UPDATED ON: 2023-02-15 Secure Boot now supported [officially] ! ▒ HARDWARE Motherboard: Gigabyte X570 Aorus Ultra BIOS: F34 [F35b breaks compatibility with Windows 7] I think that guide will be useful due to nightmarish non-ergonomic structure of Gigabyte’s BIOS menus. ▒ UEFI vs MBR Windows 7 supports UEFI only partially, there is no native handling of this modern tech. I don’t see any reason to use UEFI, only if you want to boot from drive which is larger than 2TB.

▒ SOME PREFACE WORDS …. Is it really possible? Read on to find out. Windows 200 is known for very fast performance, even compared to Windows XP and famous for absence of preinstalled bloatware. However, lack of drivers and software cripple system a bit. I was curious about ability to use this old operating system in 2022, maybe not as daily driver, but as a backup machine for secondary tasks.

UPDATED ON: 2023-02-06 v1.0b: please [contact me] if you find errors or inaccuracies. In this guide i will quickly show my system configuration tweaked for privacy. I’m using essential stuff like 3G/4G/WiFi & BT. Additional pleasantries are blocked. █ ANDROID 8: OS WITH MINIMAL TELEMETRY Operating System: Android 8.0 [Android 8.1 ain’t good, coz it brought support of neural networks to do effective data mining] Security patch: 1st September 2018 FW Version: 47.

Today, I’ve accidentally deleted local .git index folder of my blog repository, because of this I was not able to submit new content. Tried to restore files by File Scavenger, but it was too late because I was in the middle of active file operations and .git folder was erased without any chance of returning it back to drive. I’ve tried to recreate index by means of: git init But Git-Bash-console threw me an error:

UPDATED ON: 2021-12-11 microsoft vomit forced Zeffy to [remove Wufuc patch] which disabled artificial restriction to work with modern CPUs under Windows 7 from github Look for patch [here] . Not long ago i’ve discovered that one of my favorite tech forum is forced to stop providing services, by atrocious coalition of putrid companies like microsoft and intel. It looks like the first one is angry that people continue to use “obsolete” Windows 7.

Authoritative member of Win-Raid community [Canonkong] confirmed that x570s chipset is fully operational under Windows 7. In terms of overall compatibility he recommends MSI boards. Please note that [Asrock motherboards are not compatible with Windows 7] anymore because of notable BIOS changes. You’ll encounter A5/7E BSOD screens on random basis. The most distinctive feature of x570s chipset compared to x570 is absence of active cooling. Also it will support upcoming [Ryzen 5950XT] CPU with larger 192Mb L3 v-cache.

UPDATED ON: 2023-08-04 IMPROVING FIREFOX PRIVACY & SECURITY FIREFOX ADDONS [Part I] Finally I’ve managed to finish this part of the FAQ. Note is a loooong-read, so mistakes can occur » please [report them to me] . One of the most distinctive features of FireFox was customization. With each new version it becomes less customizable, thanks to marketing people at mozilla corp. They do everything to make Firefox look like google chrome.

Long time ago I’ve noticed prolonged trend to destroy advanced technology and sell cheap plastic things, powered by marketing slogans, which have zero significance in real life. Appointed trend applies to almost any products in our life, especially consumer and even professional electronics. Some solid proof then. [COMMODORE] brought super advanced Amiga computer in the middle 80s, which had some really advanced stuff like GPU Blitter and Fast-Ram technologies. Nowadays Amd is working on stuff similar to Fast-Ram, which they call Smart Cache.

UPDATED ON: 2024-12-12 I use these automation on daily basis to improve my workflow. All batch files are tested under Windows 7 x64. ► SHUTDOWN PUTER shutdown /p /f ► REBOOT PUTER shutdown /r /f /t 0 ► RESTART AUDIO SERVICE net stop "AudioSrv" net start "AudioSrv" ► DISABLE HIBERNATE powercfg -h off ► DISABLE/ENABLE LAN INTERFACES netsh interface set interface name="Local Area Connection" admin=disabled netsh interface set interface name="Local Area Connection" admin=enabled To reset IP address:

Some really quick software lists with information on which version of application is a last one to run on Windows 98/2000/XP/7. [Windows 98SE Gold] [Windows 98SE KeX] [Windows 2000 SP4] [Windows XP SP3] As for Windows 7 SP2 ESU i maintain my [personal list of trusted’n’latest software] . Coz Seven is my daily driver system. So Windws 7 list will be constantly updated! Don’t forget about my [dedicated WINDOWS 98/2000/XP/7 support page] spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik

Japanese people always stand out from the grey crowd and they definitely know how to impress audience. spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik

For example pretend that we would like to move all files from SD-card of the camera, which were created in last 5 days to local hard drive or ssd. We should point out original location, then destination, affected files and commmand parameters. It would be something like this: Robocopy I:\DCIM\100OLYMP C:\Users\User\Desktop\FRESH\ *.JPG *.ORF *.MOV *.AVI /E /MOV /MAXAGE:5 /E – copy sub-folders, including empty ones /MOV – move files instead of copying /MAXAGE:5 – exclude files, which are aged more than 5 days

Collection of 3DFX Voodoo drivers and essential driver library from VOGONS community for retro scavengers. [Neat 3DFX site] ►supported by Polish enthusiast. [Voodoo 4/5 drivers] [Vogons drivers library] ► found drivers for my rare [Pro Audio Spectrum 16] soundcard. spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik

[Nik Collection] is a great graphical effects plugin pack to work with your favorite raster editor [mine is [Affinity Photo] in case you are interested]. Everything is fine, except annoying update popup, which is opening right after every plugin initialization. Such stuff completely breaks workflow if you don’t want to update for some reason. And there is no way to turn it off from GUI using normal methods. However, you can shut update checks off from configuration file, which is located here:

And will not sing praises on how cool Linux is. Because I know that it has its own quirks and inconveniences. For testing I almost randomly choose [Manjaro Linux] with lightweight [XFCE desktop] . Manjaro is based upon [Arch distribution] .Yeah, ubuntu is too much pop for me. Key benefits of Manjaro are quite transparent: modern & stable environment and pretty vibrant community. I understand that Linux don’t have all software, which I need and try to find software replacement in a while.

For those of you who do not like retro stuff like Amiga page cursor and who want more modern’n’beautiful aesthetics I can suggest neat cursor pack, which is pretty close to classic Mac cursors and for sure [brings warm analog depth] . spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik

UPDATED ON: 2023-02-20 I recommend to replace Fennec F-Droid with [Mull Browser] due to the fact that is COMPLETELY free from telemetry. In contrast to Fennec Mull browser do not trigger any mozilla or google connections, so take a note. And for God’s sake do not use plain Firefox, it is almost like chrome now! As my main web surfer IceCat begin to showing it’s age and don’t have any new versions apart from “super-new” 68.

UPDATED ON: 2023-02-12 ► Added info on 2.93.15 LTS & 3.0 Final Make sure to check [newer post] regarding refreshed information about modern Blender and Windows 7 compatibility As we all know that last official Blender build to support Windows 7 is 2.92. Next version requires Python 3.9.x, which is not an option for Windows 7. However, there is a possibility to run new 2.93 version via [DLL HACK] , which could be applied even to the newest 2.

UPDATED ON: 2025-05-09 NOTE: list will be updated in the future [final renewal is planned somewhere around 2028]. List of essential software needed for smooth and hassle free system performance. I use these applications on a daily basis. Selection is really private, but nevertheless of this fact I want to share my knowledge with you. List doesn’t contain any microsoft or adobe products. Sorted by usage frequency. Also i’ll do my best to provide final Windows 7 compatible versions of software.

DON'T EVEN THINK THAT WINDOWS 7 IS DEAD! Official extended support for Windows 7 operating system [ended on January 14, 2020] . Home users can’t extend support for the operating system while business and enterprise customers may extend support by up to three years [till January 14, 2023] , to be precise. This is done by joining the ESU program which is available per machine [business] or per user [enterprise].

Here is a short breakdown of the most frequently used commands, which could be launched from the START menu. [WIN] + R ► START ► RUN ► …. CONTROL PANEL control panel LAN CONNECTIONS ncpa.cpl REMOTE DESKTOP mstsc SYSTEM SERVICES services.msc USER CONTROL PANEL control userpasswords2 MICROSOFT CONFIG TOOL msconfig DIRECTX DIAGNOSTICS TOOL dxdiag SYSTEM INFORMATION msinfo32 REGISTRY EDITOR regedit TASK SCHEDULER taskschd.msc GROUP POLICY EDITOR gpedit.msc spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik

UPDATE 2021-10-11: Added Excellent [APKGrabber] ▓ ALTERNATIVE FIRMWARE As for firmware, I recommend to use [LineAgeOS] if your device is supported. Neat FW with minimal tracking and no bloat from big corps. If there is no native LineAgeOS support check [XDA forum threads] for unofficial ports by community enthusiasts. If your device is not supported in both cases I do not recommend to update stock firmware to prevent bloat’n’telemetry installation.

The roots of bench-marking tools come from [Demoscene] .
The most quality products were crafted by Finnish and Russian coders.
Here is a little breakdown of most notable benchmarks just for your convenience.

UPDATED ON: 2025-05-08

List will be updated in the future.
Most of the applications can be found on [F-Droid market] and work on Android 8.0.
Permissions checker: [Exodus] .

Note: Don’t worry, your eye sight is ok. I’m just testing CRT-emulation mode via CSS-magic. To remove FX click on any other page. Back in Pentium 66Mhz days I was a follower of minimal design and always turned off all fancy graphical beauties, for the sake of performance of course. However, today we are not limited to 8Megs of RAM anymore. Therefore, I have decided to transform my Windows 7 installation into Windows Vista.

UPDATED: 2021-10-05 Some good old-school sites regarding ‘puters and technology. I will update this post when stumble upon something very cool. [Razorback95] ► cool guy doing retro stuff [DXZeff] ► small vintage computer forum, also guy has pretty neat YT channel [Retro revival blog] ► excellent selection of vintage software [Vogons forum] ► the most important place for old school gamers [Old-games.ru portal] ► very vibrant old games Russian community

Software is not perfect. Windows, Linux or any other OS. It doesn’t really matter. In this quick note, I will talk about Windows operating system. For basic deleting of stucked files big chance that you are already using utility like Unlocker or smth. However, some time ago Unlocker was caught in spreading malware, so no trust to this application anymore. As for me, I prefer [Lock Hunter] instead. And what about frozen processes?

Even mighty Windows 7 comes with preinstalled junk. Yeah, you can’t go wrong with Microsoft.
In this posting I’ll point you out some bloated stuff, that don’t need regular home user on normal basis.
All of these should be removed to save your disk space and improve system performance.

For some time I’ve owned Asus Essense STX II sound-card with cool hardware internals, but sh#t-like drivers. Very common situation for modern reality. Except the fact that card is not so modern at all. Asus dropped [driver support] for Windows 7 @ 2015. How cool is that? After some web searching I’ve stumbled upon [Maxedtech drivers] . The overall quality is better, some bugs are fixed, some appeared, but even at this point was not satisfied with system stability.