{"id":17759,"date":"2020-02-18T08:30:15","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2020\/02\/18\/news-11492\/"},"modified":"2020-02-18T08:30:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:30:15","slug":"news-11492","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2020\/02\/18\/news-11492\/","title":{"rendered":"Dump Windows 7 already! Jeez!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Credit to Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols| Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 07:00:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why am I still writing about Windows 7? It\u2019s dead, Jim! The tombstone reads, \u201cJune 22, 2009 \u2013 January 14, 2020.\u201d It was a good run, but unless you\u2019re shelling out some serious coin for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU)<\/a>, you shouldn\u2019t be running Windows 7.<\/p>\n

But many of you are. According to the best survey of who\u2019s running what, the U.S. government\u2019s Digital Analytics Program (DAP)<\/a>,<\/u> on Feb. 14, weeks after Win7\u2019s end of life, just over one in 20 of Windows users was still using Windows 7! Oh, come on! More than 5%! A dead and buried OS! Get with the program!<\/p>\n

I know some of you are hanging on because you still have that one lousy application that requires Windows 7 to run. Heck, a friend told me his company is still using an \u201cessential\u201d application that\u2019s running on \u2014 I kid you not \u2014 Windows 95.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not smart.<\/p>\n

If you really must keep that one program, stick it in a Windows 7 virtual machine (VM) without networking on an operating system that still has security and support.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s that? Your best-loved program won\u2019t run without a network connection? <Closes eyes.> OK, get a newer version that will run on Windows 10. There isn\u2019t one? Then get another program, or write your own \u2014 do anything except keep it running on Win7. You\u2019re just asking for your PC, and then the rest of your network, to get hammered.<\/p>\n

Do you really want your computers working for a MyKings botnet Bitcoin miner? I think not.<\/p>\n

Some of you are sticking with Windows 7 out of pure inertia. I get that. You\u2019ve used it for years, it\u2019s done well for you, and, so far, nothing\u2019s gone terribly wrong with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far.\u201d But something will. It\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/p>\n

Making things even more annoying is that third-party software vendors are encouraging you to stick with Windows 7.<\/p>\n

For example, Google has promised that it will support Windows 7 until July 2021. True, Chrome Safe Browsing<\/a>, Site Isolation<\/a> and Google\u2019s latest advanced password and phishing protections<\/a> make Windows 7 safer. But safer is not the same thing as safe. If you want to really protect yourself, you want to be running Chrome on Windows 10, Linux or, of course, Chrome OS.<\/p>\n

More annoying by far is that antivirus companies are encouraging you to stick with Windows 7 as well. Pretty much every Windows 7 antivirus program will be supported for two more years<\/a>. Even Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) will continue to receive signature updates<\/a> after Jan. 14, 2020. However, the MSE software won\u2019t be getting any updates.<\/p>\n

In a way, all these support moves are nice. But, they\u2019re not healthy. They\u2019re enabling you to stick with a bad relationship. Windows 7 is dead. The sooner you recognize this and move on to a better operating system, the better.<\/p>\n

But if you can\u2019t let go, don\u2019t come crying to me when your personal information ends up sold on the dark web or you find your PC locked up with ransomware.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Credit to Author: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols| Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2020 07:00:00 -0800<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
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Why am I still writing about Windows 7? It\u2019s dead, Jim! The tombstone reads, \u201cJune 22, 2009 \u2013 January 14, 2020.\u201d It was a good run, but unless you\u2019re shelling out some serious coin for Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU)<\/a>, you shouldn\u2019t be running Windows 7.<\/p>\n

But many of you are. According to the best survey of who\u2019s running what, the U.S. government\u2019s Digital Analytics Program (DAP)<\/a>,<\/u> on Feb. 14, weeks after Win7\u2019s end of life, just over one in 20 of Windows users was still using Windows 7! Oh, come on! More than 5%! A dead and buried OS! Get with the program!<\/p>\n

To read this article in full, please click here<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[11062,10643],"tags":[10516,714,10525],"class_list":["post-17759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computerworld","category-independent","tag-microsoft","tag-security","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17759\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}