Hypothetical Windows 10 for Window 7 users

[Tasman1]

Hi. Wouldn't it be great if Windows 10 (ohmegod 11), could give us the latest protection, but keep the new things we do not need away. I do not need 3D emojis. More and more bloated software that needs scanned with your anti-virus or cleaning tools. Don't need. Simple email and Internet and obviously another few thing to suit your needs.
Thoughts/opinions. Cheers.

[Watson]

I'd be all in favour of things being kept simple.  I'm still on W7 at present, but am not looking for any improvements.  I just want to keep using it, but fear that I will need to migrate to W10 at some point, which I am not looking forward to! 

[AngusMcCoatup]

While I'm not a fan of the direction some Microsoft changes have taken, such as setting up an account during installation of Win11 and closed programs aren't actually closed but still running in the background, I accept that if I wish to remain in the Windows environment then I'll have to adapt to get things working the way I want them to, and ignore all the stuff I don't need or use.

If you want simple email and internet, then move to Linux.

[Redroger]

The other solution is to install VMWare on W10 and run W7 as a virtual program. It is a good solution as by installing the operating system you need (W95 say) you can run obsolete programs without problems.

[J.A.M.]

When my ACER computer finally wore out I had my tech guy install Windows 10 with the Windows 7 programs I was familiar with on my new computer. Two years on & no problems.

[andrewalston]

Windows 10 is actually a decent environment. It runs at least as fast as Win7 on the hardware I have access to. I do have one PC from 2004 with processors which don't include features needed by anything newer than Win7.

If you don't like the newer Start menu, try Open Shell.

I have not found much older software that Win10 will not run. The 32-bit version will even run ancient DOS software. New kit will ship with the 64-bit version, which is probably where the scare stories about incompatibility arise. Windows 11 does not have a 32-bit version.

There are scare stories about Microsoft collecting data about everything you do. To be honest, they do collect some stuff, but the internet is full of guides about how to stop this. Windows 11 collects a LOT more. Many of the people who complain about this data collection will happily carry an Android phone, which tells Google everything - which pub you had lunch in, what sort of transport got you there, who else was there (their phones' Bluetooth identities are logged and can be matched to THEIR histories) besides analysing emails in the hope of selling you to advertisers.

If you are running Win7, you can still update to Win10 for free - your licence is still valid. Search for "Download windows 10" and use Microsoft's tools to create a DVD or USB stick with the installation files. Then run SETUP on there. If you don't like it, you have a week to roll back to Win7.