Happy new year first and then on to my question. Hopefully its not too daft.
I am still using windows 7 on my pc and have done for since it came out and never had any problems . I am a senior person(old bloke) a bit set in my ways and have been into photography for years as a passion. I am still working with photoshop cs5 as i cannot jusityfy the price increases they keep giving and it works ok for me. I have several other editing programmes that i use also on my pc.
I have just read some articles that M/S are now refusing to update and will discard win7 .It will become obsolete the end of this month. If i need to upgrade to win 10 i will have to pay.
Will i still be able to use win7 as normal or will i loose it and my installed programmes.
Sorry if this seems a daft question ,but im not well up with all this tech stuff..Thank you.
No, it is not a daft question, that's the purpose of forums, that's what forums is there for, for anyone to ask questions and seek answers.
First of all: Windows 7 is
not going to suddenly stopped working, as if like a mobile phone with "
No Network Signal" and you can still keep using it. There are some people out there in the real world, still using Windows XP and the likes.
Secondary: Normally Microsoft would release a new generation of Windows, then some hacker would found some bugs in the software and spend the word about it. When Microsoft gets wind of this, they tend to investigate the problem, then send out an update to fix the problem.
It is kind of like a car, use a car or a washing machine as an analogy. It's like the production was found to have design faults, so the company issued a recall notice, you take the production back to the shop (or if it's too large like a washing machine, then they send someone out to you). The company would then remove the faulty parts and replace it with new parts. They're like "Sorry we designed it with a crap piece of machine parts that could have caught fire and killed you, we'll replace it with a safer redesigned part for free, we hope you'll still buy our new production in future."
However: Microsoft stops support for Windows 7, that means that if someone found yet another fault with Windows 7, Microsoft is not going to be bothered with rewriting a new set of codes to fix the bugs, and release it online for you to update. That means no more updates.
BUT: As long as you keep your anti-virus and your Internet Security software as updated as you can, and always be careful of what you download and install, you can try to minimise the hacker's ability to access your computer. It won't stop them, but it will minimise the chances.
If you're careful to keep your security software updated and careful with what you download and install, your Window 7 will still work for as long as it can.
Usually only when there's new software out, like updated Lightroom, updated Photoshop, etc., that won't work on Windows 7, that's when people tend to feel like forced to pay to upgrade the operating system.
Taking cars as an analogy: It's kind of like if you take good care of your old Morris Minor, it will still run for as long as there is still fuel available for it, but if you don't look after it well, you'll find that spare parts are very rare and that it becomes harder or impossible to repair, so you got to throw it away and buy a new car.
You take good care of Windows 7, by keeping your security software updated and not install junk software, it will still be find from hackers, but you don't bother with security software or installed any junk software, and you're giving hackers a means of remote control to access your computer.
