Barely. I have a T630 thin client with Windows 7, but it doesn't see much action. For nostalgia I mostly use XP and Windows 98 and daily drive Linux which out of convenience also covers most of my gaming needs. The rest is shared between my XP rig and 7th generation gaming consoles if I crave for the authentic experience. Or for certain publishers to avoid their online services (Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar).

All my interneting, bill paying and doomscrolling is made with an android phone. So my computers are mostly offline. I have one box and one laptop that have Windows 11. Everything else is mostly Windows 7/XP or old DOS. I would use Windows 7 to the end of times, if it were safe in the internet. There still is Firefox ESR. And few antivirus software. But ID card software does not work. And everything is unsafe.

I have been dual booting Windows 11 and Windows XP, but I think I will change that to Windows 7 and Windows XP.

The issue I have with dual booting 11 and XP is that 11 is limited to a GTX 980 ti (let alone an Ivy Bridge cpu) so I can't really play any of the latest games. Also, just about the only sound card that spans that generation gap (without core isolation issues in W11) is the Audigy RX, which does not have EAX 5.0.

So I will put Windows 7 on there and use an X-Fi Titanium for EAX 5.0 goodness. Most of my games do just fine on Windows XP, but having W7-64 bit on there will allow me to use all the mods and widescreen fixes that are not compatible with Windows XP.

This will free me up to build a new-ish (not really) Windows 11 box with a 2070 Super I have laying around.

Not really. Guess this mostly depends on what period of time you remember/like the most. For me it was XP. Vista/7 always felt no more than a stepping stone i have to endure because there are no other options. A significant downgrade from XP. Pretty much as bad as 10/11.

Nowadays i mostly use XP for old stuff and either modded 11 or linux for modern stuff. I would have switched to linux entirely long time ago, but desktop linux is so comically bad it did not even reach XP level of functionality by this point. Notably no application level firewall is just... perplexing.

I also have completely offline (Or should i say violently offline? I've desoldered NIC IC from the motherboard 😁 ) 11 system for games which is mostly used by kids, but i also use it to play stuff which does not run on XP.

I dual boot 10/7. Mostly use 7 for a lot of Japanese games that require old directdraw features and MIDI stuff.

I currently have no Windows 7 systems and as of last weekend, no longer have any Windows 10 systems either.

Though I have been thinking of converting my Ultimate XP build into a triple OS system with XP, Vista, and Win7.

Its my main retro emulator system. I.e. dosbox, scummvm, etc. I also licensed my Roland SoundCanvas VA there, meaning I am tied to that particular OS install. Works perfectly on my core2duo build, and is dual booted with WinXP for XP era gaming too.

Your golden era is bit newer than mine which mostly finishes around 2004.
But somewhat like you I found I used my XP rig most, even for the Win9x era games rather then using my earlier systems. It's easier as most game's just work and the newer OS requires less tweaking.
So I think it's quite normal for someone to use their newest fondly remembered OS even over the more period correct choices.

Personally I think WinXP was the pinnacle (again probably a generation thing) Windows 7 was just ok and anything newer I have no attachment and only use to complete a task.

I do have a dual boot XP/Win7 PC in my gaming fleet and even though has an X-Fi card I only really use for Win 7 and the few games that wont work in XP.
I still prefer my dedicated XP rig for XP era games even though it makes no real difference to the game.

But I've also decided Win7 will be my last gaming PC and have managed to "find" a offline install of one of my 2 games on Steam, Missing out on any new content doesn't bother me.

SuperDeadite wrote on Today, 00:12:

I dual boot 10/7. Mostly use 7 for a lot of Japanese games that require old directdraw features and MIDI stuff.

Interesting, can you explain what DirectDraw and MIDI stuff was available in 7 that isn't available in 10? I have never heard of this... but I wouldn't mind having a reason to revisit Windows 7. It's been a while. 😁

Enjoying windows 11 unless specifically using one of my retro machines.

I've got a bunch of Windows 7 machines, used for different things and also some spares. So, two machines are on the internet all day, for the usual things one does on the internet.

Other offline machines host my music jukebox activities, and also my database server. However I don't use any for gaming.

They are all up to date (windows updates) as of last year.

So, I do intend to keep using them as main machines for a while yet.

Robbbert wrote on Today, 04:15:

I've got a bunch of Windows 7 machines, used for different things and also some spares. So, two machines are on the internet all […]
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I've got a bunch of Windows 7 machines, used for different things and also some spares. So, two machines are on the internet all day, for the usual things one does on the internet.

Other offline machines host my music jukebox activities, and also my database server. However I don't use any for gaming.

They are all up to date (windows updates) as of last year.

So, I do intend to keep using them as main machines for a while yet.

Not trying to fear-monger here, but when you say they are up to date as of last year, what do you mean? Windows 7 hasn't gotten regular security updates in almost six years. Any updates it gets are simply anti-virus definitions, or in rare cases MS can roll out patches for extremely serious vulnerabilities, but I don't know if they have actually done this since the end of support.

In my opinion it's totally okay to use an old OS if you're comfortable doing so and anyone else using the PC knows that there is some additional risk compared to a newer OS, but I don't think I'd call it up to date in the same sense that a Windows 10 or 11 system can be up to date with the latest security patches. Like, if my wall clock died yesterday I can say that the time is up to date as of yesterday, but... well, you get the idea. 😀

I like using Win7 for the few games from the late 2000s which still support EAX, but also use DirectX 10 for improved graphics. There aren't many of those, but some notable examples include BioShock, Assassin's Creed, Gears of War and Far Cry 2. For reference, you can more easily install Creative's older drivers on Win7, and that can be useful for avoiding some bugs with OpenAL.

That said, I use Win7 completely offline, as Steam dropped support for it a few years back. Any games that I play there have either been previously downloaded on Steam (which is now in offline mode) or they were installed using GOG's offline installers.

Also, Win7 seems to support DirectX 8 games slightly better than Win10/11. As an example, Thief: Deadly Shadows (an UE2 game) has non-functional V-Sync on Win10/11, while it works fine on Win7.