only one here using W7 and has everyone moved over to W10?

Many thanks.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'm still on Win7 on my music machine...

MS are making a big song and dance about not sending out security patches for Win7 anymore, and quite obviously the risk will rise progressively for anyone with a Win7 machine connected to the interweb.

An isolated 'music machine' won't be a problem... but how practical is that for most of us?

We are now a few generations into Win10, so all the early foibles have been addressed. I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and install 10 soon. All the other machines here are already Win10 and it seems to be pretty solid and reliable once you've beaten it into a sensible user platform!

[Music Wolf]

I've been happily running W10 on my music machine for a while now. The only 'niggles' that I've had have been that an old Edirol AI, which I no longer used anyway, was unsupported and I had to update the drivers onmy Midiman Midisport 2x2 through trial an error (the documentation on the Midiman site was misleading). Other than that, no problems to report and it seems very stable.

[Matt Houghton]

I had an utter nightmare when I first upgraded from 7 to 10. So much went wrong. A clean install would be strongly advised!

Also note that a revision of W10 last year rendered some motherboards on older machines incompatible. As in a maybe-might-kinda-possibly be able to get it working, but not without problems. I had two Asus P6t Deluxe V2 machines which suffered in this respect.

As for operating your machine without hooking up to the web... that's what I now do with my new Win 10 studio PC. I'll connect it up if/when I want to add/update something significant, but that's it. And it's a bloody refreshing change! I use my MacBook Pro for web access, and copy things over as and when I need them... So... no more horrible nagging about Windows updates, no more annoying need to update the eLicenser to get Cubase running, no more anything but switch on and make music

[The Elf]

I hear stories of nightmares upgrading to Win10, but I honestly haven't had any problems, or seen any first hand.

Just make sure you do the sensible thing and have an image copy of your current hard drive to hand if it all gos horribly wrong and you can revert should you need to.

[OneWorld]

I had an utter nightmare when I first upgraded from 7 to 10. So much went wrong. A clean install would be strongly advised!

Also note that a revision of W10 last year rendered some motherboards on older machines incompatible. As in a maybe-might-kinda-possibly be able to get it working, but not without problems. I had two Asus P6t Deluxe V2 machines which suffered in this respect.

As for operating your machine without hooking up to the web... that's what I now do with my new Win 10 studio PC. I'll connect it up if/when I want to add/update something significant, but that's it. And it's a bloody refreshing change! I use my MacBook Pro for web access, and copy things over as and when I need them... So... no more horrible nagging about Windows updates, no more annoying need to update the eLicenser to get Cubase running, no more anything but switch on and make music

That's odd. I have the Asus P6t Deluxe and apart from the dreaded WIn10 updates which always seem to wipe out my eLicenser gizmo until I re-download it, and on the occasion lose my Cubase Documents and settings (so now I keep a copy of the folder and especially the 'defaults' file) and on the whole it runs fine. I had taken to right clicking on the NIC icon and disabling it, then enabling when I want to go onto the internet.

I also ran some of the 'tweakers' available and that got rid of a lot of the Win10 cellulite.

I am wondering whether to go beyond WIn10 though, I can't really see what a future OS can offer, unless it were quicker boot times, and lower latencies etc I upgraded to WIn10 because it was free, way back when but I can't see what it does that WIn7 couldn't do

[The Bunk]

Yep, I knew this was coming but couldn't remember exactly when....and then up popped the message this morning. I also had a right nightmare going over to WIN10 and reverted back straightaway. But I suppose I'll have to bow to the inevitable eventually. And in the meantime keep clear of some of the "fruitier" websites And in all likelihood it'll be a new computer before too long anyway.

[Drew Stephenson]

Just for balance, i moved to W10 early on and have only one problem with it, which is that the more major updates knock out the licensing for my focusrite VSTs. But focusrite have always been really good about just reactivating them for me, normally within one working day.

[The Bunk]

Just for balance, i moved to W10 early on and have only one problem with it, which is that the more major updates knock out the licensing for my focusrite VSTs. But focusrite have always been really good about just reactivating them for me, normally within one working day.

That was the major issue with me actually...Good to know for future reference.

[Marbury]

I am in a similar conundrum. Happy using my Win 7 Scan built PC since 2013 but as the music software (Reaper/Omnisphere) isn't that taxing on this i5-3570 3.8GHZ with 16MB ram I am not too bothered BUT I do use this all the time for online use for my business. I do have a clone of the drive backed up on an old clunky drive from the recently new SSD and all my work backed up so not sure what kind of risk I am taking. Do I go Linux, try Win 10 (reluctantly having read posts above of the trouble it can cause) or bite the bullet and get a new machine that can at least handle decent video editing which I kind of need now or just get a good free antivirus like Total AV ?

[CS70]

Imho, sticking with W7 is like keeping using a steam engine because it works so well.

There's absolutely no reason for not upgrading - any machine will work better and faster as W10 is a leaner and meaner OS and keeps getting better in lots of areas, some of which include audio.

[merlyn]

Linux is something to consider. Reaper is available for Linux. Omnisphere would require WINE. You can try out AV Linux from a bootable USB available here :

http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/

AV Linux comes with a lot of multimedia software already installed, so you can have a look and see what you think of the live USB without needing to install it to a hard drive.

[Marbury]

Would I have to wipe my Windows 7 drive and install Linux or run it alongside ?

[merlyn]

God , no. Try before you eh ... don't buy. (It's free). You download the USB image, make a bootable USB stick and boot from that leaving your hard drive untouched.

[Marbury]

Ok, that sounds good but how do I access the programs on my hard drive like Reaper, Adobe Lightroom etc as well as all the media stored on my drive ?

[merlyn]

With Reaper you would install the Linux version of Reaper to the Linux partition.

Adobe products are not supported on Linux unfortunately, so that is likely a deal breaker for you.

[Marbury]

Adobe products are not supported on Linux unfortunately, so that is likely a deal breaker for you.

In that case I will stick with the free antivirus for the time being.

[wireman]

The big risk would be a remotely accessible exploit in a service that your computer runs. I guess home routers all have a firewall which is good. Shieldsup used to be a good test to run to see how open your computer is.

By the way I just got a W10 laptop from work (have not used it before) and I still can't work out how to get a volume control on the taskbar so this is going to be a learning curve.

[James Perrett]

By the way I just got a W10 laptop from work (have not used it before) and I still can't work out how to get a volume control on the taskbar so this is going to be a learning curve.

Here I have a speaker icon in the bottom right hand corner. Click on it to show the volume control.

[DGL.]

By the way I just got a W10 laptop from work (have not used it before) and I still can't work out how to get a volume control on the taskbar so this is going to be a learning curve.

If it's not present at all then make sure it is turned on in the "turn system icon on or off" in settings, if you then want it to be permanently on teh task bar (without clicking the "more"/up button (it's probably not called that) then either drag it from the "more" menu to the task bar or use the "select which icons appear on the taskbar" settings page to have it on view permanently.

[wireman]

By the way I just got a W10 laptop from work (have not used it before) and I still can't work out how to get a volume control on the taskbar so this is going to be a learning curve.

If it's not present at all then make sure it is turned on in the "turn system icon on or off" in settings, if you then want it to be permanently on teh task bar (without clicking the "more"/up button (it's probably not called that) then either drag it from the "more" menu to the task bar or use the "select which icons appear on the taskbar" settings page to have it on view permanently.

I already checked the taskbar settings and that it was enabled within the system icons, other icons enabled in those settings do show. I don't have a more menu, at least not something like what I had in Windows 7. I even resorted to asking my son who has used Windows 10 for a while now, he has the icon.
W10 will quite happily show the volume control/mixer and put the icon on the left of the taskbar when that is running.

[Watchmaker]

Much ado about nothing.

Win7 is a decent OS. Win10 is a rapacious data whore with some enhanced capability and is a decent, not amazing or great, OS.

The odds that your Win7 machine will be a target for any miscreants is minimal, especially if you use your Win10 machine to surf porn. Then you can judge how much better it is for security. Flatly, every OS is relatively easy to hack, but the overwhelming majority are simply not worth the time. Most "hacks" are akin to a priest and a virgin walking into a biker bar and asking to "be served."

Another quibble from me: most of the win10 Acolytes I've run across are perfectly comfortable having every key stroke recorded by the NSA. I don't share that level of trust, so Win10 is a major concern for me and I've gone to extreme lengths to moderate its behaviors.

As in all things: caveat emptor.

[CS70]

The odds that your Win7 machine will be a target for any miscreants is minimal, especially if you use your Win10 machine to surf porn.

...
Another quibble from me: most of the win10 Acolytes I've run across are perfectly comfortable having every key stroke recorded by the NSA. I don't share that level of trust, so Win10 is a major concern for me and I've gone to extreme lengths to moderate its behaviors.

Agreed, but by the same meter, who in NSA can be possibly interested in our keystrokes?

[Hugh Robjohns]

If the NSA were genuinely interested in your typings, it really wouldn't matter which OS you decide to use...

[Eddy Deegan]

most of the win10 Acolytes I've run across are perfectly comfortable having every key stroke recorded by the NSA. I don't share that level of trust, so Win10 is a major concern for me and I've gone to extreme lengths to moderate its behaviors.

Err, you don't have to go to extreme lengths. What you do have to do is spend an annoying half hour or so meticulously going through every privacy setting and disabling them as appropriate.

For typing, just disable the "Inking & typing personalisation" switch in the privacy settings.