Date: 29 March 24, 00:06 AM
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 Windows 7 Laptop



scuzzy


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  • In an emergency, 9-1-1 calls ME.

As much as I like Windows 7 compared to Windows 10, at times I really hate it as well. Here's the short story:

My laptop mostly sits on my desk, running 24/7. Once in awhile I'll open it up and do some updates, as I've learned that waiting too long can be a freakin' nightmare. Recently, I went 2 weeks without allowing it to update. Unfortunately, my home internet went down hard starting yesterday and lasted over 24 hours.

I used my smartphone's hotspot to establish a connection with my laptop, and this is where my problems began. My house is on the edge of T-Mo's coverage, and my hotspot connection is throttled by T-Mo to 3G speeds (due to the plan I'm on). Normally this is not an issue except that my laptop decided that now was the perfect time to do all of the updates, including Firefox deciding to update to v69.

The laptop completely choked as it attempted to do all the updates on a slowpoke connection, and it became a useless brick to me for about 2 hours. Once it got passed all the update drama, then I was able to use it without a problem.

Once my home internet was reestablished today, I rebooted the laptop and decided to go through and manually check for updates. MS had 6 critical updates waiting for me. So I went through and got them out of the way. Immediately after rebooting the computer, MS informed me that I had another critical update, which was 11MB in size. I went ahead and installed it just to immediately have one more critical update that was 9MB in size. You'd think it wouldn't be a problem, but lo and behold it choked the laptop for about 5 minutes on my home broadband internet.

I have no words to express just how absolutely sick and tired I am of Microsoft Windows in every version imaginable. Every single damn time that I go to use my laptop I have to go through the update drama nightmare before it's usable, and this is on a laptop that is kept in pristine condition. It's at the point where I am ready to throw this thing in the trash.

Bill


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This may sound ill-advised, but why not stop updating? Get to a version that works and stick with it.  It's much less frustrating, there are plenty of apps. you can use to protect yourself.
Fractal Design R5 | Asus  Z170 Pro | Intel i5 6600k | 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws  DDR4 2133 | Seasonic 650w PSU | eVGA GTX 550 TI | Samsung 960 M2 500 GB | Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB | ASUS Burner | Windows 7 64-bit

scuzzy


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  • In an emergency, 9-1-1 calls ME.

I have definitely considered doing that, but it just seems like such a bad idea. It goes against everything I've taught others to absolutely never do.

Bill


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It not be the best approach but for all the years I've had W7 I think it works fine.  Sometimes theory and the real world are at odds.
Fractal Design R5 | Asus  Z170 Pro | Intel i5 6600k | 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws  DDR4 2133 | Seasonic 650w PSU | eVGA GTX 550 TI | Samsung 960 M2 500 GB | Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB | ASUS Burner | Windows 7 64-bit

scuzzy


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  • In an emergency, 9-1-1 calls ME.

You're going to be very disappointed in me, but I literally couldn't stand it anymore. I was so frustrated and angry that I was on the verge of tossing this laptop.

After a complete image and backup, and in total despair, I installed Windows 10 Professional on my laptop a week ago Monday. Since then it's been running like it's brand new. It boots much faster than before, and is at the desktop ready to go faster than my desktop computer. It has had no problems with updates or running on battery, and has run flawlessly since. Even the fingerprint reader started working, something that never worked before.

Also, Dell Command Update is working once again. It has been down since last February and I could not get it to work despite multiple attempts, to include reinstalling it. I was able to install several pending critical Dell updates and it's once again acting like it's supposed to.

It's only been a week, but if by chance this turns out to be a failure then I'm going back to Plan A and getting rid of it. For now, W10 Pro has resolved all the frustrations I was having with it.

Bill


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We do what we must.  My W7 machine just keeps purring along.  Although I'm picky about which updates I use. I hope the laptop continues.
Fractal Design R5 | Asus  Z170 Pro | Intel i5 6600k | 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws  DDR4 2133 | Seasonic 650w PSU | eVGA GTX 550 TI | Samsung 960 M2 500 GB | Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB | ASUS Burner | Windows 7 64-bit

scuzzy


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We'll see how it goes. Right now it's a fresh W10 installation over W7, and it's off to a good start. At least (for now) I'm no longer at the point of donating it to Goodwill. We'll see how it reacts to a major upgrade.

At least with W10 I can fully pause updates up to 5 weeks out. Perfect for when I'm traveling.

I hate leaving W7 behind, but I didn't know what else to do.

carskick


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    • Neighborhood Computer Supprt
I turned off Windows Update for Windows 7 on many customer machines around 2015-2016, as it would hang, freeze them up, and never work. Especially on lower end hardware. However, I've turned them all back on , as it seems to be working fine again. Those who haven't upgraded to Windows 10.

Classic Shell with some tweaks makes Windows 10 quite enjoyable to use.
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scuzzy


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I've been using Classic Shell for several years and wouldn't willingly use a computer without it.

My laptop is going on 3 years old, but it still has decent specs (Intel i7 4600, 8GB RAM, and 2ea 256GB SSDs). For the longest time it ran Win7 just fine after some initial update bottlenecks, but over the last year or two it slowly started going downhill. It was getting to the point of being unusable. Since upgrading from W7 Pro to W10 Pro, it's been humming along like new again.

My daughter has the exact same laptop that I have. Hers is still running W7 Pro, with no problems since the initial W7 massive-pain-in-the-ass update fiasco. However, she now wants hers updated to W10 Pro.

Bill


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Talk her out of it! ;)
Fractal Design R5 | Asus  Z170 Pro | Intel i5 6600k | 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws  DDR4 2133 | Seasonic 650w PSU | eVGA GTX 550 TI | Samsung 960 M2 500 GB | Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB | ASUS Burner | Windows 7 64-bit

scuzzy


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Bill


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Maybe she'll forget about 10!
Fractal Design R5 | Asus  Z170 Pro | Intel i5 6600k | 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws  DDR4 2133 | Seasonic 650w PSU | eVGA GTX 550 TI | Samsung 960 M2 500 GB | Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB | ASUS Burner | Windows 7 64-bit