
Originally Posted by
Follower
My old rig (2004 era Pentium 4) has Win XP. It works just fine except much of its software is outdated and some can't be updated. I use it everyday for my hobby web server and many other things. I suppose I can keep using it indefinitely. This one is my "new" one (built 2011) and I do run Win 7. I won't ever be upgrading it. I have found a way to thwart Windows Update indefinitely. I don't run anti-virus on either machine. I don't have trouble with viruses as I am careful about files I open. I suppose I am vulnerable still to things like embedded hostile code. The hardware, software and OS will eventually age to the point I will have to retire it and I can justify building a whole new rig, and I will be forced to tangle with whatever monstrosity Microsoft is offering.
You can, indeed. I have a Windows 2000 partition stil in use because it's the last version made that doesn't phone home to Micro$oft. Apps can be updated by moving copies from the newer installation to the old one and modifying any Hkeys or regedit files as necessary.
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"There will be no spectacular ending for this mess when it happens " (Mansfield67, 2019).