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Well, aren’t you the snoot. I have machines all the way from DOS 5.0 through Win 10.

The DOS machine runs an old lab hardware board and software that would cost me a bundle to upgrade IF the manufacturer ever gets the Win 10 version off the ground. The intermediate version (worked all the way up to XP) is out of production.

Other such programs run fine on Win 7, and some of these hardware / software developers run into increasing problems with Microsoft with every new OS. Microsoft makes the whole endeavor very difficult, and increasingly costly. There is quite a bit of legacy software / hardware out there “making do” on older OS’s and machines for just those reasons.

Other than web browsing on some (increasingly more) sites, there is no app I have that requires more than Win XP (and possibly an old-ish release of that app) to do almost everything I need, and almost every “deficiency” I could work around easily if need be.

Office type programs (I now primarily use Libre Office)? Audio processing? Image processing / enhancement? Data acquisition? Graphics (art / drawing / CAD)? Etc.? 99% of all that I can do with a Win XP compatible app.

For the other 1%, and web browsing, my family has Win 10 machines, but that 1% most users would likely never need in a home or even small business setting, and for the web browsing, well, this thread mentions various alternative browsers that our posters seem to think work fine on Win 7. Over 95% of the work I do at home is on a Win 7 machine, with “my” Win 10 desktop used only when needed, as it doubles as my operational backup should the Win 7 machine fail. The Win 10 laptop does some work when I’m combining meals and work @ the kitchen table or on the road, but, again, it is overkill for the most part.

Outside of web browsing (addressed above), just what is it that most users would need more than a reasonably quick Win 7 machine with a SSD and compatible apps for? Or is everyone doing advanced CGI or artificial intelligence and I’m just out of the loop?

Oh, every OS and program on my machines is legit.

I wonder what your “poor relatives” would think of your attitude.

Office type programs (I now primarily use Libre Office)?
Won’t use open source crapware on the desktop unless I’m forced. Especially the crapware that is LibreOffice/OpenOffice/StarOffice.

Was forced to convert over to OpenOffice (the school bought into the whole open source is good garbage) and all my PowerPoint slide decks needed major fixes. No macros, transitions or automation support carried over.

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Audio processing?
Don’t tell me you use Audacity? Garbageware. ProTools, Logic, Reason, Wwise or nothing.

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Image processing / enhancement?

I’m guessing you use the crapware also know as the Gimp. Total garbage. Not compatible with photoshop or layered PNGs. No studio will use.

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Data acquisition? No need for that, If needed I write custom code in unity/Unreal/ lumberyard for that. (Windows 10 or a Mac required). Nvidia CUDA and path/ray-tracing requires Windows 10, as does SLI

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Graphics (art / drawing / CAD)? It it’s not the industry standards of Autodesk Maya, 3DSMax, Modo or Houdini, it’s trash. No self-respecting game or production studio uses the crapware known Blender which is known to flip normals, handedness and destroy FBX files

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Games? No DirectX 10/11/12 support?

Only if you want to play early 2000’s or late 1990’s games or those few with OpenGL support.

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Etc.? 99% of all that I can do with a Win XP compatible app.

Guess you don’t do much real work with a computer.