Classic 7 is a Windows 10 LTSC mod to look 1:1 to Windows 7

2 hours ago (classic7.lol)

I have used windows 7 since it launched and moved to 10 & 11. I like some design elements of windows 7, but I would absolutely not use it today.

If you think, "I should try this", Any reason why? I'm really curious to know

I really do miss the design of Windows 7 and the apps of that era (think Office 2007 style)

I hope it comes back

At work I am made to use Windows 11 and I hate it immensely. Everything's so slow. Nothing operates properly. In addition to forced reboots which are annoying as hell, it also reboots after some time on sleep, for no reason whatsoever. Copilot is everywhere and cannot be truly disabled without admin rights. While not strictly a Windows issue, Outlook is an incredible piece of garbage. It doesn't know if it's running and so can be launched more than once; the icon for new messages doesn't show when it should; search is still as broken as ever; the ribbon, which makes little sense in other Office apps, is absurd in Outlook; folders are useless and confusing; etc.

At home, while I have a Mac Mini 4, a MacBook Air, and several Linux boxes, I still use an old PC on Win7 as my primary machine. Is it insecure? Probably. But today "insecure" feels more like a feature than a limitation. No forced updates of anything => everything that works, keeps working indefinitely.

  • I work with Windows 11 and don't see any major issue whatsoever. But note that 16GB RAM is "just" enough to run it smoothly. 32GB is better for serious (e.g development) work. I have run it even on Intel 4200U/4200M CPUs fine (CPU is from year 2014). I agree that new Outlook is buggy and not fully functional - that's why I still use old native MS Outlook.

    • It's possible half of my problems are because I don't have admin rights, and the other half is because the machine is too weak.

      Why do modern OSes need so much power and RAM anyway? I used to produce documents on an Amstrad PPC640. 640 stood for 640k of RAM (no hard disk). It was fine.

      I understand the above makes me sound like an old fart (or fool), and we have moved on from DOS. But what does Windows 11 do that Windows 7 couldn't?

    • My main issue with Windows 11 (and where I use it I do see quite a lot of issues) is that apparently it won't run on my personal PC at home - and no way am I going to buy a new PC just to run Windows 11. So installed Linux Mint and I'm perfectly happy!

  • How large is the company you work at? I'm guessing large. What is the general sentiment across layers in the company? My guess is everybody hates it (all layers)?

    • It's a client of mine; the IT department is extremely small (fewer than 5) but the company has maybe 500 employees total? Since I work there, I've not heard anyone complain specifically about their computer or the Windows version. Most people don't care / don't know better, they just use what they're given.