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Forbes reports that Microsoft will switch Windows10 from an optional upgrade to a recommended upgrade.

This means if you have your settings set to automatically install, then it will download and install without asking....

If you don't want this to happen, I suggest you change the settings to Download and ask rather than to automatically install...

Thanks for that heads-up, Suff.

I'll probably give in and allow it to instal, then. Getting fed up of all the "nagware" pop-ups!

I shall continue to resist upgrading.

Down the years I have collected many pieces of software from W95 to XP and they still work on W7. The manufacturers of the originals ruined many of them by making them "better" so I stuck with what I had.

When W7 is no longer supported by MS I might move on, but many businesses still use XP, even though MS support stopped, simply because of the cost of upgrading their other software. Third-party software makers still make versions to work on 32bit systems, including XP. I can see the same thing happening with 64bit W7. It will be a long time before it is a complete Do-Do.

To me the best thing MS did was to allow 32bit software to run natively or in compatibility mode on 64bit W7 systems. So long as that stays so will I.

I have some very old computer games I still play, but I have to use an ancient PC with Windows ME as the operating system in order to run them. From memory, I think the games are MS.DOS based, or something like that from the 1990's - would that be correct? In any event, they can't be run on later systems.

Ossie, google "64bit simulator for W7", forget the quotes.

Have fun.

WM, thanks for that. Out of interest, I've just done some research and I see the company that produces these "games" (railway operating simulators) recommends "DOSbox".

I changed mine ages ago to always ask first, glad I did

Di, some of us have bigger issues because we use more stuff. For me it’s the lack of clarity around HP drivers for our Officejet multi function machines. I’ve just finally fixed the printheads but the scanning from a PC is entirely down to the driver suite and if HP don’t have a full driver suite, then we lose that functionality. Which is not good.

I was talking Mrs S through scanning documents for email from her W7 Laptop, using network scanning over the wifi, just yesterday. So it’s a function I don’t want to lose.

Of course I can just use a Windows 7 VM on my desktop but that is not quite an option for Mrs S…

WM, the issue with apps and x64 is mainly 16 bit apps. Certainly anything with a custom user interface instead of using commonUI from Microsoft could be an issue, however I’m running an old version of Works and an old version of Organizer on Mrs S x64 laptop (both 32 bit apps). 16 Bit, of course, won’t run at all.

Ossie, there are more options than the recommended one’s. I prefer a full VM myself so I use different VM’s for different purposes and my main one is VMWare but that is paid and expensive.

For you Oracle’s excellent (and free), Virtual Box would do. Also Microsoft’s Virtual PC (also free), is probably the most compatible with older versions of windows with drivers that support them. Especially Windows 3.1/3.11.

You could also, because of the tiny size of them, create dos machines with an autoexec.bat which simply ran one game and have one virtual machine for each game…. This is for DOS games. For Windows games you could have Windows95/98 or XP for your older games.

Somewhere, lying around, I have networking drivers for DOS which I used to use for booting and installing new hardware when CD drives were £600 a go and, therefore, like rocking horse shite on the Moon. It’s clunky but works, it also allows Windows 3.1 to access the network. You can, of course, just create a virtual drive (in windows a VHD), attach it in windows then copy DOS, Windows, Install and games files to it and do the install on the VM once it has booted it. But that is a tutorial that is online or I can walk you through it. It is not difficult, just not a right click away.

If you think it’s worth doing to get rid of the old PC’s let me and WM know and we can talk you through the process. You can also probably just image the old machines and boot them up straight to a VM. Certainly in VirtualPC that is more likely to work.

Just some thoughts. Personally my Laptop is currently Windows 8.1 but my key VM’s are W10 which is causing me a lot of pain with VMWare workstation crashing with CPU issues. I’m hoping that the latest update has fixed that.

Just a few thoughts for those of us who can’t just junp to the next OS right away, or ever….

Ossie, I have run Oracle's Virtual Box (see Suff's link) and it is rock solid on W7 and is one of the best freebies out there.

Re your questions. DOSbox will run on 32bit and 64bit versions of W7, even though many download locations have it down as an x86 emulator, as this link explains. It should run virtually (pun) anything.

Another reason for me keeping with W7 is that it is as stable as anything can be with all my programs and peripherals, so I am not always looking for drivers or patches. I have managed to "crash" it myself when mucking about, but for normal use it just runs on and on.

Workingman wrote:Il have managed to "crash" it myself when mucking about, but for normal use it just runs on and on.

I had this with XP and W7. W8 is nowhere near as stable, but it can be a lot faster. .