Do people still use Windows 7 for microcontroller work?

[NorthGuy]

Do people still use Windows 7 for microcontroller work? Whether development or production ...

[Sacodepatatas]

I do, everything seems to work fine: mplab, the cubeide/cubeprogrammer/stflash), Arduino (I use it solely because of the firmware of my old 3D printer), MounRiver, Octave, Kitcad, LTSpice (the one with extended libraries), but I can't upgrade to Windows 10 because my system is so much messed up so the upgrader refuses to perform any changes once 10h has passed from attempting.

I had some troubles installing an old version of MSYS2 in order to have a working "make" but finally I managed to do it and now I use the ARM toolchain + PYOCD with converted St-link clone into a CMSIS DAP, for working with the PUYA PY32F00-Template.

[woofy]

My last win7 machine died many years ago so as much as I liked it, I just let win7 go.
I use win10 when I have to, otherwise I live in Linux (mint).

[JPortici]

When windows 10 goes out of support i'll push to move my machine to debian (which i already use at home, though i rarely if ever do any work there)
I'll keep a windows 11 VM, locally or on the server, just to deploy the software and for whatever won't work under wine

[BadeBhaiya]

Most embedded devs (at least in my part of the world) use windows 7 or 10 (or 11, more recently), with only vendor IDEs

Me? I use Arch Linux BTW

[mikeselectricstuff]

I find Win7 mostly OK - the only thing I've seen break is support for PICkit 5/ICD5 in recent versoins of MPLABX

[asmi]

I use Win10 and Linux.

[langwadt]

I use Win10 and Linux.

ditto, though much of the time in win10 is in WSL or remoting to a linux box

[PartialDischarge]

the only thing I've seen break is support for PICkit 5/ICD5 in recent versoins of MPLABX

I couldn't make it work both in W7 and Macos, so I had to use W11 for this one

[IDEngineer]

So far I've been able to continue using Win7: Workstation, primary laptop, secondary laptop, everywhere. In fact, I just spun up a new-to-me X270 to replace the X260 that was stolen in November. The compatibility issues have been manageable but the day is coming.

[luiHS]

I was using Windows XP for a little over 10 years until my computer broke and I was forced to upgrade to Windows 7, which I think I've been using for another 10 years now, and I'll continue to do so until my computer breaks again and the new motherboards no longer support W7.

It annoys me because I can't update MCUXpresso or Chrome anymore, but I'm fine with the latest version of MCUXpresso that's compatible with W7.

I have another SSD with W10 but I don't use it, I'm too lazy to upgrade because I'd have to reinstall all the software I use, with the risk of compatibility issues. Curiously, this is the first time I've bought a Windows in my life. As the saying goes, if something works, don't touch it, my W7 works very well, I know where everything is and I have all the software I use installed.

[peter-h]

I use win7-64 everywhere. It works fine and with the Simplix process you can update it to nearly win10/11 level.

Very few programs actually need win10+. MS VC++ 2022 is one of these so if I have to rebuild someone's VC++ project I have a win10 machine for that.

STM Cube IDE says win10+ but actually runs fine on win7-64.

WinXP also works perfectly (and remains widely used for production test etc) but can't be used for any broad application due to lack of web browsers supporting https, and increasingly lack of drivers for e.g. motherboards.

[SteveThackery]

I love W7 - I think it is the pinnacle of Windows development. Forcing a touch-oriented UI onto mouse/keyboard users - as in Windows 8 onwards - was a really bad decision, in my opinion.

However, I use a mix of 10 and 11 on my machines for compatibility with modern apps. I do, though, have a W7 virtual machine.

[Rafiki]

Yes,

[microwhat]

I love W7 - I think it is the pinnacle of Windows development.

Windows 7 is the last windows OS that gets out of your way and lets you do what you want with your computer.

[gamalot]

I use Windows 11, sometimes WSL2.

[IDEngineer]

I love W7 - I think it is the pinnacle of Windows development.

100% agreed.

Windows 7 is the last windows OS that gets out of your way and lets you do what you want with your computer.

THIS. So much exactly this. I want to focus on debugging my project. Not debugging Microsoft's latest unwelcome, unrequested "we know better than you" changes to my work environment. I might be willing to be an unpaid beta tester, but I want to choose when and on what equipment.

[nctnico]

I love W7 - I think it is the pinnacle of Windows development.

Windows 7 is the last windows OS that gets out of your way and lets you do what you want with your computer.

Windows 7 was already on the decline. No Hyperterminal and the file browser behaves funky (hiding files and never scrolling to where you need to be at). I strongly prefer to use Windows XP if I have to use Windows. Fortunately I switched to Linux a long time ago.

[Gyro]

Linux (Mint) + XP and W7 VMs here. The best of all worlds I think.


P.S. I also keep an old Thinkpad, running XP, with a parallel port to support my Ailent Logicwave LA and Dataman programmer - although it still capable of acting as a host for a bunch of other USB tools, old 16bit Picoscope etc.

[Siwastaja]

Windows 7 was already on the decline. No Hyperterminal and the file browser behaves funky (hiding files and never scrolling to where you need to be at). I strongly prefer to use Windows XP if I have to use Windows. Fortunately I switched to Linux a long time ago.

You are completely right. I also had massive problems with things as mundane as printer driver or USB memory stick support. Also some software from 1990's which still ran perfectly fine on... 95, 98, 2000, and XP, started to fail on Windows 7.

I never understood the Windows 7 cult. It meant a significant increase in problems, and start of the collapse of Microsoft's semi-decent "the OS itself can be as shitty as it is, but at very least don't break old userland software, keep 'em running" approach. And that's literally the only strong point of Windows - the fact it can run software that no other OSes run because of lack of porting. When they started shooting down compatibility of old software, that was the end of it.

All that being said, trying to use Windows for software development feels like pain. It's always just about coping; somehow managing to get the job done nevertheless. Stuff like Cygwin helps to manage, but really, yuck. Luckily, Windows-only workflows are exceedingly rare.

[Kleinstein]

It takes quite some time to get used to a new OS. Another issue with Windows is that the constant updates can be a real pain - slowing things down during download and occasional changes that break things or just hide them somewhere else. I can totally understand not wanting to upgrade to something significan different. Windows 8 was also rather confusing with more tile type apps, more like a phone.

I still use 2 older computers, one with Win8.2 and one still with Win98 (mainly for µC use, as that one still has old style RS232 and parallel port).

[NorthGuy]

I use Windows 7 on my main PC. It is sirca 2011. It does lack some features, such as ability to mount an ISO image. Otherwise, it works perfectly.

I have half-a-dozen of Windows 10/11 PCs for testing purposes, but only one of them is connected to the Internet. This one constantly updates, messes settings, shows ads. If I could control it, I would cut the forced updates, uninstall unwanted software (which is 95% of what's installed). Then it probably would be Ok for me. But I can't. So it remains to be a Microsoft toy bought on my money.

[thm_w]

I have another SSD with W10 but I don't use it, I'm too lazy to upgrade because I'd have to reinstall all the software I use, with the risk of compatibility issues. Curiously, this is the first time I've bought a Windows in my life. As the saying goes, if something works, don't touch it, my W7 works very well, I know where everything is and I have all the software I use installed.

Backup then upgrade.
Or copy appdata/programs over to your win10 install. Then maybe load some drivers.

If I could control it, I would cut the forced updates, uninstall unwanted software (which is 95% of what's installed). Then it probably would be Ok for me. But I can't. So it remains to be a Microsoft toy bought on my money.

You can either find the tools to modify pro/enterprise editions or get the LTSC edition.
Don't use Home edition, obviously, though that still may be modifyable somewhat.

[peter-h]

Win 7 can mount an ISO image. One can mount those, and one can mount Trueimage backups (using TI itself).

Nothing is for ever but I expect to be running win 7 10 years from now. There are simply bigger fish to fry in life than setting up yet another PC whose UI has been changed in so many ways. The name of the game is productivity...

MS still updates win 7 (64) for paying corporate customers and the updates can be downloaded for free using the Simplix process.

[langwadt]

Nothing is for ever but I expect to be running win 7 10 years from now. There are simply bigger fish to fry in life than setting up yet another PC whose UI has been changed in so many ways. The name of the game is productivity...

so you expect to run the same HW 10 years from now?