ALERT Windows 7 Users!

[Vacillator]

7 hours ago, BornGinger said:

This is a conspiracy. Call in the tin foil hatters so they can do something about it.

If you read Steam's notes about it, they say users will no longer be able to play if they're on Win7. 

Surprised me, but I'm on Win11 so don't give much of a flying f**k.

[A Canadian Cat]

17 hours ago, Vacillator said:

If you read Steam's notes about it, they say users will no longer be able to play if they're on Win7. 

Surprised me, but I'm on Win11 so don't give much of a flying f**k.

Yeah, this kind of thing can be annoying. I had Vista and was staying away from Windows 8. A photo cataloguing program I use came along and said they were dropping support for Vista. I wasn't too worried since I had been using their Beta and it worked fine. Release came and they f***ing added code to refuse to run on Vista. I was very annoyed. Dropping support is one thing but actively preventing the software from running that's really frustrating.

Edited September 15, 2023 by IanL
improved swearing redaction

[PEB14]

2 hours ago, IanL said:

Dropping support is one thing but actively preventing the software from running that's really frustrating.

That's pure planned obsolescence.

I don't understand how this kind of stuff can still be legal.

[Artkin]

3 hours ago, IanL said:

Yeah, this kind of thing can be annoying. I had Vista and was staying away from Windows 8. A photo cataloguing program I use came along and said they were dropping support for Vista. I wasn't too worried since I had been using their Beta and it worked fine. Release came and they f***ing added code to refuse to run on Vista. I was very annoyed. Dropping support is one thing but actively preventing the software from running that's really frustrating.

Yep and this is my problem with Valve's steam. Theyre collaborating with microsoft for sure. 

This is the world we wanted. 

[Redwolf]

The root cause is actually Google in this case.

Steam is HTML based and renders to screen using the Chromium browser engine. Google is dropping Chromium support for Windows 7, so Valve is, too.

Of course I would prefer that they switch to a different engine, but not much chance that is going to happen.

[Artkin]

12 minutes ago, Redwolf said:

The root cause is actually Google in this case.

Steam is HTML based and renders to screen using the Chromium browser engine. Google is dropping Chromium support for Windows 7, so Valve is, too.

Of course I would prefer that they switch to a different engine, but not much chance that is going to happen.

Valve must be absolutely rolling in cash. 

And yeah I don't doubt Google is in on it too. 

[Grey_Fox]

Let shrug. Writing stuff that runs on modern tech and old tech is both hard and limiting. At some point you just have to decide to cut off the last holdouts.

[user1000]

On 9/14/2023 at 11:57 AM, Grey_Fox said:

How can you suggest that when it's been abandoned by Microsoft, meaning it no longer gets security updates?

it doesn't need to if you have another anti virus that gets updates!!!

[Grey_Fox]

20 minutes ago, user1000 said:

it doesn't need to if you have another anti virus that gets updates!!!

Third party antivirus tends to increase the threat surface area of whatever system it's installed on, ironically making them even more vulnerable. Plus the third party antivirus will also have their own vulnerabilities.

There are also no protections against zero-day exploits. The system needs to be actively supported in order to close them, which windows 7 will not be since it's been abandoned by Microsoft.

[user1000]

2 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

Third party antivirus tends to increase the threat surface area of whatever system it's installed on, ironically making them even more vulnerable. Plus the third party antivirus will also have their own vulnerabilities.

There are also no protections against zero-day exploits. The system needs to be actively supported in order to close them, which windows 7 will not be since it's been abandoned by Microsoft.

wrong .

[Grey_Fox]

10 hours ago, user1000 said:

wrong .

This isn't a controversial point. 20-25 years ago, third party antivirus added value for domestic users, but the OS developers like Microsoft and Apple rapidly overtook them. Third party antivirus hasn't been recommended for domestic users since about 2008ish. This is a decent article from 2017 which lays out a good case with examples where third party antivirus caused more problems than they solved by interfering with the OS and increasing the threat surface area: 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad/

The day of "viruses" is gone. It's all about zero-day exploits. There is no defense against these since by definition they aren't known about.

IT security firms do offer value to enterprise clients who have the resources to spend on custom solutions to meet their unique security environments. But that isn't the case for the domestic user.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Grey_Fox

[Artkin]

Have you read the article? Lol.

He cites Norton which is scamware. And also mcafee's (scamware) browser extension. 

Using an AV is great to catch issues before you noticing them. Any competent AV will be fine. I always preferred ESET. 

[Grey_Fox]

48 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Have you read the article? Lol.

He cites Norton which is scamware. And also mcafee's (scamware) browser extension. 

Using an AV is great to catch issues before you noticing them. Any competent AV will be fine. I always preferred ESET. 

The same limitations apply to third party antivirus. They aren't built into the OS, they can only interfere with it, and the more they try to do the more vulnerabilities they cause.

Again, this isn't a controversial position. Domestic users don't need third party antivirus. They just need to keep their operating systems and software up to date, follow good internet hygiene, and have backups.

Just about the only additional software you may want is an adblocker for your browser. uBlock Origin is what I use.

After that, you have all the protection you need built into the OS. A good practice is to crank up UAC to the max, using a separate administrator account to perform any installations.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Grey_Fox

[Artkin]

I agree good hygiene will keep your pc safe, I havent had AV in years and absolutely no issues. Just don't be a dummy. 

But AV will catch something if you do slip up, usually things that are deeper in the OS, embedded in protected folders and such. 

I'm unconvinced. Your AV does not make your computer more vulnerable. Nobody is wiresharking into your system and spending days tinkering finding vulnerabilities.

[MikeyD]

I haven't heard anything about Battlefront abandoning Windows 7 users. If you've got a Steam CM license you in theory also have a BFC CM license too (is that correct?). So the game should survive whether Steam supports the OS or not.

[ratdeath]

BFC -> Slitherine -> Steam!
Steam Slitherine (Steam) BFC!

That's my understanding of how it works, a purchase via BFC gives you all three versions, a purchase via Slitherine also gives you Steam and a purchase on Steam only gives you the Steam version!

And until we get a native Debian stable version of CM all other versions are inferior j/k

[Sakai007]

I was running a Windows 8 machine and when I picked up a later 10 series Nvidia video card I couldn't install the newest drivers because they weren't compatible with Windows 8. That was the moment that I decided that it was time to become part of the modern age I suppose. I did end up getting another pre-built because I just don't have the time like I used to to tinker with building one from the ground up like I did the one I was using before. 

 

It was difficult to get used to Windows 11, and after having the computer for about 2 weeks I had BitLocker bricked my solid state drive because the update from Windows changed so much that BitLocker locked me out of my hard drive and I had no way to get into it. That hard drive is still smoked, I had to go out and buy another SSD which I was planning on doing anyways and reinstall Windows. The One plus side to modern Microsoft software is that the actual serial number if you want to call it that is saved with your account so you have a Windows 11 activation available to you you can install it and be ready to go immediately without any kind of activation. I'm super wary about Windows updates now, I never personally activated BitLocker I guess it's an automatic feature with Windows 11, and I never received the decryption key in any way form or shape.

All in all my experience and migrating to Windows 11 has not been an entirely positive one, however I am able to play with modern software and keep all my drivers up to date so there's that. Definitely feels like I was drag kicking and screaming into the modern world though

[Vacillator]

1 hour ago, Sakai007 said:

after having the computer for about 2 weeks I had BitLocker bricked my solid state drive

My recent Win 11 laptop didn't come with BitLocker so I'm not sure it's a standard feature?  It did come with 'Onedrive' which wanted to back up every single thing on my laptop in the cloud, but only has 5 GB of free storage and kept alerting me that I 'needed' to buy more.  Disabled that and uninstalled, much better now.  Just need to remember to backup in a different way...

Otherwise Win 11 just seems to be the usual exercise of 'let's change the UI and let people guess where the things they use might now be' .

[Redwolf]

On 9/15/2023 at 3:12 PM, Redwolf said:

The root cause is actually Google in this case.

Steam is HTML based and renders to screen using the Chromium browser engine. Google is dropping Chromium support for Windows 7, so Valve is, too.

Of course I would prefer that they switch to a different engine, but not much chance that is going to happen.

 

Looks like the Electron framework has other parties unhappy with it:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/rebuilt-microsoft-teams-app-promises-twice-the-speed-and-half-the-ram-usage/

 

I kinda doubt that Microsoft's thing runs on Win7, though.

[chuckdyke]

On 9/18/2023 at 2:03 AM, Grey_Fox said:

Domestic users don't need third party antivirus. T

I think you are 100% correct. I forgot how long now but Windows Defender just is fine for me. 

[Vinnart]

I finally made the leap to windows 10 from 7 a few months ago because support ending. For anyone still wanting to upgrade It's still possible for free. As far as 10 goes it has it's plusses and minuses, but i was fine with 7. Now my PC won't go to sleep wasting energy unless I do it manually.

[Grey_Fox]

16 hours ago, Vinnart said:

Now my PC won't go to sleep wasting energy unless I do it manually.

That's configurable in the power settings.

[Thewood1]

I think the power settings and lid/button settings are almost exactly the same as in Win7.  Getting there might be different, but the UI is VERY similar.

[Vinnart]

5 hours ago, Grey_Fox said:

That's configurable in the power settings.

It's a bug, or something I can't find is preventing it from sleeping in windows 10. Not power configuration since it will not sleep no matter how i set it. Never had problem in windows 7.

[Redwolf]

16 hours ago, Vinnart said:

It's a bug, or something I can't find is preventing it from sleeping in windows 10. Not power configuration since it will not sleep no matter how i set it. Never had problem in windows 7.

This is probably caused by a hardware driver, or an autostarted application.