Advice Request Is Windows 7 Really Outdated?

[Exterminator]

Microsoft is trying to convince everyone to upgrade to Windows 10, and after offering the operating system free of charge in the first 12 months of availability, the company is now trying a different tactic aimed directly at Windows 7 users

The firm says that Windows 7 has “outdated security,” explaining in a blog post that only Windows 10 can deal with today’s security threats and no matter how hard you’d try, you still can’t make Windows 7 just as secure as this latest Windows version.

The post was made on the company’s German blog, which is a bit surprising given that no English version was published, but it still shows that Microsoft is already preparing its arsenal for moving users off Windows 7.

“Windows 7 is based on outdated security architecture,” Microsoft says. “Companies and users who won’t upgrade from Windows 7 within the next three years are facing enormous dangers.”

Windows 7 end of support
Judging from third-party data provided by market research firms, Windows 7 continues to be the number one operating system on the desktop, despite the aggressive push for Windows 10.

Windows 7 is now running on nearly 48 percent of PCs worldwide, while Windows 10 is the runner-up with about 24 percent. While Windows 7 indeed lost market share because of the arrival of Windows 10, it’s still the dominant operating system on the desktop, running on nearly 1 in 2 PCs across the globe.

With Windows 7 support coming to an end in January 2020, Microsoft doesn’t want to experience another Windows XP moment, so it’s starting the struggle to upgrade users a lot earlier. Although Windows XP no longer receives updates since 2014, it’s still running on 9 percent of the world’s PCs.

 

[jamescv7]

Anything when a new version of Windows is released then the older one already been declared outdated.

Technically true as in terms of vulnerability attacks where Windows 10 managed to reduce those high severity risk due newly implemented security mechanism.

Although Windows 7 on the other hand is definitely a great OS experience, the successor of XP's simplicity .

 

[OutOfBounds]

No I might upgrade sometime after January 2020

There is still life in the old dog yet As long as Microsoft still release security patches im staying with windows.7

 

[Vipersd]

People and companies are still using Win XP and they worry about Win 7. For home users it is relativly simple to upgrade to newest MS OS. On the other hand large companies have to upgrade a lot of other hardware like printers, scaners and other machines that doesn't suport Win 10. For some companies that could be tens of milions of dollars not to mention problems with setup of all that hardware. If they want everyone to jump to Win 10 then why they left so long period of support for Win 7?

Security vs cost of upgrade.

 

[vivid]

Technically true as in terms of vulnerability attacks where Windows 10 managed to reduce those high severity risk due newly implemented security mechanism.

Yes and no. For OS, you are right. For third-party developers (everyday applications), you'd be surprised but some features are poorly implemented (clarification: in a way that lowers your expectations, claims of protection by that vendor) in W10 compared to W7.

For now, it is better to keep W7 as long as it's supported (patches & compatibility of system in general).

 

[Vipersd]

Win 10 still has it's own childbirth hickups and with todays rapid introduction of new versions of the same software without much testing is not very convincing in terms of what is more secure. Older but tested or new improved but not completely tested.

 

[arsenaloyal]

I actually plan on using Windows 7 beyond 2020. It can be secured well enough.

And for that matter Windows XP as well which I still occasionally use on a VM .

 

[Cch123]

Windows 7 security is not "outdated" or obsolete, but Windows 10 security is far better

 

[WinXPert]

Still using Windows XP Home and Windows 7 Starter. Might switch to Linux rather than upgrading to Win 10.

 

[Wave]

Overall Windows 10 is much more secure than Windows 7; exploiting built-in OS features such as User Account Control on Windows 10 will also be much trickier, it wasn't as difficult on Windows 7 to completely bypass it. I remember when you could manipulate some flag variables in memory to trick UAC on Windows 7 to stop it from showing any alert, haha.

Another example would be the system processes such as csrss.exe... Since Windows 8 and on-wards, they are much better protected since processes like csrss.exe are being protected from kernel-mode, meaning you can no longer open a handle to them just by acquiring debugging rights (SeDebugPrivilege) which can then be used for injection attacks - a nice little path for a rootkit working from user-mode, and this could have been abused to bypass AV self-protection mechanisms entirely from user-mode since csrss.exe has an open handle for all running processes, therefore if you can inject code into it (e.g. inject a DLL) then you can scan for the handles the process has open and once you've found the handle for the specific product, you can use it with NtTerminateProcess (or just call TerminateProcess which will call NtTerminateProcess in the end anyway) to terminate it, or NtSuspendProcess/inject with NtQueueUserAPC, etc).

Therefore, Windows 10 is much more secure, since it contains the added security from previous newer OS versions seen in Windows 8 like the one mentioned above.

It's not obsolete, but if you work with Windows Internals and study things like rootkit development, you'll clearly see that Windows 10 is much more beneficial in terms of security (even Windows 8).

Even PatchGuard was updated a lot for Windows 10 and it's much better now than it used to be on previous OS versions. Performing Windows Update patches on Windows 7 won't give you the new PatchGuard updates, which is good at keeping your OS Kernel structures protected against manipulation (for example). Rootkits have more opportunity on older OS versions.

However, overall, Windows 7 was also one of my favorite... Probably because it was much more lightweight which gave it a quick and slick feeling.

 

[SpectacularTheDude]

I'll be using Windows 7 until I can't any more. After that I don't know yet, but Linux is something I'm starting to play with on an extra laptop I have. So far tried Linux Mint and will have a go at Debian eventually.
Getting so very, very tired of MS and this type of thing.
This Rick and Morty parody someone made with Mr.Jelly bean sums it up very well.

 

[stepic]

No I might upgrade sometime after January 2020

To be honest Win7 is/was great for me, I also tried out linux for a few months, but due to the need of constantly dual-booting to use my favorite apps, I decided to switch back to win7. I would like to upgrade to win10, but I'm kinda worried about the automatic updates, telemetry and all that stuff from win10, I know you can disable some of the features, but from what I've read online you still cant block them all off from sending data to microsoft. Or maybe I'm an idiot and just didn't read a good guide on how to make it 100% as win7 in regards to updates and privacy stuff.

 

[KGBagent47]

Without the assistance of third party software Windows Seven is a pretty unsecure OS at this point.

 

[SpectacularTheDude]

Without the assistance of third party software Windows Seven is a pretty unsecure OS at this point.

What do you mean 3rd party software? What kind of software?
I have Windows 7 so I'd like to know

 

[tim one]

What do you mean 3rd party software? What kind of software?
I have Windows 7 so I'd like to know

I think he means, first of all, the real-time protection, MSE on W7 is a joke...

 

[SpectacularTheDude]

I think he means, first of all, the real-time protection, MSE on W7 is a joke...

Isn't that sorted with a good AV and AM?
What about W10? Doesn't it need any extras?

 

[tim one]

Isn't that sorted with a good AV and AM?
What about W10? Doesn't it need any extras?

Certainly W10 offers another protection layer: system side + Windows Defender which, with the obvious limitations is better than MSE for sure.
I've used for some time WD and ZAL and no infection.

 

[KGBagent47]

What do you mean 3rd party software? What kind of software?
I have Windows 7 so I'd like to know

What Tim said

 

[Crypto]

Yes I have already upgraded or plan on upgrading to 10 soon.

 

[MBYX]

not outdated in that it works fine.
Just more security in newer versions. Is there a mad rush to upgrade, no...

 

[Zero Knowledge]

No. OpenDns is now a Cisco owned company. OpenDns logs all dns traffic. You need to purchase their Umbrella dns security service which does cost a fair bit of money to gain any real advantage against security threats like malware and exploits and phishing. Normal OpenDns dns servers don't offer much protection.

There are much better privacy focused dns severs out there that don't log your data and are run by people outside of USA control.