8 ms·

Windows 95 was released 13 years prior to the article, roughly the same time span as between Windows 7 release and today. Windows 7 is still installed on a sing

by gfv 3y ago

Windows 95 was released 13 years prior to the article, roughly the same time span as between Windows 7 release and today. Windows 7 is still installed on a single-digit percentage of computers. It is interesting to see that the reasons outlined in the article could be used almost word-for-word by someone justifying their use of Windows 7.

RajT88 3y ago
Some days I want to go back to Windows 2000 or XP. Back to before they implemented the ability for apps to lock your clipboard. (Ever notice how sometimes you ctrl+c and you end up pasting something you thought you copied over? yeah...)
hosteur 3y ago
I still use windows 7 in a vm for a legacy program. Works really well. Is hugely faster than any modern windows. Even in the vm. I have to run an old version of tortoisesvn. Needless to say the vm is only connected to a local network.
- gfv 3y ago
  Precisely. Compare your comment with these excerpts from the article: >Windows 95 is reasonably fast in performance, and is not compromised by the arguably frivolous animation and eye candy features in Windows 98 and newer versions. >I prefer to have as much native compatibility as possible with DOS applications such as older games I own.
mysterydip 3y ago
One difference is the switch from 95/98 to 2000/XP meant all future games and apps would be incompatible with the older OS. Aside from security patches, I see nothing that prevents 7 from being used today. Subsequent OSes added nothing useful that I noticed, and a lot of negatives. Ironically, you may actually be more secure today running 95 than 7, since any modern exploit would be incompatible with it.
- serf 3y ago
  >Aside from security patches, I see nothing that prevents 7 from being used today. Subsequent OSes added nothing useful that I noticed, and a lot of negatives. Steam is EOLing 7 because Chrome dropped support. No modern hardware manufacturer is going to continue churning out drivers with 7 support. You're right that it works ok now, but that's rapidly changing. As for whats better? Who knows. The new MS OSes are tremendously painful to use, personally speaking. >Ironically, you may actually be more secure today running 95 than 7, since any modern exploit would be incompatible with it. that's an interesting concept. Reminds me of how prepper types have recently been into MS-DOS machines -- but is 95 all that incompatible? I mean, I guess nothing trendy will run, but a good old-fashioned malicious assembly executable? do they no longer exist in the wild?
  - mysterydip 3y ago
    Agreed, lots of software is dropping 7 support, but that decision (as far as I can tell) is an arbitrary one, not a technical one. Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it?
    - afavour 3y ago
      I imagine over time there will be API differences but probably nothing insurmountable. I suspect the real reason is Microsoft themselves dropping support for W7. Once that happens you can’t really claim Chrome is a “secure browser” because the underlying OS might be exploited and never patched.
    - cesarb 3y ago
      > Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it? The reason is precisely because it doesn't check for it. That is: instead of checking for older Windows releases, and using fallback code paths for them, it simply assumes the presence of newer APIs (or that older buggy APIs now work properly). As time goes by, the cost of maintaining these fallback code paths only increases (and in some cases, having to stay compatible with them prevents important enhancements and cleanups), and since they're less tested (because they're only used when running on older operating system releases), they tend to break. As an example from an unrelated project, before they dropped Windows XP support, the fallback code for panic!() in Rust was broken when running on Windows XP (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538 https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538).
flohofwoe 3y ago
The time between 1990 and 2005 saw much more dramatic changes in consumer operating systems than the time between 2005 and 2020 though. Especially Windows has been on a slow usability downward spiral since around Win2k.
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Even Windows 2k felt a little frivolous compared to the more somber Windows NT. Windows NT 4 looked alright, but Windows NT 3.51 (or whatever) was rock solid and felt buttery smooth. Yes, there was some tearing when you played several AVI videos at once on the desktop, but anything else would have been SGI level sourcery and black arts and not expected. Windows NT 4 felt faster than Windows NT 3, but NT4 felt jittery. NT 3 never slowed down, it was like cream. Once I saw Windows NT 3 on a trade-show on Alpha CPUs. That felt just like the future arrived, an evil smirking corporate future which laughed at whatever I knew about optimization, 68k assembler, blitter objects and sound chips. The future was here, and it was here to tell me that none of that arcane juggling mattered anymore. The only thing that matters from now on is raw speed, of the core and the bus.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Which one was the one where they moved the video driver into the kernel?
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      NT 4.
      - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
        Printer drivers went in as well although that might have been 2000. I remember blue screening a client's server just by opening a print queue.
sieongioetnio 3y ago
Except that, when applied to Windows 7, they would actually make sense. There have been no objective improvements since Windows 7 that I can think of. The UI is changed all around for no reason, the system is less responsive, the hardware requirements are higher, and there's a whole lot more built-in malware, but that's it. There's a reason Microsoft had to deploy every dirty trick in the book to make people upgrade. Windows 95, on the other hand, was barely usable. My installation would go down literally every day. Running DOS programs in emulation on a more recent version of Windows is a vastly better experience than running them on DOS ever was.
- jborean93 3y ago
  > There have been no objective improvements since Windows 7 that I can think of I think this is pretty rude to the many people who have contributed to Windows in the years gone by. I won't argue that there hasn't been some crappy things added or on the advantages/disadvantages of later Windows versions but there have been plenty of things added since Windows 7. Some I can think off just off the top of my head * Credential Guard - protection of secrets in the lsass process even from kernel access * gMSA support - Windows 7 could only use standalone MSA accounts which weren't as useful * Windows LAPS - now supports encryption and is builtin to the OS * Schannel improvements - newer cipher suites and TLS protocols (cipher suites in Win 7 are right at the edge of what people might support these days) * SMB 3 - encryption, compression, better integrity/mitm/downgrade protection over SMB 2 * WSL * Windows Sandbox * Windows Terminal - including ConPTY support in the underlying APIs There's plenty more out there but these are pretty important features for me to have on Windows. Granted some only make sense in a more corporate/domain environment but not all of them.
  - UweSchmidt 3y ago
    Wanting Windows 7 back does not mean there should be no further development. By all means update the cipher suites. I just want the window borders easy to grab on a high resolution and a sensitive mouse, and no latency when I activate a program in the task bar. I want no ads in the start menu and no telemetry. I want an operating system doing work in the background, and not an anonymous entity called "we": https://www.itmagazine.ch/imgserver/artikel/Illustrationen/2020/mid/Bsodwindows10.png_200824_100851.jpg https://www.itmagazine.ch/imgserver/artikel/Illustrationen/2... Re-reading your list of improvements it doesn't impress me either for a decade of work. And I don't think people in this thread are particularly 'rude', i.e. they're not expressing what they really think about Windows 10+ ...
starik36 3y ago
I think Windows 7 was the last version of the OS that wasn't phoning home every time you clicked a button in the Calculator app. That could be a reason.
- jve 3y ago
  Well, I didn't know that calc phones home. A power user. A developer. A sysadmin. A niche of all windows users. No, that can't be the reason.
  - starik36 3y ago
    Yep. https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/057401f5f2b4bb1ea143da02c773ac18d1bb9a2e/src/CalcViewModel/Common/TraceLogger.cpp#L644 https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/057401f5f2b4bb1...
    - fodi 3y ago
      Horrifying. That's exactly why simplewall [0] is among the first programs I install on Windows. Then I block stuff like compattelrunner.exe, devicecensus.exe, explorer.exe, the various Intel / Nvidia driver-related bullshit background processes the first time they attempt to connect to a remote server. https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall
sitzkrieg 3y ago
windows 7 was the peak of a desktop os that is fast, easy to use, out of the way. i miss it. i really hate this modern trend of every single good desktop os telling you what to do, not allowing you to remove stuff, banners that ignore settings, ads, terrible uis, etc
- amatecha 3y ago
  Yeah, personally I'm just totally done with Windows as a whole. Every new OS install on any machine of mine is now Linux or BSD. I just got a new (used) computer from someone that came with fully licensed Win 10 and Office.. I don't care, wiped instantly, Linux running smoothly and with more freedom than I ever would have experienced with Winblows. Ironically, even the hardware in the machine works better (and has more actively-developed drivers) than what was available in Windows, because the manufacturer had basically abandoned development for that hardware.
papito 3y ago
I once installed Win 98 SE for funzies in a virtual machine, around 2016 - couldn't browse the web because Internet Explorer could not do HTTPS.
MrDresden 3y ago
I know a person who is still sticking with win7, with no plans of upgrading. So the blog post is not so out of the ordinary.
- amatecha 3y ago
  I know numerous people who still run Win 7. I had one close friend who I helped get set up with a new computer when his current one got destroyed by a colossal power surge. The new machine came with Win 10, and he absolutely hates it and is asking me if I can get Win 7 running on it...
51Cards 3y ago
My main development machine (of several here) is still on Win7, mainly due to the hassle of having to migrate 10 years of Win dev tools and legacy third party COM licenses to Win10. (the rest of my systems are on Win10) That said I'm going to have to bite the Win10 bullet soon as several applications are phasing out Win7 support, Chrome being the main one right now. It's disappointing as having grown up with Windows since 3.1 I'm still partical to the compact classic theme (even despite the old grey colour). I still find the Win10 and up UI to be a waste of space. Oh well... progress?
birracerveza 3y ago
And this article as written 15 years ago! It's absolutely insane what has been accomplished in the last 30 years, wow.

by gfv 3y ago

RajT88 3y ago

Some days I want to go back to Windows 2000 or XP. Back to before they implemented the ability for apps to lock your clipboard. (Ever notice how sometimes you ctrl+c and you end up pasting something you thought you copied over? yeah...)

hosteur 3y ago

I still use windows 7 in a vm for a legacy program. Works really well. Is hugely faster than any modern windows. Even in the vm. I have to run an old version of tortoisesvn. Needless to say the vm is only connected to a local network.

gfv 3y ago
Precisely. Compare your comment with these excerpts from the article: >Windows 95 is reasonably fast in performance, and is not compromised by the arguably frivolous animation and eye candy features in Windows 98 and newer versions. >I prefer to have as much native compatibility as possible with DOS applications such as older games I own.

mysterydip 3y ago

One difference is the switch from 95/98 to 2000/XP meant all future games and apps would be incompatible with the older OS. Aside from security patches, I see nothing that prevents 7 from being used today. Subsequent OSes added nothing useful that I noticed, and a lot of negatives. Ironically, you may actually be more secure today running 95 than 7, since any modern exploit would be incompatible with it.

serf 3y ago
>Aside from security patches, I see nothing that prevents 7 from being used today. Subsequent OSes added nothing useful that I noticed, and a lot of negatives. Steam is EOLing 7 because Chrome dropped support. No modern hardware manufacturer is going to continue churning out drivers with 7 support. You're right that it works ok now, but that's rapidly changing. As for whats better? Who knows. The new MS OSes are tremendously painful to use, personally speaking. >Ironically, you may actually be more secure today running 95 than 7, since any modern exploit would be incompatible with it. that's an interesting concept. Reminds me of how prepper types have recently been into MS-DOS machines -- but is 95 all that incompatible? I mean, I guess nothing trendy will run, but a good old-fashioned malicious assembly executable? do they no longer exist in the wild?
- mysterydip 3y ago
  Agreed, lots of software is dropping 7 support, but that decision (as far as I can tell) is an arbitrary one, not a technical one. Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it?
  - afavour 3y ago
    I imagine over time there will be API differences but probably nothing insurmountable. I suspect the real reason is Microsoft themselves dropping support for W7. Once that happens you can’t really claim Chrome is a “secure browser” because the underlying OS might be exploited and never patched.
  - cesarb 3y ago
    > Is there a reason the latest chrome can't run on 7 if it didn't check for it? The reason is precisely because it doesn't check for it. That is: instead of checking for older Windows releases, and using fallback code paths for them, it simply assumes the presence of newer APIs (or that older buggy APIs now work properly). As time goes by, the cost of maintaining these fallback code paths only increases (and in some cases, having to stay compatible with them prevents important enhancements and cleanups), and since they're less tested (because they're only used when running on older operating system releases), they tend to break. As an example from an unrelated project, before they dropped Windows XP support, the fallback code for panic!() in Rust was broken when running on Windows XP (https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538 https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/34538).

flohofwoe 3y ago

The time between 1990 and 2005 saw much more dramatic changes in consumer operating systems than the time between 2005 and 2020 though. Especially Windows has been on a slow usability downward spiral since around Win2k.

actionfromafar 3y ago
Even Windows 2k felt a little frivolous compared to the more somber Windows NT. Windows NT 4 looked alright, but Windows NT 3.51 (or whatever) was rock solid and felt buttery smooth. Yes, there was some tearing when you played several AVI videos at once on the desktop, but anything else would have been SGI level sourcery and black arts and not expected. Windows NT 4 felt faster than Windows NT 3, but NT4 felt jittery. NT 3 never slowed down, it was like cream. Once I saw Windows NT 3 on a trade-show on Alpha CPUs. That felt just like the future arrived, an evil smirking corporate future which laughed at whatever I knew about optimization, 68k assembler, blitter objects and sound chips. The future was here, and it was here to tell me that none of that arcane juggling mattered anymore. The only thing that matters from now on is raw speed, of the core and the bus.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Which one was the one where they moved the video driver into the kernel?
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    NT 4.
    - tonyedgecombe 3y ago
      Printer drivers went in as well although that might have been 2000. I remember blue screening a client's server just by opening a print queue.

sieongioetnio 3y ago

Except that, when applied to Windows 7, they would actually make sense. There have been no objective improvements since Windows 7 that I can think of. The UI is changed all around for no reason, the system is less responsive, the hardware requirements are higher, and there's a whole lot more built-in malware, but that's it. There's a reason Microsoft had to deploy every dirty trick in the book to make people upgrade. Windows 95, on the other hand, was barely usable. My installation would go down literally every day. Running DOS programs in emulation on a more recent version of Windows is a vastly better experience than running them on DOS ever was.

jborean93 3y ago
> There have been no objective improvements since Windows 7 that I can think of I think this is pretty rude to the many people who have contributed to Windows in the years gone by. I won't argue that there hasn't been some crappy things added or on the advantages/disadvantages of later Windows versions but there have been plenty of things added since Windows 7. Some I can think off just off the top of my head * Credential Guard - protection of secrets in the lsass process even from kernel access * gMSA support - Windows 7 could only use standalone MSA accounts which weren't as useful * Windows LAPS - now supports encryption and is builtin to the OS * Schannel improvements - newer cipher suites and TLS protocols (cipher suites in Win 7 are right at the edge of what people might support these days) * SMB 3 - encryption, compression, better integrity/mitm/downgrade protection over SMB 2 * WSL * Windows Sandbox * Windows Terminal - including ConPTY support in the underlying APIs There's plenty more out there but these are pretty important features for me to have on Windows. Granted some only make sense in a more corporate/domain environment but not all of them.
- UweSchmidt 3y ago
  Wanting Windows 7 back does not mean there should be no further development. By all means update the cipher suites. I just want the window borders easy to grab on a high resolution and a sensitive mouse, and no latency when I activate a program in the task bar. I want no ads in the start menu and no telemetry. I want an operating system doing work in the background, and not an anonymous entity called "we": https://www.itmagazine.ch/imgserver/artikel/Illustrationen/2020/mid/Bsodwindows10.png_200824_100851.jpg https://www.itmagazine.ch/imgserver/artikel/Illustrationen/2... Re-reading your list of improvements it doesn't impress me either for a decade of work. And I don't think people in this thread are particularly 'rude', i.e. they're not expressing what they really think about Windows 10+ ...

starik36 3y ago

I think Windows 7 was the last version of the OS that wasn't phoning home every time you clicked a button in the Calculator app. That could be a reason.

jve 3y ago
Well, I didn't know that calc phones home. A power user. A developer. A sysadmin. A niche of all windows users. No, that can't be the reason.
- starik36 3y ago
  Yep. https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/057401f5f2b4bb1ea143da02c773ac18d1bb9a2e/src/CalcViewModel/Common/TraceLogger.cpp#L644 https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/057401f5f2b4bb1...
  - fodi 3y ago
    Horrifying. That's exactly why simplewall [0] is among the first programs I install on Windows. Then I block stuff like compattelrunner.exe, devicecensus.exe, explorer.exe, the various Intel / Nvidia driver-related bullshit background processes the first time they attempt to connect to a remote server. https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall

sitzkrieg 3y ago

windows 7 was the peak of a desktop os that is fast, easy to use, out of the way. i miss it. i really hate this modern trend of every single good desktop os telling you what to do, not allowing you to remove stuff, banners that ignore settings, ads, terrible uis, etc

amatecha 3y ago
Yeah, personally I'm just totally done with Windows as a whole. Every new OS install on any machine of mine is now Linux or BSD. I just got a new (used) computer from someone that came with fully licensed Win 10 and Office.. I don't care, wiped instantly, Linux running smoothly and with more freedom than I ever would have experienced with Winblows. Ironically, even the hardware in the machine works better (and has more actively-developed drivers) than what was available in Windows, because the manufacturer had basically abandoned development for that hardware.

papito 3y ago

I once installed Win 98 SE for funzies in a virtual machine, around 2016 - couldn't browse the web because Internet Explorer could not do HTTPS.

MrDresden 3y ago

I know a person who is still sticking with win7, with no plans of upgrading. So the blog post is not so out of the ordinary.

amatecha 3y ago
I know numerous people who still run Win 7. I had one close friend who I helped get set up with a new computer when his current one got destroyed by a colossal power surge. The new machine came with Win 10, and he absolutely hates it and is asking me if I can get Win 7 running on it...

51Cards 3y ago

My main development machine (of several here) is still on Win7, mainly due to the hassle of having to migrate 10 years of Win dev tools and legacy third party COM licenses to Win10. (the rest of my systems are on Win10) That said I'm going to have to bite the Win10 bullet soon as several applications are phasing out Win7 support, Chrome being the main one right now. It's disappointing as having grown up with Windows since 3.1 I'm still partical to the compact classic theme (even despite the old grey colour). I still find the Win10 and up UI to be a waste of space. Oh well... progress?

birracerveza 3y ago

And this article as written 15 years ago! It's absolutely insane what has been accomplished in the last 30 years, wow.