Would it be possible to use Windows 8.1 POS updates?

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I found a while back the Windows 8.1 Point of Sale (POS) version which is used in things like ATMs and credit card machines will get updates thru July 2023. Would it be possible to use these on my home Windows 8.1 PC? I know they are technically not compatible but if it’s anything like like the Windows XP people successfully used those thru April 2019. I would take an extra 6 months of updates if I can. I don’t ever plan on going to Windows 10 or 11 and will eventually go to Linux instead. Is there a registry edit I can do to make it think it’s a Windows 8.1 POS? Where would I get the security only updates for this?

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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dbvdb4help, Microfix

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From discussion here https://msfn.org/board/topic/183692-microsoft-will-start-to-annoy-us-soon/ it sounds like that forum is unwilling to directly link the way of getting Server 2012 updates, but that some of them install on Windows 8.  Server 2012 is said to have (paid for post-EOL) support until 2026.

Whenever in an unconventional computer situation, I suggest extremely frequent backups and a trusted antivirus software.

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Erik

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Looks like what they are now referring to as Windows 8.1 embedded industry is supported until July 11, 2023.

Mainstream support for the Embedded Industry edition of Windows 8.1 ended on July 10, 2018 and extended support will end on July 11, 2023. – per Wikipedia.

Also server 2012 is supported until Oct 10, 2023 without ESU and Oct 13, 2026 with an ESU.

• Extended support until October 10, 2023<sup id=”cite_ref-slc_4-0″ class=”reference”>[4]</sup>
• Windows Server 2012 R2 is eligible for the paid ESU (Extended Security Updates) program (free for Azure Virtual Desktop users). This program allows customers to purchase security updates in yearly installments for the operating systemthrough at most October 13, 2026 only for volume licensed editions.

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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AKB2000003 and @abbodi86 have been our go-to for Win7 for the last three years.

Hang loose for a while and see what transpires for Win7 and Win8.1 after the first of 2023.

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Steve, Erik

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@PKCano are you working on a way to do this?

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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No.

@abbodi86 is the go-to.

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Just be extremely careful on any site that offers hacks, cracks or other means.  Ensure you trust the site and the person.  I am not an advocate of this as it puts you at risk and it’s quite frankly breaking licensing as well as not a healthy way to run a computer. You’d be better off making the break to Linux sooner versus later.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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Erik

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Thanks Susan, yes I am extremely careful of these. I will be moving to Linux when I can, there are several factors involved. I am not sure about if it would be a license break or not, I would pay for this if MS would allow it.

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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Anytime you use patches that were not built for that platform and are beyond the lifecycle/support window  for the platform you are breaking the license agreement.  They are not even offering ESU’s to corporations for the 8.1 platform.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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@Erik, That’s a sizzler of a question for Win8.1, although the digital license may be distinguishing factor as to whether this can be achieved across various editions and don’t think it will be as easy as a reghack..fingers crossed eh!
Plan is in place here to use Win8.1 Pro offline come mid-february with LM21.1 taking the strain online thereafter for emails and personal stuff (homeuse)
However, W10 won’t be getting a sniff of any sensitive/ personal data here 🙂

Keep IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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Steve, wavy, Erik

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Yes, it’s the personal info for why I will never put W10 or 11 on my machine. Every since GWX appeared on my computer and I thought it was something malicious installed, I have no trust in MS.

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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Erik wrote:

Every since GWX appeared on my computer and I thought it was something malicious installed,

It WAS underhanded and malicious, ‘dirty water under the bridge’
Thankfully none of my devices are W11 compatable..if they were, they’d be on an Arch based Linux distro and I’d be requesting a license refund. My 2c

Keep IT Lean, Clean and Mean!

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Cybertooth

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Malicious?  Get windows 10 pop was hardly “malicious” in the term used in security.

Not well communicated ABSOLUTELY.  But malicious?

Folks put yourselves in the shoes of a software designer.  They want you to move off an older insecure, less built for today’s threats platform to a newer one.  What they absolutely totally suck at is communicating why and what they are doing.

Malicious is a term I reserve for attackers.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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When I first saw it, I literally thought GWX was malware. It was an application installed on my computer that I did not install myself, which IMO is the definition of malware. I didn’t even know at the time that the links it showed on GWX were legitimate or not, and I was taught never to do so… so I wasn’t going to click on them to find out. GWX was what actually led me to Ask Woody where I learned a lot from Woody and others about many underhanded and unethical privacy violations and the secretiveness of MS didn’t help. I went from downloading updates but let me install to eventually automatically installing them due to a lack of time I had, to after GWX, manually doing all updates and since 2016 security only ones.

Windows 8.1 Group B, Brave & Dissenter & Protonmail

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The engineers of Microsoft are typically young.  With that “youngness” comes decisions that are normal to them, not normal to us and often “pushy”.

Malware is defined as….

software that is specifically designed to disrupt, damage, or gain unauthorized access to a computer system.

The intent was not designed to disrupt or damage.  It may have caused that to you and others, but that was not the intent.

It may have acted like it, it may have been called that in the tech press, it was pushy, but I’m going to still be nit picky and say it wasn’t malware as I define it.

The intention is not and was not the same that ransomware developers have.  And last but not least we had a TON of tools to control it and it ultimately was easily tamed with a variety of tools.  Unfortunately and showcased on a daily basis, we may have a lot of tools that try to prevent ransomware but every day we see someone else nailed by it.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Malicious?  Get windows 10 pop was hardly “malicious” in the term used in security.

It was malicious to users who were upgraded against their will (Windows 7 on my partner’s PC was maliciously updated to Windows 10 and was not usable. I reverted to Windows 7 immediately and blocked Windows 10 forever).

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wavy, Erik, Cybertooth

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I agree with Alex5723 about users getting upgraded from W7 to W10 against their will. I had installed blocking software on my elderly father-in-law’s computer to prevent this; I went to his house a month later, and an attempted W10 upgrade against his will had bricked his computer.

Other than that, however, I am firmly convinced that Windows updates are done to enhance security. And all of the “spying” that Microsoft does on Windows computers is so that they can learn better and better ways of enhancing security.

I came to this conclusion after installing NoScript in my Firefox browser, then looking at the things that websites were trying to run silently in the background, without the user’s knowledge. I observed the following two things:
* Almost every website I went to (even my bank) was running Google scripts in the background. A notable exception to this was Microsoft; they run only their own scripts on their own websites.
* No website I went to (other than Microsoft websites) was running any Microsoft scripts. (There may have been a non-Microsoft site once that was running Outlook.com scripts.)

Seeing what runs in the background on every website I have visited has improved my trust greatly in Microsoft. It has also caused me to avoid anything Google-related like the plague, unless I have no choice.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM

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Mr Jim you have to remember Google offers recaptcha so many times that is the reason you see so much from Google. Also, many run Google Analytics. Not saying it makes me all warm and fuzzy, but I understand the reasons for doing so.

Never Say Never

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As for Recaptcha, whenever I am forced to do a Recaptcha, I temporarily allow google.com scripts. Hopefully Google is only doing the Recaptcha, nothing more, at that moment.

As for Google Analytics, I think a more descriptive name would be, Google Spying. Because Google Analytics is so universally deployed everywhere you go, I have come to not trust Google at all – they are spying on everything we do, analyzing the information, and then monetizing it.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM

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Steve, Cybertooth

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