Win7's done, but customers asking for it !

dbwillis

[H]F Junkie
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Jul 9, 2002
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I cant make this stuff up.
I told the customer back in October when I 'cleaned up' the laptop that the hardware says right on it, Windows 7 only.

(clean up was just removing the previous users 23gb profile and making a new one for the meter reader scanner hardware, laptop was W10 Home on a workgroup since the user only used it at home)

From the customer:

Dave,


The new laptop that you just cleaned up for us isn’t compatible with our meter reading equipment. Apparently the equipment we have will not work with Windows 10, is it possible to load Windows 7 onto the laptop? Thanks Dave.
 
Seems odd. I'd be curious about exactly what the incompatibility is. I'd bet that it could very likely be made to work properly with windows 10.

With that said, I don't really feel that running Windows 7 is that risky, or that it's really even "done". Microsoft has shown a willingness to release patches for older "non-supported" operating systems if/when the risk is high enough. They released a patch for Windows XP less than a year ago. Depending on their budget, they could even look into getting extended (paid) support for Windows 7 from Microsoft. And really, if it's just a specialized system behind a firewall were people aren't going to be downloading email attachments and/or browsing random websites, the risk is pretty low overall, even for a system that is no longer receiving security updates.
 
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Its a USB device that plugs in, that model only has W7 USB drivers from the vendor, the newer (2 yr ago) model has W10 drivers.

Its the wireless reader that the water company uses to read your water meter while driving down the road in there truck
 
Put it on. Not like it's going to spontaneously be hacked because it's win7. Just run 3rd party firewall and turn off useless services.
I still have an xp box doing fine lol.

Scaremongering.
 
We have some edge-case Windows 7 machines for specific hardware dongles etc., particularly to skirt signed driver requirements.

I think someone needing Windows 7 for a specific application compatibility purpose is a little different than the implied title where a "customer" is explicitly asking for Windows 7 out of preference.
 
Unless you are prepared to spend the time to find, load and test Win 10 drivers and guarantee that it will all work properly, just load Win 7, what the customer wants. Do you really want to risk a lawsuit over misread meters and bad billing?

Include a written statement about Win 7 being EOL for future patches, some of the possible security risks, and call it done. Make them sign and date a copy you keep as a CYA document.

Way back when XP was current stuff, the agency I worked at had some lab equipment that used Win 98. Cost for a new unit was on the high side of $200,000. The vendor made it very clear they would not update our machine to XP. We just put that PC on a private IP that was blocked both ways at the firewall and went on. Can't always follow Microsoft's or other vendors upgrade schedule.
 
Windows 7 has extended support but it’s not cheap. Tell them about it and say they can use the time to find a solution that works with windows 10. We had the same problem with some lab equipment in our R&D labs. They have known for 2 years that they needed to update the licenses for their equipment to the new versions that work on windows 10. They procrastinated it and the vendor is booked up due to the cut off date. So now we will be billing their department every month for the extended support from Microsoft.
 
Windows 7 has extended support but it’s not cheap. Tell them about it and say they can use the time to find a solution that works with windows 10. We had the same problem with some lab equipment in our R&D labs. They have known for 2 years that they needed to update the licenses for their equipment to the new versions that work on windows 10. They procrastinated it and the vendor is booked up due to the cut off date. So now we will be billing their department every month for the extended support from Microsoft.
Bah, you beat me.
 
Its a USB device that plugs in, that model only has W7 USB drivers from the vendor, the newer (2 yr ago) model has W10 drivers.

Its the wireless reader that the water company uses to read your water meter while driving down the road in there truck
install the win7 driver on win10, chances are it will work just fine.
 
If it’s software that’s the issue, running in windows 7 mode has improved a ton since windows 10 came out.

The problem is drivers.

Consider accounting packages, they use a custom driver to convert to a .PDF - In many cases that driver is not compatible with Windows 10, meaning errors every time you try to attach an invoice to an email directly from the accounting package. That's the biggest issue I face, that and the fact that accounting packages are slow to adopt compatibility with newer versions of Outlook.

I hate Outlook. Only today I was trying to set up 2FA under Outlook using a Gsuite account, which Outlook is supposed to support no problem. Do you think I could get the Gsuite requester box asking for the username/password and 2FA code to appear? Outlook refused to see the mail server at all.

You could say that's a fault of Gsuite, except the free mail client called Thunderbird could connect and activate the account via 2FA just fine. Before 2FA was activated Outlook could authenticate the account just fine also.
 
The problem is drivers.

Consider accounting packages, they use a custom driver to convert to a .PDF - In many cases that driver is not compatible with Windows 10, meaning errors every time you try to attach an invoice to an email directly from the accounting package. That's the biggest issue I face, that and the fact that accounting packages are slow to adopt compatibility with newer versions of Outlook.

I hate Outlook. Only today I was trying to set up 2FA under Outlook using a Gsuite account, which Outlook is supposed to support no problem. Do you think I could get the Gsuite requester box asking for the username/password and 2FA code to appear? Outlook refused to see the mail server at all.

You could say that's a fault of Gsuite, except the free mail client called Thunderbird could connect and activate the account via 2FA just fine. Before 2FA was activated Outlook could authenticate the account just fine also.
This is why most business softwares are moving to cloud. You no longer need to fight with Windows bs.
 
Seems odd. I'd be curious about exactly what the incompatibility is. I'd bet that it could very likely be made to work properly with windows 10.

There are some cases of oddball, one-off, irreplaceable pieces of software out there that either does not get updated to run on new OSes or is written specifically for a version of Windows and even checks to make sure it's running on that version. And in the two cases I have seen it, there was no other option because the software was written for specific task/vendor in one case and was written to check to make sure it was only running on XP in the other. In those two situations you cannot find an alternate or find a way to get it to run on another OS because no alternate exist and you do not have the ability to change source code.

I do think people often use old software need as an excuse to not upgrade, but I've also seen with my own eyes the other side of the equation where the software cannot be replaced. In those cases you typically just leave that computer alone and just upgrade what you can.
 
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As a tech, the cloud makes life so much easier.
it does but i worry about all the info now being in someone elses hands. all my school div data is now split three ways between MS, Apple and Google because they dont want cost/responsibility for our own servers anymore.
 
it does but i worry about all the info now being in someone elses hands. all my school div data is now split three ways between MS, Apple and Google because they dont want cost/responsibility for our own servers anymore.

The risk is substantially lower than some Windows Server running away in a dusty corner for years on end 24/7 while you hope the backup solution actually works as the small business owner doesn't want to pay the $$ to be certain. The idea of a single Windows Server performing DC/AD/DNS/DHCP and file server duties is a concentrated point of massive network failure that I refuse to deal with in relation to small business anymore.

I switch them all to the cloud and experience no issues, I've been doing it for ~10 years now.
 
I recently had a similar issue. It was the USB to Serial chip driver for windows 10. It would install a basically dead version of the driver that wouldn't let it get a com port.
 
This customer also asked on Thursday what it would cost to get a new laptop if they got the new scanning software, I asked for the scanners requirements....crickets.....
 
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