I still use Windows 7 on my main PC, but plan on dual booting with Windows 10 to run some newer games.

Funny thing is, I was running Windows 10 virtualized on a Win 7 host when I first saw the Win 10 end of support nag screen.

Using W7 on a 2nd Gen i5 laptop, used for an OBD-II interface to my cars. It didn't have a Win10 driver.
I installed it back in 2019 I think, and already then, it was tedious to unreal Win 7 due to updates needed to be installed manually to enable automatic updates. Wonder how impossible it is to install in 2025

I'd agree, that if you start with a new Windows 7 installation, it will take a lot of work to get it up to date. Put aside a few days just for that.

Fortunately I kept my machines up to date as the changes progressed, but there was still the ESU stuff and a few KBs that had to be done manually.

pixel_workbench wrote on 2025-09-28, 22:03:

Funny thing is, I was running Windows 10 virtualized on a Win 7 host when I first saw the Win 10 end of support nag screen.

Maybe not that uncommon... I'm running Win7 on one of my lab desktops, and use "VMware Player" with:

DOS/Win31, a couple flavors of Linux, Win98, Win2K, WinXP, Win7, Win8 and Win10

all set up as smaller virtual machines.

My main reason is I have a directory of .7Z backups of the "fresh install" .vmdk fikes.
This allows me to test "most anything" and easily restore the machine afterward.

Much easier than my old method of using GHOST.

Yep, I converted my Z390 8086K machine into a Win7 rig with a 1080Ti, just for Dirt 2 and Crysis. It's kind of ridiculous, though, as even my Haswell (G3258 or 4790K) XP machines would run those games at high res on max quality with no issues on the 980Ti.

It would probably make more sense to dual boot XP/7 with one machine and one rocket GPU instead of 2 or 3 separate machines, but I had fun building them all.

I've been away for a while but it's nice to see that Win7 is still alive to some degree!

I am in the process of simplifying my "fleet" of computers since the 14th of October. Almost every machine online gets a fresh install of Linux Mint only and i find myself ditching XP for 7 on my "retro" stuff.

I wonder what is the go to OS for those like me who are specifically into 2004-2009 (with a few games up to 2012ish) and 2006-2009 hardware. The weird era of EAX/DX10 or XP/Vista/7.

OM606 wrote on 2025-11-07, 21:04:

I wonder what is the go to OS for those like me who are specifically into 2004-2009 (with a few games up to 2012ish) and 2006-2009 hardware. The weird era of EAX/DX10 or XP/Vista/7.

That's easy.

Dual boot WinXP and Win7 on an i7-3770K + GTX 980 Ti system. Add an X-Fi Titanium PCIe, and you've covered pretty much all bases for that time period. It can also run some later games like Tomb Raider (2013) and Deus Ex: Human Revolution just fine.

Indeed, that's exactly how i am using my old hardware but i am curious to know which one people would pick as their favorite for this era.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-11-07, 21:12:

That's easy. ... Dual boot WinXP and Win7 ...

Most of my desktops and laptops are dual-boot Win7/XP - It really is the only way to fly (IMHO)

OM606 wrote on 2025-11-07, 21:21:

... i am curious to know which one people would pick as their favorite for this era.

I prob use Win7 more than XP - just worked in more Win7 shops, and have become more "used" it.

Main reason I keep XP around is XP is more commonly 32-bit (I think there were 64-bit versions available but I never had/installed one)

Since it came enough later, when more that 4G system RAM became much more common(*1), Win7 seems to be mainly 64-bit..
... and ... 64-bit Winblows won't run 16-bit 8086 code natively - so the *many* tools and other applications I've written over the decades don't run (thank god for DosBox)

Fortunately Win7 does come in 32-bit versions, which I do have on some of my "smaller" systems - so they don't need XP (and seems weird to dual-boot Win7 and Win7 - which I might do if I ever get something I use a lot which only runs on 64-bit).

*1 - It was weird seeing the amount of RAM commonly in PCs grow to the insane amounts it has reached.
The first computer I ever encountered (and what got me into this business) as an IBM 360 mainframe at the University of New Brunswick.
This late 70s "big iron" had a whopping 4M (megabytes) of RAM, ran an multi-user operating system (MVS) and typically had 50+ users signed on.
- I still remember the day we had a "big" upgrade - IBM came and updated the main storage to 6M (megabytes).
- Nobody knew what we would ever do that would need so much memory!

-- But then again... (famous quote) "640k ought to be enough for anybody"

Yes, I'm using it right now to reply to this thread. Looks like I haven't installed any updates on this system since July 2023.

I daily drive Windows 11 at work and home. Desktop, and laptop at each location.
The only gaming that I do these days is on my ROG Ally, also running 11.
I've tried to make and excuse to build a Windows 7 machine, mostly so I can throw my FX-8350 rig together again.
But I can't really justify it and I have far too many computers that I don't use as it is.

I am probably the only one here that never used win7. Went from 95 to 98 to xp then windows 10 and now 11.

The obvious thing was to upgrade to 98, but essentially, it s still win 9x....

Then xp came along and changed everything. And from 2002 till 2016 I only used xp. Never saw a interest in vista, win 7, win 8...mever even liked the way they look. As for performance, win xp is above all of them.

What was it like being stuck on dx9 post 2010?

I daily drivered XP until few years ago when less old hardware was not going to run XP anymore (no drivers being biggest issue), then reluctantly I have started to use win7 and with some things like Classic Shell it becomes something along the lines of usable although it is still full of many annoying things. Once it becomes unusable, I'll become an OSdev and start looking for a flavor of linux and I'm not at all looking forward to that 🤣

Tiido wrote on 2025-11-15, 12:19:

I daily drivered XP until few years ago when less old hardware was not going to run XP anymore (no drivers being biggest issue) ...

Yeah, that's been a problem - fortunately "less old hardware" is also getting faster ... I do still have some running older systems that I run the older OSs on,
but more and more when I need to use tools that no longer "work modern", I use virtual machines emulating supported hardware.

^Tip: Windows XP runs on same hardware that Windows 98SE an 2000 used to run on.
A Pentium MMX CPU is being recommended as a minimum, though. And plenty of RAM!
A 486 or Pentium is a bit too old, some device drivers demand for MMX instructions.
I already had issues on Windows 98SE on a Pentium 75, when my USB webcam required an MMX-capable processor. That was 25 years ago or so. Just yesterday, in short. 😀

Yup, still using 7. Like dr__st, I'm replying / typing my post from one PC running W7 right now.

As long as there are browsers that support W7 and can run the modern web without issues, I don't think I'll be moving to W10/11 anytime soon. In fact, I don't know if I ever could. On the other hand, I've tried a few Linux distros before, and not convinced I can put up with those either. They might work fine out-of-the-box for simple everyday stuff and browsing... but ask to do something more specific and it can quickly swing into having to do research online and typing a bazillion commands in the prompt - something I just don't care to waste time with!

Tiido wrote on 2025-11-15, 12:19:

I daily drivered XP until few years ago when less old hardware was not going to run XP anymore (no drivers being biggest issue), then reluctantly I have started to use win7 and with some things like Classic Shell it becomes something along the lines of usable although it is still full of many annoying things. Once it becomes unusable, I'll become an OSdev and start looking for a flavor of linux and I'm not at all looking forward to that 🤣

Haha, that exactly describes my situation.

I was using Windows XP as a main PC right up until the end of 2023 - on a s478 Pentium 4 HT with 2 GB of RAM and 80 GB IDE HDD nonetheless. Believe it or not, with the right browsers, it was still fine for quite a few things - mostly admin and office -related, of course (i.e. pay bills, look up info, do my taxes, post on retro-friendly PC forums, and etc.... even occasionally shop on Ebay and/or Craigslist.) But after I moved across the ocean, it took me a really long time to unbox and re-setup that machine, so I started "falling back" to my Windows 7 laptop more and more... and so got a little more warmed up to W7 now.
But like you, Tiido, I still find W7 to be full of annoying things - mostly to do with file organization in explorer. Certain things that could be done with just a few clicks in XP can take twice as many in 7. I have not tried Classic Shell yet (though I am absolutely and 101% always running the Classic theme on W7) and not sure how many of those annoyances it will fix. But one that I keep falling into, for example, is right clicking on a taskbar button and then trying to press "close" with the right button again - something that worked just fine in XP but not in 7 for whatever reason (seriously, why did MS have to remove certain shortcuts or alternative methods of navigation/commanding?!) The worst is when Explorer.exe crashes after a long session of organizing files and folders - something that I have never experienced in XP (even pre-SP XP) but many times in W7. There are many more things to mention, but I'm starting to forget some of them now that I'm slowly adjusting my habits to working with W7.

All in all, I just had to force myself onto W7 as it's just easier to get going when it comes to supported browsers. With XP, you just don't know how and when things will end for browser support anymore. When someone mentioned Mypal on another forum and I decided to try it, I was blown away by the fact that you can have an updated browser that still supports the modern web. But then Mypal updates kind of died... and now, while still functional and probably the 2nd best thing for XP, it does have issues with sites like Youtube that update their code way too frequently. Luckily Supermium just popped up, and that's been the savior now for running XP on the modern web... though let's see for how long. That being said, Supermium does not run as smoothly as Mypal does, especially on YT and even moreso with much older hardware. Basically, I could use Mypal to watch 720p and even 1080p (non-50/60p) without any stutter on something like a high end Core 2 Duo. But with Supermium, I often get audio stutter, accompanied by some video stutter too. So it's definitely not as optimized. But then again, it has become the only option, now that Mypal updates have dwindled.

So yeah, I'll probably keep pushing W7 as far as I can... and when I really can't anymore, I don't know if I'll be able to stomach downgrading to Windows 11. FWIW, I have exactly TWO Windows 10 machines, and they are strictly for "modern gaming" (e.g. running -now-rather-outdated Epic and Steam online games.) But I fire those up probably less frequently that once in a full moon - literally!

P.S. I hate to say it, but I kind of have given up on modern games and modern PCs... and pretty much even modern tech in general - too much gimmicks, hype, and blatant advertising everywhere. In a way, this was partly the reason I moved to a "less developed" country too.

kolderman wrote on 2025-11-15, 11:47:

What was it like being stuck on dx9 post 2010?

If you didn't care to play any modern games (or any at all)... it was -just fine- 😀

I have many XP and 7 era laptops with WiFi. I started using them for retrosurfing and youtubing. I never log in to anything. Everything is good. Hackers can crack me anytime. Still not find any slowdowns or crashes. I would install Windows 10 ESU crack in them, but without SSD the loading times are a drag 2019 version is speedy enough but the latest 2022 version is just a drag.

kolderman wrote on 2025-11-15, 11:47:

What was it like being stuck on dx9 post 2010?

On XP? That's not exactly the case.
There's an inofficial DirectX 10 made years ago that satisfies games that basically use DirectX 9 features of DirectX 10 runtime.
Then there's the OneCore project that basically borrows Windows Vista system files.
It makes many DirectX 10/11 titles run on Windows XP.
I've tried with some free indie games from itch.io site, those that use Ren'Py engine will run on such a modified XP, for example.
The kernal extension also makes modern versions of Python work on XP.