The case for not updating windows 7 ever

[Skybird]

https://www.askwoody.com/2016/the-ca...indows-7-ever/

I commented on this so often this year that this round I save my breath. Just adding that where these authors seem to imply to not update while still using W7 for all purposes, I always suggested to not update W7 anymore - and limiting work with it to what is unavoidable for you. Switch to a non-Microsoft OS.

This entry got a lot of replies in Woody's blog.

Windows is dead.

I did not like to read that Microsoft became Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation, and I want them to stay out - but the mere fact, talen for itself, that they choosed this path indicates clearly that they realised that their Windows battle is lost.

And like already was indicated by MS in the release days of W8, there will be no more new Windows version beyond W10. Means: no Windows 11 ever, or however one could have named the baby. Just an endless doctoring on W10.

[THEBERBSTER]

Hi Sb
Windows 7 AFAIK will only be supported until 2020.
Peter

[Rockin Robbins]

Just as running Windows XP with proper firewall, anti-virus and anti-malware protection is a safe process today, running Windows 7 without updates, with proper precautions, is not a problem. So far my main computer is now running Ubuntu exclusively and my Windows 7 canary computer is updating with Security Updates Only unless there is a specific non-sercurity update that I need.

Of course I have a two-way firewall and run Spybot Anti-Beacon, so Microsoft snoopware can't call home. It's amazing how running Ubuntu on my main system has just taken the stress away and I just enjoy it. All my Fall of the Rising Sun Ultimate Edition work is done in Linux!

[Skybird]

No, Robbin, the way you put it, it is wrong information you give there. Running W7 without updating it, includes risks, risks you cannot evade by using Malwarebytes or AntiVir or Firewall. Certain embedded processes, namely Explorer in W7, are used by W7 to handle certain internal things and background stuff even if Explorer does not get used for browsing actively - Window uses it for internal things nevertheless. The security weaknesses of Explorer are a risk for W7 itself, therefore, a backdoor, so to speak.

Not updating W7 includes risks, and that is why I recommend to not use it online, or to minimise it for that use like I do (I use it just to launch games, nothing else, in principle my W7 PC is a game console now. I do not even do game-related financial transactions via this rig, but do the transaction - Steam for example - via another system. I hold no personal data, files and info on this W7 PC anymore - none. All DLC for a Steam PC game - i buy via Steam on my Linux rig. and even now I must a certain remaining risk).

The securtiy holes in XP are much bigger by now, and you cannot trust in fixing them all via Firewalls and Antivir and such, that is swelf-deception. XP systems I would not dare to run in any different mode than physically disconnected from the internet - ALWAYS.

There are good reasons to not uzpdate W7 anymore. But one should niot have the illusion that one could sail safe when doing so. It is a risk. You can redcue the risks by clever means, minimise them to what is unavoidable - but you cannot completely avoid them. If you do not upodate Wiundows anymore, then limit W7 to the use for what you necessarily still need it. For everything else: use another rig and another OS.

Apple and Android and Chrome offer no privacy protection worth the name, but are safer regarding malware attacks. If snooping should be significantly reduced as well and getting profiled should get supressed signficantly, in principle only Linux remains. Apple, Google do not want to be less penetrating regarding their snooping attacks, it is part of their business philosophy to snoop on people and to profile them. Do not fall for their sweet words and options.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by THEBERBSTER

Hi Sb
Windows 7 AFAIK will only be supported until 2020.
Peter

The forum discussion in the past 12 months about this, W7, GWX, W10, Linux and such, went far beyond this minor point, Peter. You are just quite late to the party.

The safe options all lie in not using Windows, no matter which version. If one does, one should be aware of the risks. Woody's blog can help to get an idea of what all the fuss is about. There are many more tech sites as well that warn of MS and W.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Windows is dead.

You keep saying this, but it doesn't make it true.

Until there is a serious contender to replace Windows, it remains very much alive.

[Skybird]

The writing is on the wall.

Its dead, its just dying a slow death. There will be no Windows version 11 after 10. Windows 10 is in agony, as the many disasters, failures, broken updates show. Talk to company administrators - they HATE W10, it gives them nothing but troubles and overtime hours. Microsoft has given up on wanting to do a proper OS, they focus on cloud and server market, they even have given up their resistenace to open source OS like Linux, and now support that by membership in a bid to gain influence there - that is as if Apple would invest into Google to make Chrome a stronger competitor to their own iOS. -

See HW3'S thread and the article he linked here: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=228433

Or read here: LINK: Linux Won.

In 4-5 years you will not recognise the market for OS anymore.

The long lasting trend towards mobiles and notebooks/netbooks/laptops, does not help Windows either. Microsoft failed on the market for mobiles. And their own hardware? Ask owners of Surface books why they think surface books lay heavy like lead on the shelves. Surface's failure has been explained. Many times.

And if you allow Windows 7 to run Windows updates, you by now already operate a Windows-10-in-disguise. You maybe just do not know it. The full telemetry and snooping suite of W10 has been engineered into W7 by now, if people were trustign Microsoft too kindly. Of course they did not say it that clearly - but that is what they have done.

The new update regime that got enforced on W7, is the tobmstone on Windows 7's grave.

Heck, even business and industry have started to use non-Windows depending platforms now, I repeatedly read this year. Some right because of Windows. Some because alternative platforms work as well or better for them, for their business foci and purposes.

Die hard, Windows. But dying you do.

There have been reports on OEM versions of W7 not installing anymore for thousands of people around the globe. Microsoft switched it off, so to speak, at least some of the OEM numbers. For the time being you are only safe if having a full version of W7, if you want to reinstall.

I recommend to use a oatch archive from disc, that you got before the messy year of 2016 arrived, and preferrably from a source not being a live Wndows Update server. Thats what I did one year ago, and so my W7 installation is of patch status SP1+patches until late summer last year. Since then, evertyhing I warned of what Microsoft would add in evils and pains, has come true. Everything.

This reminds me of that I wanted to come to terms with a VM in which to run W7. Forgot about it the past weeks. If I could get that running, I could leave Windows pure installation behind as well and then can be done with Microsoft forever. Man, I turn lazy at my age.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Skybird

No, Robbin, the way you put it, it is wrong information you give there.

I have been running Windows XP on a voluntary canary laptop for nine months now, 24 hours a day and acquired no malware of any kind. None of the bad things you say are a certainty have happened. The system just runs normally and no bad guys have found their way in. I live behind a hardware firewall in my router, anti-virus, anti-malware, Spybot Anti-Beacon and anti-adware software on the computer, use Firefox and Thunderbird. Not one problem in nine months.

The same would be true of Windows 7. Now if you were a large corporation which makes it worthwhile for Joe Hacker to want to spend the time and effort to break in, then very little is safe, including Windows 10 or a Linux system.

But if you're handling non critical e-mail, posting on Subsim and Facebook, browsing the web and not conducting any business on the computer, you're nearly as safe as you can be.

On the other hand if that's all you do, plus you'd like to do some banking online, you could switch to Linux today and never even think "maybe it would be nice to still have Windows" again. I've really enjoyed my somewhat forced exclusive use of Ubuntu 16.10 and only think of Windows about once a month. Yes, theoretical security is better, but actual security with Windows XP or Windows 7 is good if you take proper steps.

The fact is that most of us have nothing the bad guys want. If they knew you had something they wanted badly they'd find a way to break in anyway.

[Skybird]

I did not speak of "certainties", but probabilities, and the probability of you sooner or later getting hit by something if still using XP or W7 for surfing and being online, is incalculable. I am surprised that I must tell you this, Robbin, after all thes emonths of you posting and me reading your posts I would have assumed you know that better for yourself. Far more competent experts on security and PC tech have explained since years why it is almost irresponsible these days to use XP for surfing. You could turn into a plague infestor yourself without even knowing it, being a menace for others.

There is no excuse whatever to use XP for surfing these days. On an offline machine - that is another thing, i do that myself. But online ? No way.

Also, I am surprised again that you so blindly trust in Firewalls and AntiVir, again that is something that you should know better. There is plenty of malware out there that can evade or penetrate them, even additional scanners like S&D, Spyware, or MBAM. There is even malware on Windows that makes these scanners its primary attack objective to enter the system. You now that from Linux, where many people rate presenc eof AntiVir as a greater threat to Linux than absence of it and using Linux without such a scanner. . Under Windows, it is much more urgent a problem - since years. Much more urgent a problem.

Heck, over the past two years I have read occasionally from company founders in the security branch that in their opinion it is almost pointless these days to run AntiVir products any longer, since malware attack schemes have moved so much beyond the reach of these programs! They just cannot detect the new generaitons of threats any longer. Not even mentioning Zero Day Exploits.

Really, don'T tell people that if they use an AntiVir and a firewall they are as safe under XP or W7-not-updated as if they are under Linux or a fully maintained Windows modern version . Could you image what Woody would tellm you when you tell him all this? He already strictly disagreed with me when I said "do not update W7 but then do not use it for surfing any longer".

I got hit by surf-by attacks twice, btw, and that at a time when I still updated W7, had it in tip-top shape, and had AntiVir and Firewall additional to my router's firewall, and MBAM and S&D in place. And I had a sandboxed (Sandboxie) Opera and its options set to extremely safe and tight. And more minor attacks more years ago when I still was not as paranoid as I am today, in optimists' eyes. And still I got hit.

So, everybody, do not use XP for online machines anymore, that is negligent and quite mean towards those people contacting your machine - you put them at big risks and maybe do not even notice it when you harm them. And if you do not update W7, like I do, then also do the second thing I do: strictly limit W7 to the use you still need it for. The way Robbins describes IS NOT SAFE AND IS NO CALCULABLE REST RISK AT ALL. Even what I recommend, to limit the use of W7 if you do not update it anymore, bears a certain rest risk, though a smaller one, obviously.

Bst advise of course, still is: leave Windows behind, if only you can. Leave it behind. Microsoft makes it worse and worse, and even add to the damages of it.

[Rockin Robbins]

The most imporant threat to any machine is social engineering, which turns you into the virus that damages your machine. No operating system will ever be immune to that.

My XP machine is not for surfing the web, although it does that. It is strictly for assessing the actual harmfulness of running XP behind the software you don't trust. So far it has been uninvaded by bad guys after 24 hours a day and over 9 months. It's a canary, to penetrate the hype and doomsaying and answer the question "How foolish is it to run XP for non-critical home use?" The answer so far is that it is absolutely routine.

Again, just about every very harmful thing that has happened in the past year has been the result of social engineering and man in the middle internet scams which work no matter how "safe" your operating system is. If you give someone the password to your bank account he can get your money and it doesn't matter if you're running Windows, Linux, OS10, iOS, Android, VMS, DOS 3.3 or an abacus. Crooks have discovered that the easiest way to open a door is to ask you to do it in the most persuasive way. And it has been amazing how eager people have been to be their own virus.

The safety of your operating system is magnitudes less important than your own behavior.

[Skybird]

I agree that in car driving not only the technology used in the car and the technical status of the car are relevant, but also the driver'S decisions, his skills, and driving routine.

However, it still oversteps the red line to tell people that if the driver is "reasonable" in his driving, it is okay to drive a car without working brakes, and hydraulics liquid dripping out of the wires. And that is what XP today is. After XP came Vista. After Vista came W7. After that came W8. Then W8.1. Then W10.

That old XP is.

You could as well tell people its safe to use W98. Its not.

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

The most imporant threat to any machine is social engineering, which turns you into the virus that damages your machine. No operating system will ever be immune to that.

...

Again, just about every very harmful thing that has happened in the past year has been the result of social engineering and man in the middle internet scams which work no matter how "safe" your operating system is. If you give someone the password to your bank account he can get your money and it doesn't matter if you're running Windows, Linux, OS10, iOS, Android, VMS, DOS 3.3 or an abacus. Crooks have discovered that the easiest way to open a door is to ask you to do it in the most persuasive way. And it has been amazing how eager people have been to be their own virus.

The safety of your operating system is magnitudes less important than your own behavior.

Particularly the first part, and the part that I underlined, italicized and bolded...

I got a phone call one morning waking me up, I answered, and the person on the phone was not a native speaker... Told me that "I'm from technical support" Oh, REALLY? Which 'Technical Support' would that be? hmm?

"We have tried contacting you on your computer...." With a pop-up? Really? You don't say?

"If you will log in we can remove the virus/malware/spyware..." (I forgot which one he said...) By this point I'm getting to the point of: 'I didn't get enough sleep and I've got a headache now because you woke me up early, PLUS you woke me up early and I'm not happy about that... and wait that's not all, act now and by waking me up early... I CLEAN MY OWN VIRUSES AND SPYWARE OFF MY PC... I DON'T NEED YOUR HELP, IF -THE REAL- 'TECHNICAL SUPPORT' HAD DONE THEIR JOB RIGHT THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY VIRUSES ON MY PC!!!'
And THEN, here came the kicker, and I although I KNEW it was a scam before this point, I had absolutely NO DOUBT that it was a scam after this... "from your Windows."

From my Windows? REALLY? From MY Windows? Which 'Windows' is that? Would that be Win95? 98? XP? 7? Vista? Hmm? Which 'Windows' would that be, Mr. Scam artist? HUH? which one? JERK!

To which I replied "That's nice, I don't have Windows."

"What?" he says...

I repeat myself "I don't run Windows."

So in a rather panicked 'ohh dear, he's on to us, we screwed up' tone, "Ohh, Sorry sir, goodbye".
And he hangs up real fast....

I thought about calling the police, but I was tired so I went back to bed.

I'm waiting for the next call I get like that, I think I'll play the "total idiot" card and patronize the daylights out of them.

Barracuda

[Skybird]

The most important AntiVirus sits right in the middle between your ears. I agree, people behave incredibly stupid on the web. Starts with antisocial media already, but certainly does not end there.

I know such telephone calls. Thats why I have whitelisted my telephone.Everybody knows what a blacklist is. A white list is practically a negative. No callers can reach me as long as their individual number or number-area have not been listed in the permission-list. You cannot imagine how peaceful my life has become since then. Before, I got call-centre calls at least once a week, for some weeks 2-4 times per day. Also scam calls once a month or so. It was a pest. I did not like telephoning before, but since then I hate phones. Today, only cellphone networks, and the area of maybe 30km around my hometown can reach me by telephone. Plus people whose individual numbers I have permitted.

[Skybird]

Since I mentioned it above, Telekom now says they have indices that they fell victim to an external hacker attack.

Routers in almost one million households/offices are temporarily or for lasting effect offline since yesterday afternoon. All router-depending services in these households/offices are affected.

Possible that the routers were directly attacked, it seems not every router model but only certain product lines are affected. So much for hardware-sided firewalls.

Nightmare scenario for friends of black humour: stockmarkets go rock-bottom, you desperately want to place orders to sell - and cannot. Imagination can plot easily according criminal attack scenarios.

[aanker]

The "I'm from Vindows technical support" calls (from East Asia) stopped after I told them I didn't have a computer, and that I hated computers. I do whitelist everything possible, my email etc, wish I could do the house phone (landline).

Thanks to Rockin Robbins' tutorials & Skybird's constant 'encouragement', I'm pulling the plug from the internet on the Win7 computers, and switching to Linux on a cheap laptop for internet related things in the near future. One down, one to go (just awaiting the 'cheap laptop' - 'Tis the Season' ; )