UPDATED ON: 2024-11-28
Fastest Windows 7 laptops are still on the edge. Dell & Lenovo have made some enhancements to address recent security vulnerabilities.
[Dell Precision 7520]
► Firmware version 1.38 [November 2024] [direct link] [Lenovo X1 Carbon Gen5]
► Firmware version 1.63 [September 2024] [direct link] Nice to see that such older platforms are still maintained.
spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
UPDATED ON: 2023-09-20
List of shortcuts, which i frequently use in my work-flow. Text version for offline surfing can be grabbed [here]
. Official list of shortcuts can be found [on Renoise site]
.
▒ MODIFICATORS [SHIFT] ► track [ALT] ► block [selection] [CTRL]+[SHIFT] ► column [ALT]+[SHIFT] ► group [CTRL] ► pattern
▒ GENERAL [ALT]+[ENTER] ► toggle real fullscreen [CTRL]+[N] ► new song [CTRL]+[S] ► save song [CTRL]+[SHIFT]+[S] ► save track as [CTRL]+[O] ► open song [CTRL]+[,] ► open preferences
Information confirmed by [author]
of [hacked modern USB3 AMD drivers]
.
Please, take a note, that: ASRock boards is not compatible at all, due to removed proper CSM module in latest BIOS revisions. Asus mobos are acceptable, but have some issues here and there. Gigabyte is just ok. So, consider MSI to get yourself out of unneeded troubles.
spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
UPDATED ON: 2023-09-06 Some new parameters were added.
Note that by default all [Nightly versions]
of Firefox are sending back telemetry to third-parties in extensive manner. So, to disable such malicious actions besides turning off telemetry settings via standard GUI options:
about:preferences#privacy You’ll need to use good old:
about:config To change to:
FALSE …or create following parameters in software registry:
toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.unified
toolkit.telemetry.unifiedIsOptIn
toolkit.telemetry.bhrPing.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.firstShutdownPing.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.hybridContent.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.newProfilePing.enabled
toolkit.telemetry.reportingpolicy.firstRun toolkit.
I often get asked regarding Windows 7 safety especially in 2023.
"Is it safe to use such old operating system?" "What about security?" "How about modern viruses?"
.... …. and many other similar questions.
Funny thing that people who are asking about security don’t give a damn about privacy. Yeah, that’s quite different definitions for sure, but from my point of view they always come together hand in hand.
The main and the most important security police officer is your head.
Looking back to previous couple of years and taking into perspective generic non-computer life it is quite amazing what people are capable of. I’m talking about amount of rave and chaotic mess they can produce. Artificial difficulties, overcomplicated situations, meaningless and moronic wars, you name it.
Taking into account above mentioned things it’s really easy to handle such “problem” as running Windows 7 in modern age. Despite the fact that there are plenty of people around who are mumbling about Windows 7 obsolescense and bla-bla-bla.
If you are a long term reader/visitor of my site you may already know that i am using following keyboards:
Japanese [Topre Realforce RGB]
[rubber-dome capacitive key switches] Chinese [Vortex Race III]
[clicky blue Cherry-MX key switches] Chinese [Vortex Tab90M]
[clicky blue Cherry-MX key switches] Thailand [IBM KB-8926]
[quite good rubber-dome key switches] Note: board from 1996 in mind condition, using it on my job. And now i’ve decided to give a shot to top end keyboard of Keychron brand.
UPDATED ON: 2023-08-23
Despite [previous statement]
regarding Windows 7 EOL status after version 115 current nightly alpha binary [v117] works just fine. Installer threw generic mambo-jambo that program can’t work in Windows 7 environment and then artificially blocks installation. How generic & dumb. Workaround is just unzip exe-package with [7-zip]
and execute browser from unpacked Core folder.
FIREFOX 117 ABOUT WINDOW Right after installation software immediately begins to whine about inability to update.
This can be done by changing application’s language locale to English. But what if you have only one non-English language in GUI preferences?
The solution is surprisingly simple.
Close Photoshop if it is already running
Find following file:
tw10428.dat Standard location:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop YOUR-VERSION\Locales\YOUR-LANGUAGE\Support Files\ In case of Photoshop 2020 file is named:
tw10428_Photoshop_ru_RU.dat Rename it into something like: tw10428.dat.bak Ta-da! Start software and enjoy! spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
I bet most of Firefox oldschool users hated the recent “changes” in terms of overall browser design. Rounded childish like-chrome corners, foolish restriction on what can be configured and so on. And now they crippled the look of browser tabs: to waste your workspace and spoil the design, just take a look at this:
MODERN “NORMAL” STYLE LEGACY NORMAL STYLE SIDE-BY-SIDE COMPARISON I suppose that such “changes” were made in favor to touchscreen devices.
Say you need to run on a laptop battery vintage or simply non-demanding applications for an extremely long time. Here is a little breakdown of mandatory things to do:
turn off in BIOS unneeded devices like camera, sd-card reader, fingerprint scanner, gsm-modem, wifi, bt or whatever you are not using turn on power saving features like various C-power states turn off hyper-threading and hi-core count [if you have such ability] lower screen brightness to acceptable level check my [quick]
and [comprehensive]
optimization FAQs get rid of [unneeded services and bloat applications]
Also you can use core parking utility [Park Control]
, but in this mini-guide i’ll show you how to set power related things up via internal Windows 7 tools.
UPDATED ON: 2023-12-02
The main reason i’ve decided to write this note is indistinct default color mappings and inability to solve issue simply using GUI of software.
In main configuration file:
settings.json add following lines:
"workbench.colorCustomizations": {
"editorCursor.foreground": "#ff0000",
"terminalCursor.foreground": "#02ED3D",
"editorLineNumber.activeForeground": "#ff0000",
"editor.lineHighlightBackground": "#016119",
"editor.lineHighlightBorder": "#02ED3D",
"terminal.foreground": "#02ed3d" }, To set custom color for GREY comments drop in these lines:
"editor.tokenColorCustomizations": {
"conmments": "#ff006f"
} To fast access configuration file press:
UPDATED ON: 2024-07-05 v1.81.1 is a more recent version, which can be executed without any efforts v1.89 is a hacked [FINAL version] for Windows 7 x64 So, Windows 7 users are pretty safe at this point despite artificial restrictions of big corps.
Usually i’m not feeling so delightful regarding microsoft modern programs, but this one is pretty good. And of course they tried to artificially cripple it under “obsolete” Windows 7.
Extended kernel project allows you to run some Windows 8+ applications on Windows 7.
LATEST ALPHA BUILDS
Click right mouse button to select executable properties and then switch to VxKex tab: Then cross your fingers and try to launch desired application.
Warning! Software is in very early alpha stage, so miracles almost never happen. However very basic applications can be executed.
spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
UPDATED ON: 2024-08-29
Node.js dropped Windows 7 “support” rigth after [version number 13]
.What a load of sh#t. Today i’ll tell you how to overcome this nonsense and run latest LTS version [Node.JS 18.x]
without any problems. More newer versions may work also. I’ll leave you some room for experiments. Recently i found excellent already [patched installer of NodeJS 18]
First of all you need to download zipped version of software, not msi one.
In my newly purchased [Lenovo X1 Carbon]
i run into screen tearing issues during web or local video playback with classic windows theme turned on.
GOOD EXAMPLE OF SCREEN TEARING PHENOMENON I messed around with different video driver settings, under the hood browser parameters, fine-tuning other various tweaks without any changes for good. To my surprise solution was pretty straightforward.
JUST TURN ON AERO THEME TO SAVE YOUR EV▓NING! Aero interface is rendered by Desktop Windows Manager [DWM].
Independent UK-based search engine [Mojeek]
brought to us [convenient and very detailed map]
of various search engines and crawlers. Project was inspired by [Internet map resource]
.
►SEARCH ENGINE MAP◄
spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
Main highlights of [6th generation]
over [previous one]
:
very good keyboard for ultra-compact class [same quality as in 5th gen]. By the way, 6th generation is a last one to support such luxury. Generations 7th and 8th come with [crippled apple-like keys]
with reduced key travel. noticeable quality increase in terms of color gamut, even better than in 5th generation. sRGB gamut: 95% [Gen6] vs 85% [Gen 5]. multi-core performance [increased around 80%]
over 5th gen.
Despite the fact that current Firefox market share of Windows 7 users is around 13% Mozilla confirms to [drop Windows 7 support in 2024]
. Actually i don’t really understand their bold move and why they are dropping Windows 7 and keeping support for example for Android 7.1 which stopped receiving updates more than five years ago. As you may know i’m using Android 8.0 on my websurfer phone and yeah, it is running latest Firefox forks easily.
[ThinkPadT43p]
is the very last real laptop produced by IBM. [Models produced during IBM era]
.
KEY FEATURES:
really high quality materials excellent keyboard top of the line LED indication on chassis interchangable cpu drains for liquid spills power cord connected from the back IBM THINKPAD T43P REVIEW ANOTHER VIDEO spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
NeoGeo is well-known not only for [largest games]
of the era [cartridges up to 90Mb!], but for top-notch quality in game animations. ENJOY PEAK OF PIXEL ART!
spacedrone808 @Adobe spacedrone808 @Freepik
UPDATED ON: 2023-08-01 Chromium v117 [already ported]
to Windows 7
Although I’m completely uninterested in google browser and it’s siblings you have to know that there is a way to run current chromium version in Windows 7 environment, despite of all [mumblings]
that 109 is the very last version to run on Windows 7.
Backported version of chromium 112 called [CatsXP]
available at your disposal. Also, there are [other solutions]
on how to run version 110 and most recent 109 build intended for Windows Server 2012.
As you may already know, there is no official ability to execute old 16-bit software in 64-bit operating systems. So if you have favorite Windows 3.x applications such stupid restriction was a complete bummer. But only until today! At least for me. WinVDM will resolve your frustration.
For providing such valuable information thanks goes out to [NeonFloppy website]
.
► WINVDM @ GITHUB
Unpack archive anywhere, execute INSTALL with admin privileges and you are good to go After installation working state could be checked by [Windows 3.
UPDATED ON: 2023-04-20 Important update, substantial refactoring, many errors fixed
▒ PREFACE WORDS Following instruction is dedicated to flashing stock Android 8.0 firmware for Russian region, but almost all information can be applied to USA or any other region firmware. So, no restrictions here.
Remember that all commands and programs should be executed with admin privileges and your account must have administrator rights! If something goes wrong for some reason be sure to check [TROUBLESHOOTING]
section!
My claims to previously owned cables were excessive fragility and the fact that they are prone to physical damage too much. Although that i’m using my hardware with care, wire breakage happens quite often. So i decided to go a bit overkill in terms of elimination of this nasty problem.
[Dunu Hulk Pro]
is a confirmation of my words. It’s a top of the line copper-based wire of Dunu branding.
UPDATED ON: 2023-08-31
Not long ago i’ve already mentioned about privacy-hardened [Mull browser]
. Very nice Android browser, but have one serious downside: limited amount of supported addons. Yes, i like desktop convenience on the go!
To enable additional addons in mobile Firefox browser you’ll need to sideload custom addon collection tied to mozilla account. It’s astonishing fact how they like to implement overcomplicated stuff!
To create your own collection you’ll need Firefox account, but i’ll not bother to spent time on such dumb efforts.
UPDATED ON: 2023-04-06
After a year of extensive testing i find out that [Shanling M6]
has some flaws, which won’t fit my requirements. It is an excellent 2-way DAC DAP in terms of sound quality. All my claims have purely ergonomic nature: Dim display, big form factor [at least from my point of view], weak battery life.
These factors forced me to look at [Ibasso DX240]
player. Player has single-way desktop grade 32bit/768Khz/DSD512 enabled DAC [ES9038Pro]
[pdf specs], very serious elements banding, nice bright Sharp screen and big battery.