The Lemon Fool

I am using Windows 7 with Word and Excel 2007. I have Norton anti virus and use Firefox. In light of the discontinuation of support for Win7, am I at a higher risk of malware etc and would I be advised to upgrade to Win10?
Thanks
john

Norton will still update with W7 and the same with FF for the foreseeable, eventually they may go to a no longer supported or 'maintenance' state but that will be some way off.

So the question is do you want to continue using W7 without MS updates?
If you are naturally cautious you should be OK, if you don't want the hassle of thinking too hard about downloads and the rest of the potential security hazards that might cause you a problem, maybe it's time to upgrade to W10 (which you can still do for free).

If you don't need macros or heavy formatting then the free Microsoft Office online is perfectly adequate. I've been using it for years having previously had a full MS Office suite installed locally on WXP. I also use Google Docs which will work on/offline with Microsoft Office doc formats.

This comparison is from 2017, things have moved on a bit since then (Google docs support for MS formats is even better now) but as a rough guide it's fine...
https://www.howtogeek.com/183299/a-free ... rth-using/

Another free option is something like Libreoffice which is a traditional 'desktop' app and has pretty good MS compatibility (again if you make heavy use of macros/formatting it might not be so great).
https://www.google.com/search?q=libreof ... e&ie=UTF-8

Rather than going with the opinions of us well meaning Fools I think you may want to consider GCHQ's thoughts on the matter. Their view is that Windows 7 should not be used for sensitive tasks such as Banking, email and any access to sensitive accounts.

https://www.itpro.co.uk/operating-syste ... il-banking

I think I would go with the experts and upgrade (it's free) to Windows 10.

Upgrading to win 10 is free, hence advised.

I did so on one of my laptops. I cenfess that I'm not too happy with the changes. However it was relatively smooth and I've put next to no effort in trying to "fix" the changes that are irritating me. Mostly that the onscreen keyboard keeps turning up. I use Win 10 at work, and it's fine.

I did see some click-bait mentioning that GCHQ state that the upgrade is vital, if you do internet banking or shopping.

To answer the title question "Do I need Windows 10", the answer is probably no.

I recently put together a laptop for fun, and am using it as my main machine. I put linux mint on it, using LibreOffice instead of excel. It works great, though I haven't tried printing (and am unlikely ever to do so).

As I was using LibreOffice and firefox on my windows machine applications were fairly similar.

I had a couple of issues getting the Arduino development environment working. Nothing huge, but I did need to use google to set it up.

Calibre works fine, though I need to sort the stripping of DRM.

I can download audiobooks using firefox, though at present I'm still using a windows program to convert them to mp3. I still need to find a linux solution for that, that I'm happy to use.

Backing things up to my NAS is now quicker (rsync is so much better than Robocopy).

I think that the only reason that I'd consider going back to Win 10 on my home machine is if I needed to use a application that only worked on Windows.

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

Go through the free tests available there to see how many potential vulnerabilities you are currently open to from the WAN (internet) side.

There's quite a lot you can do to lock systems down and minimise their hacking/infection potential, but obviously that requires a fair bit of technical knowledge which you may not have the inclination to learn, in which case, upgrade...

Urbandreamer wrote:I can download audiobooks using firefox, though at present I'm still using a windows program to convert them to mp3. I still need to find a linux solution for that, that I'm happy to use.

SoundConverter appears to be the usual recommendation:

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-convert- ... 3-on-linux

Infrasonic wrote:Go through the free tests available there to see how many potential vulnerabilities you are currently open to from the WAN (internet) side.

It seems from that test, that my router is secure.

And in many years my antivirus and anti-malware have never reported any intrusions.
Nevertheless I shall probably move to W10.

Why? Well, I do get some spam, so bad guys know I'm here.
And I asked Malwarebytes whether they could could continue to protect me on W7, and they said that once W7 ceases to be updated their software will become increasingly leaky, so No.
I presume the same applies to MSE.

I think that if one has financial exposure via the net - banking, eBay, Paypal, stockbroker, for instance - one will be increasingly at risk on W7.
That's why I will be moving.
Reluctantly, I hate change.

V8

Thaks for the replies, looks like I shall, reluctantly, go for win10.

john

johnstevens77 wrote:I am using Windows 7 with Word and Excel 2007...

I can tell you from personal experience that Office 2007 will continue to work under Windows 10, should you decide to upgrade.

There seem to be several methods to download the upgrade, which is, in your experience the most convenient?

john

There's a tutorial here for the whole W7/W10 upgrade procedure, (I've always downloaded W10 to a USB flash drive).
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/139 ... -free.html

Have you backed up W7 and any critical MS/a n other files yet?

I'd be inclined to do so first, rather than just upgrading to W10 without a third party safety net, but never having been a W7 user others will have to give you the procedures.

johnstevens77 wrote:There seem to be several methods to download the upgrade, which is, in your experience the most convenient?

You can use the Media Creation Tool to 'Upgrade this PC now' as per the tutorial that Infrasonic linked to, or you can use the MCT's 'Create installation media for another PC...' option to make a USB, then from within Windows run the Setup.exe you'll find on the root of the usb to start the upgrade.

Either way will do the job, but like Infrasonic I generally use the usb. The main advantage being that if you need to try again, then you don't have to download the files all over again.

And I second the recommendation to make a backup first. Macrium Reflect Free can make a system image to an external HDD so that you could restore your current system should things go wrong.

Infrasonic wrote:... never having been a W7 user others will have to give you the procedures.

I sucessfully upgraded a W7 PC with Word/Excel 2007 on it to Windows 10. I used the usb method.

About 6 months ago I updated from Windows 7 (32bit) to Windows 10 (32bit). After the update I had some glitches when developing Access applications with MS Access 2007, so I checked out its compatibility mode, and it suggested Windows 8 - so I now run MS Access 2007 in Windows 8 compatibility mode with no further problems. I also use Microsoft Windows Defender (free) for virus checking etc.

There's a good in depth article here from How To Geek outlining all the issues with W7 going forward, and some potential solutions to keep it more secure despite the lack of MS updates.
https://www.howtogeek.com/469843/window ... d-to-know/

Another useful update from howtogeek:
https://www.howtogeek.com/509087/how-to-upgrade-from-windows-7-to-windows-10-for-free/

Thanks fellas

I'll be using a usb when I get round to it.

john