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Open question:
How much would you pay for Win7 extended patches?
I’d certainly be willing to pay $5o for each of our three W7 Pro machines to stay updated for another year. Even if I wanted to transition our machines – to Linux, W8.1, even W10 (yeah, right) – right now, we simply don’t have time in our schedules to devote the time to dealing with it before W7 EOL, so paying MS’s $50/machine ransom for the first year is worth it to us. It doesn’t solve the “long-term OS choice” issue, but it gives us time to breathe.
The more expensive update costs for the second and third years may be another matter entirely, but that will be, as they say, a “game time decision.”
In the meantime, if AskWoody can arrange a simpler way for AW members to obtain the paid updates, that would be hugely appreciated.
Group 7-L (W7, heading toward Linux)
W7 Pro x64 SP1
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce 32-bit -
The router is a Huawei HG659 and contains the following in its user manual:
You can connect a USB storage device to your HG659 and access the USB device from your computer.
Both the USB drive and removable hard disk can connect to your HG659.
Your HG659 supports the following file systems for reading and writing.
> FAT32/FAT
> NTFSGroup 7-L (W7, heading toward Linux)
W7 Pro x64 SP1
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce 32-bit1 user thanked author for this post.
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Thanks for your prompt and helpful reply. I suspected that any backup program in an OS within a VM would likely be able to “see” only its limited VM world as the “complete disk” for backup, but I wasn’t sure. I appreciate the confirmation.
You should backup your data in the Windows VM, but this can be done by copying to the Linux disk – which you then backup – or a network disk.
I’m a bit confused by your phrase, “but this can be done by copying to the Linux disk.” Presumably any complete disk backup of the Linux host would also include the Virtual Box W7 VM and all its contents (including data), so I’m not clear why it would also be necessary to copy any W7 data to the Linux disk.
Also, does any network HDD which is to be read and used by both a Linux Mint host and a W7 guest VM as a common repository for data need to be specially formatted, or will a standard 1TB external HDD work fresh out of the box?
Thanks again for your help.
Cheers
Group 7-L (W7, heading toward Linux)
W7 Pro x64 SP1
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce 32-bit -
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The following excerpt from a Lifewire article is the relevant part of a larger discussion of the differences between DVD-R and DVD+R:
DVD+R and DVD-R: Functional Differences
The main functional differences between DVD-R and DVD+R are the DVD recorder’s built-in defects management, the way the recorders format and rewrite DVDs, and their respective price tags.With DVD-R, little marks are positioned in the grooves of the disc that determines how the DVD reader processes the information on the disc. DVD+R, however, does not have these land pre-pits but instead measures the wobble frequency as the laser processes the disc.
Even though these two formats were developed by different companies and can only be used on certain devices, some DVD drives are hybrid models and can support both DVD-R and DVD+R discs.
Whether you have DVD-R or DVD+R discs, make sure that the DVD drive you intend to purchase says that they’re both supported. Similarly, if you already have a DVD+R or DVD-R machine and it’s not a hybrid DVD drive, make sure to only buy the discs your player supports.
Some DVD+R Advantages
According to the claims of the DVD Alliance, using a DVD+R recorder allows for the following abilities and features:Instantly eject DVDs without having to wait for finalized formatting.
Ability to record one DVD disc partially on PC and partially on television.
Background formatting — while the disc is being formatted, you can simultaneously record on already-formatted portions of the same disc.
Enhanced ability to edit filenames, movie and song titles, and playlists.
100 percent compatibility with all other DVD players, while still enjoying the noted extra recording features.Hope that helps.
Group 7-L (W7, heading toward Linux)
W7 Pro x64 SP1
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce 32-bit -
Thanks, CT, for making your detailed instructions easily available again, despite the attempts of MS to keep them off the Web. So much for freedom of expression on the Internet!
If W10 is really as good as MS wants us to believe it is, MS shouldn’t need to bludgeon and connive to get users to adopt it. We have three W7 Pro 64 machines which do what we need them to do and we see no point in changing to a privacy-invading OS with such a tumultuous (dare I say “incompetent?”) update history.
As I see it, we have three options come W7 EOL:
1) Change to W10, then fight endlessly with MS to preserve what’s left of our computer privacy and struggle constantly to protect our computers (and therefore our businesses) from chaotic, apparently untested updates. This seems like a real venture in self-abuse and I have no desire to stick my head into that pencil sharpener.
2) Switch to Linux Mint and keep W7 available as an offline VM guest within the Linux host. Linux comes with a bit of a learning curve and limited choices in certain specialized software, but it also comes with absolute freedom from MS, with no snooping, and with updates which are far more reliable. That specialized software could be preserved within the W7 VM.
3) Now that we know that it’s possible, reinstall and harden W7, per your instructions, and trust that it will work successfully for at least a few more years (in one of your posts, I think you mentioned perhaps 5 years), though at some point I assume that there will likely still be a need to change the OS (to ___?).
Heretofore, I’ve been leaning toward Linux Mint with our current W7 configurations imaged and copied into a VirtualBox VM, but I’m intrigued and tempted by your approach to preserving W7. My primary concerns relate to:
A) If at all possible, making any transfer to a post-W7 EOL configuration as (relatively) simple and painless as possible, and the thought of having to reinstall all my specialized software on W7 gives me buttwillies. Although I’ve owned and worked with DOS/Windows machines since 1985 and can handle most basic Windows issues for our businesses and our family without too much trouble, I don’t consider myself a tech by any stretch of the imagination, so I don’t want to get into any projects that are way above my pay grade. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry, “A man’s gotta know his limits.”
B) Making sure that my wife’s MS Outlook and its enormous PST file, as well as her MS Office 2010 setup, are kept intact and readily accessible under any new configuration, as they contain many important business emails and documents which she needs to search through periodically. Although she is now using LibreOffice and is willing ultimately to switch to Thunderbird for her emails – both LO and TB come standard with Linux Mint, our previous first choice for post EOL computing – I will need to make provision for her to have reasonably straightforward access to her historical emails, and also to MS Office in case there are occasional functions it can handle which LO can’t. I’ve not yet researched the degree of difficulty involved in reinstalling those programs in W7, complete with all her old emails and documents.
C) For better or worse, computers are a necessary part of our lives, but we personally have only so much time available in our lives to deal with computer change-over issues, hence the attraction of the (apparent) time-saving advantage of installing a Linux OS pre-packaged with much of the basic software we already do use or can use (LO and Mozilla’s Firefox and TB), then installing a previously-created system image of our respective present W7 configurations in a VirtualBox VM in each of the machines. Similarly, assuming we outlive your rough five-year prognosis for a “CT-spec” W7 machine, if we’re ultimately going to have to switch to some other OS anyway, would we perhaps save time, grief, and hassle by biting the bullet now?
Any thoughts that you or others may have on any of this will be both welcome and appreciated.
Many thanks.
Group 7-L (W7, heading toward Linux)
W7 Pro x64 SP1
Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit
Linux Mint 17.1 Xfce 32-bit -
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