I miss the magical feeling windows releases like XP and 7 gave you. Now it’s an exercise in crossing your fingers and hoping the next update doesn’t use more dark patterns to destroy your privacy and security.

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freeAgent 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

You don’t even really have a legitimate reason to hope for those things at this point. It’s just a matter of how much worse MS are going to make it.

	▲	varispeed 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		The problem is virtually defunct regulators inviting all kind of toxic and exploitative behaviour from big corporations. Sure they _do something_, but it is ineffective and more like windows dressing.

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alphager 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't remember the controversies with XP and XPAntiSpy?

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whalesalad 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In 2025, I can only think of two reasons to use Windows as a primary operating system:

1. You develop Windows software, exclusively to be deployed on Windows.

2. You play games that use kernel-level anti-cheat that are incompatible with Linux.

I am really really happy with Debian+KDE combo.

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kstrauser 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

3. Your employer’s IT team refuses to let you use something else.

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ronsor 6 days ago | parent [-]

At work or at home? At work, I'd argue the employer is mostly using it. Windows's problems are their problems then.

	▲	hulitu 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Windows's problems are their problems then. Unfortunately, the user bears the masochism of using Windows. The employer gives only the deadlines.

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spacedrone808 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am having Windows 7 not only at home, but at work also and successfully doing web apps and sites.

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Sunspark 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

I booted into my 7 partition the other day because for whatever reason my frayed 10 partition wouldn't let me run an offline defender scan.

My suggestion is, install Microsoft Security Essentials (you can get a copy of the installer out of archive.org) and definition files are still published for it and are up-to-date. MSE is what became Defender in 10. The Defender in 7 is not the same and doesn't scan for the same things. MSE is needed to replace it.

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throitallaway 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Congrats on your vulnerable system. I hope you're not doing anything important at all on it.

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jerhewet 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Congrats on being a parrot in the "oh noes, taken over by bots!" securitah echo chamber.

W7 is just fine. Daily driver on multiple machines, never been "taken over" or turned into a crypto miner or a hub for a bot network, never had a single virus or other issues.

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pwdisswordfishz 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

That you know of.

	▲	yownie 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		easy enough to tell by merely monitoring traffic flow from suspected machine.
	▲	5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]

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MrRadar 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Seriously. Also less and less software is supporting 7. Importantly, Firefox ESR 115 is the last modern browser to support Windows 7 and it's entering EOL after this month[1]; Chrome dropped Windows 7 support in 2023[2].

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-users-windows-7... [2] https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/7100626

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keyringlight 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Right now I wonder if a browser or chrome embedded framework (and then when applications that use it update past the cut-off version) is the 'killer app' that motivates upgrades. The CEF cut-off for win7/8/8.1 was when their extended support periods ended, and presumably they upgraded the underlying SDK they to rely on features not present pre-win10, and presumably oct 2028 (+3 years) is when the same will happen again

	▲	spacedrone808 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Just made dirty hack and be able to run latest LibreOffice 25.8 on Win7 despite official "unsupported status". Save dialog is not working but luckily software is cross platform and has it's native dialog and it can be enabled in options.

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spacedrone808 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Who needs 115 ESR? I am running RedFox 140.

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spacedrone808 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

that's quite a bold statement. i am doing all my stuff without any problems. If you check ms bulletin you'll see that quantity of bugs in recent Windows is waaaay above old crony, just see ghacks for comparison. I'm applying patches from 2008R2 which are still coming (till 2026). Having two firewalls, h/w and s/w, all unneeded services are stripped off or disabled. So the chance is slim to none.

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estimator7292 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I ran into a problem at my new job where TI's typically garbage software doesn't work on Linux, not even inside a windows VM with the USB device passed through.

Though it's hard to tell if it doesn't work because of the VM or if it's just simply broken garbage.

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matsemann 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

3. You just prefer how it works after being used to it for decades.

Had a Mac through work for a couple of years, so it's not for lack of trying. Also had Ubuntu as main boot for a while.

They are kinda destroying much of what I like, though. As if the Windows designers at MS are all using Macs as their daily driver and want to make it the same. I had to hold off upgrading to Win11 for a while due to the stupid new task bar couldn't ungroup windows. Why continuously hurt power users?

	▲	pjerem 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		> As if the Windows designers at MS are all using Macs as their daily driver and want to make it the same. I’m 100% sure that some months or years ago, someone working or who worked on the Windows team explained just here on HN that it’s exactly that.

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SilverElfin 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

To be honest, I’ve tried to find tutorials for using Linux daily and have come up short. It seems too intimidating or maybe like it will require a lot of fiddling unless you’re a software engineer.

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hnlmorg 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Honestly, I can’t say I ever had that magical feeling.

In the 90s, it was more a case of “let’s see how much more system resource this new OS will consume when idle”. And the 00s was that and “let’s see how much more stupid this OS treats me”.

By the time 7 came and MS started taking resource consumption seriously, I’d already given up on Windows completely and had been using desktop Linux full time for several years.

I do have a Windows 10 floating about for gaming. But it’s really more of a chore to use than a joy. Albeit only because I seldom boot into Windows so I have to plan ahead to compensate for the two hours of system and application updates needed before Minecraft (Bedrock edition) will even start. A chore that’s hard to explain to my kids who, understandably, expect things to “just work”.

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uz3snolc3t6fnrq 6 days ago | parent [-]

any particular reason you're on bedrock instead of java? don't you get both versions when you buy the game? i bought mine when java was the only version and i think they gave me bedrock for free when that came out. or is it because of the lack of crossplay? just curious

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hnlmorg 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

That’s a fair question. You’re right about the crossplay part. Kids have consoles, which only support Bedrock. So if I want to play with them, then I need to play Bedrock too.

Which is a pity because, like yourself, I first played the Java edition too.

As an aside, I think Bedrock is the only version that supports VR. I don’t play VR Minecraft often, but sometimes it’s fun. Albeit only for about 15 minutes, then the motion sickness kicks in (curiously it’s the only VR game I’ve played that does give me motion sickness)

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CalRobert 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

My kids play minecraft Java on a raspberry pi and I set up a server running GeyserMC so their friends on tablets could play with them. I'm still deeply annoyed that MS seems to want to kill off Java though.

If you do, have a look at CoreProtect and whitelisting the users you want to be able to play.

	▲	hnlmorg 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		The kids already have Nintendo Switches. A raspberry pi wouldn’t be practical and they’d never want to use it when everything else is on the Switch. We also have our own Microsoft servers. It’s pretty easy to set up a Bedrock server. Though most of the time the kids just host their own on their Switch. CoreProtect isn’t really needed because they know not to visit public servers and ransoms can’t join our private servers even if they wanted to.

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uz3snolc3t6fnrq 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

i've got possible good news for you then, there's a project that adds a translation layer between the two server protocols[0]. it has some limitations dealing with the different quirks and features that differ between both games[1], but it looks like everything else works fine. you could try that out if you find it to be a better option than wrangling with windows updates

as for VR, there's a third party mod for java[2], i tried it a couple years back and it felt pretty smooth, had no issues with it, but i don't have a point of reference to compare it to bedrock VR because i never tried it

[0] https://github.com/GeyserMC/Geyser

[1] https://geysermc.org/wiki/geyser/current-limitations/

[2] https://www.vivecraft.org/

	▲	hnlmorg 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		That is interesting news. I’ll take a look. Thank you for sharing.

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andai 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I tried bedrock cause I heard it was written in C++, but it somehow ended up running worse than the Java version. Weird lag spikes and constant glitches. (Also the UI is written in JavaScript?)

Then when I ran a Windows 10 debloater, it deleted Bedrock because it was a PWA, and it turns out Bedrock stores the world files inside the application folder, so the world got deleted too.

So yeah I switched back to regular Minecraft.

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estimator7292 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I remember staying up late on a school night to grab a beta iso for windows 7 because they were (supposed to) limit how many people could download it. That was the last time I ever got excited about a Microsoft product