Latest Win 7 updates fuck-up

[Mr. Scram]

You absolutely do lose the previous license, yes you have a window to roll back but after that you are SOL. Sure there are hacks and tricks to get it for free just like any other software, but if you wish to stay legal you are trading in a valid license for a new license, you don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Win10 is not and has never been free.

I don't think you lose the license. You can still install the previous OS and activate it.

[wraper]

Just a quick question - didn't really bother to look that up in depth myself, since I don't care about Win 10 for the time being.

I've heard many people say that the Win 7 to 10 upgrade was still free, whereas MS always officially stated that the free upgrade would only be for the first year. I've looked a little on MS website, and I can't find any info on the upgrade being still free. Can anyone point me to an OFFICIAL info about that?

Is installing win 10 over activated win 7/8 resulting in automatic activation of win 10 official enough? Also if you make fresh install and enter win 7/8 key when installing win 10 (or during activation if you didn't enter it during install) you get the same result.
EDIT: You also can upgrade win 10 Home to Pro by entering win 7/8 pro or ultimate key.

And in case there's indeed NO official info from MS, but upgrades are still free, can anyone explain why?

Because MS wants to get rid of previous OS but also wants to sell win 10.

[FreddieChopin]

I think that Windows 7 was not a bad OS but it was bloated beyond reason. I use Windows 10 now but in my University all computers are still Windows XP because it runs better on older hardware like Intel E8400 CPU. Also, I have a laptop with XP customized by nLite software. It reinstalls in about 30 minutes automatically and I dont use antivirus with it because all unsafe stuff (services, autorun) is disabled with nLite.

[StillTrying]

Just updated my Win 7 workstation with the latest august updates today.

Don't know if I'm the only one: this was kind of a fuck-up. Made the OS freeze (it was not a "hard" freeze, mouse could still be moved around, but GUI was completely unresponsive, and even CTRL-ADD-DEL didn't do anything). First time I had seen that in years. After a few minutes waiting like this, the only option was to hard reset the machine (there was no sign of SSD activity...
Am I the only one who encountered this issue?

After reading this thread I enabled Windows7 updates and got nearly the same effect. Stuck at checking for updates with no CPU, disk or network activity and running like cold treacle. After 2 reboots it now says  Last updated: never,  so I won't be trying again.

[thm_w]

Sure, the obvious would be saying that MS just doesn't talk about free upgrades and tells people to buy a new computer, because this way they'll get money for the OEM version you'll get with the new computer. But really guys. Has MS become so desperate and so oblivious to their customers that they will just lie to them, if just by omission here?

You're stretching things here. They don't want to have it written down because then it becomes a legal liability they have to commit to. A normal company might have a hard cutoff where the free upgrade/license is no longer available and then you have to pay for said license. You are implying that keeping it free, and being quiet about it is somehow worse than that.

[SiliconWizard]

Sure, the obvious would be saying that MS just doesn't talk about free upgrades and tells people to buy a new computer, because this way they'll get money for the OEM version you'll get with the new computer. But really guys. Has MS become so desperate and so oblivious to their customers that they will just lie to them, if just by omission here?

(...)
You are implying that keeping it free, and being quiet about it is somehow worse than that.

Indeed. I call that a deceptive practice.
The only reason they didn't stop after one year as they said they would, is that they failed to reach the market share they had targetted for Win 10.
The only reason they keep it free while not committing to any clear end date, is again that they are still failing to reach the market share they have targetted.
This is not a sign of being nice, it's just a sign of failed strategy.

Any company that is not being upfront about something like this can't be trusted IMO.

So you're saying they want no legal commitment? But how is that not a problem for customers? As a customer, I want a commitment EITHER WAY. Free or not free. And I'll do whatever I choose to depending on that info.

As long as it's not official, taking the risk of upgrading, if it turns out to have to be paid for, is not something I would do. After all, I know NOTHING about that except for a few users' experience. Since MS is not commited, they could change ANYTHING about this at ANY point in time. I just find this unexcusable. This may be acceptable for people used to using cracked versions of Windows (they'll take the risk of whatever happens if it can be free), not for serious users.

[thm_w]

Indeed. I call that a deceptive practice.
The only reason they didn't stop after one year as they said they would, is that they failed to reach the market share they had targetted for Win 10.
The only reason they keep it free while not committing to any clear end date, is again that they are still failing to reach the market share they have targetted.
This is not a sign of being nice, it's just a sign of failed strategy.

Any company that is not being upfront about something like this can't be trusted IMO.

So you're saying they want no legal commitment? But how is that not a problem for customers? As a customer, I want a commitment EITHER WAY. Free or not free. And I'll do whatever I choose to depending on that info.

As long as it's not official, taking the risk of upgrading, if it turns out to have to be paid for, is not something I would do. After all, I know NOTHING about that except for a few users' experience. Since MS is not commited, they could change ANYTHING about this at ANY point in time. I just find this unexcusable. This may be acceptable for people used to using cracked versions of Windows (they'll take the risk of whatever happens if it can be free), not for serious users.

Never said it was a nice gesture, just standard business practice. They have their reason for it, maybe as you say to reach a certain % market share.

Its not a problem for big business customers, because they are paying MS for licenses or buying machines with OEM licenses. They aren't going to waste time going around upgrading machines. Not to mention they've probably replaced the old W7 hardware at this point (as you mentioned).
I really don't see how its a problem for an average consumer either, no one I know has cared.

Saying "they could do anything" is again a stretch, they aren't going to go out and retract everyones valid upgrade license. Hell you can use the OS without a license as it is (see Linus, he doesn't activate many of his W10 machines).

I really struggle to see your viewpoint.

[james_s]

I think that Windows 7 was not a bad OS but it was bloated beyond reason. I use Windows 10 now but in my University all computers are still Windows XP because it runs better on older hardware like Intel E8400 CPU. Also, I have a laptop with XP customized by nLite software. It reinstalls in about 30 minutes automatically and I dont use antivirus with it because all unsafe stuff (services, autorun) is disabled with nLite.

I have a very old PIII laptop that I use to run my Halloween display and use a few ancient hardware devices that runs XP still. I moved up to Win7 about 5 years ago when 3GB of RAM and 32 bit only was no longer viable for what I wanted to do. There was a 64 bit version of XP but it was never widely distributed or well supported, I used it for a while on my test machines when I worked at MS but it was soon replaced with Vista. That got off to a rocky start but once hardware caught up Vista was really not a bad OS, it gets an unfairly bad rap due to making a lousy first impression.


With any reasonably modern hardware the bloat of Win7 is a non-issue and while I don't really like replacing things that still work, upgrading my desktop to a core i7 from whatever P4 I had previously chopped the power consumption in half. That's actually what drove my decision to upgrade nearly as much as the vastly increased performance. Particularly if it's a machine that will be on 24/7 upgrading older hardware can pay for itself in energy savings.

Now it's possible that Win10 will eventually turn into a good OS but so far it has done too little to reverse my horrible first impression. Additionally the "as a service" nature virtually guarantees a constant state of flux, MS will do what they please with it, whenever they please and I cannot rely on it to stay in any particular state. This is unacceptable to me, I demand full control, my computer answers to me, not the other way around. Likewise I don't want my kitchen or office to be a service, with the organization, furniture and decor automatically changing and my stuff getting moved around and various possessions being arbitrarily thrown out, being deemed incompatible with the latest arrangement. Working in tech, my computer is in a sense a virtual home that I spend much more time in than in my kitchen or office.

[boB]

So, what do people use for disk cloning of their windoze 7 laptops ?

Is anyone doing this ?  Of course, if that particular computer should become defective, there would have to be some kind of way of re-activating windows 7 and MS is not going to be doing that in a couple months.

I used to use Acronis True Image years ago but recently tried to clone on the same win7 laptop to an external drive and now, the original drive doesn't have a boot partition and neither does the external clone.

Do these have to both be external ?

Any other ideas ?

I heard in June I think to turn off updates and I think I wish I had done that sooner than now.

[wraper]

Is anyone doing this ?  Of course, if that particular computer should become defective, there would have to be some kind of way of re-activating windows 7 and MS is not going to be doing that in a couple months.

Even XP activation still works. And sometimes security patches still come out to fix extremely dangerous vulnerabilities discovered. End of support does not mean complete abandoning and shutting down activation servers. https://www.howtogeek.com/414804/still-on-windows-xp-update-manually-or-get-wormed/

[LeonR]

For those that need a fresh installation of 7 (compatibility purposes, etc) I suggest Simplix update pack. It gets updated at least once in a month.

https://blog.simplix.info/update7/

It is a custom-made package with mostly just the security updates. A full list of what's included is present on the site.

[SiliconWizard]

For those that need a fresh installation of 7 (compatibility purposes, etc) I suggest Simplix update pack. It gets updated at least once in a month.

https://blog.simplix.info/update7/

It is a custom-made package with mostly just the security updates. A full list of what's included is present on the site.

That's interesting. They just select the "useful" and harmless updates I guess. Question is, I don't know how much I could trust this?

[iMo]

That would be the fundamental concern of any win7 user for next X years

[LeonR]

For those that need a fresh installation of 7 (compatibility purposes, etc) I suggest Simplix update pack. It gets updated at least once in a month.

https://blog.simplix.info/update7/

It is a custom-made package with mostly just the security updates. A full list of what's included is present on the site.

That's interesting. They just select the "useful" and harmless updates I guess. Question is, I don't know how much I could trust this?

MajorGeeks have it mirrored: https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/simplix_updatepack.html

Aside from the standard downloads-it-then-scan-before-executing, Google haven't shown anything that makes it suspicious.

You can also try WSUS Offline. Both work just fine.

As a tip: I suggest having a clean installation as barebones as possible (no drivers), fully updated. Then run sysprep with the generalize option checked and image the disk (don't let it reboot into the sysprepped OS, use a bootable imaging solution like Acronis, Paragon, Easeus, etc). That way you get an "universal" image that can be deployed to almost any computer without a hitch in less than 30 minutes.