You can now download Windows 7 and Vista ISO images with all the updates(www.neowin.net)
63 pointsby XzetaU85 hours ago12 comments
  • TomMasz5 hours ago
    Windows 7 was the last really good Windows. MS lost sight of the goal after that.
    • honeycrispy5 hours ago
      Nadella lost sight of the goal. Windows 7 was Ballmer.
      • skrebbel4 hours ago
        Nadella more than 10x'ed the value of Microsoft. I doubt many MS execs think it was the wrong call to move Windows work to the B team.

        EDIT: somehow people seem to think I'm defending MS here. I'm not, I'm concurring that MS willingly turned Windows to shit (by moving it to the B team) because they thought they could earn more money elsewhere (and they were right). I don't like it, but I bet the people who got filthy rich over it do.

        • honeycrispy4 hours ago
          That mindset is why every tech product is turning to shit. They're not consumer focused. All Nadella cares about is making the stock price go up and extracting value.
          • emchammer4 hours ago
            It’s the same with Apple. Sure, their product is proprietary, but the producers are not the only ones with a stake in it.
          • 2OEH8eoCRo04 hours ago
            At some point we went through the looking glass where the stock is the product.

            Is this a new phenomena? Stocks aren't new. Why is the modern market treated like this? Did Henry Ford make his vehicles shitter to increase his stock value?

            • cornonthecobraan hour ago
              It's the private equity era. Much like how legislative behaviour is now dictated by the wealthy even to the point of contradicting the will/desire of informed voters, corporate behaviour is now dictated by private equity investment to the point of contradicting the demand from informed user/consumers.
            • pseudalopexan hour ago
              Companies with insufficient competition treated customers badly always. Antitrust enforcement weakened since the 1970s. And investors demanded short term gains.
        • yndoendo4 hours ago
          Stock price does not equal good software. Quite the opposite because your trying to exploit the end user for more profit.
        • cadamsdotcoman hour ago
          Sorry you’re getting downvoted. Ideally downvoting would be for unconstructive posts, or posts with good info / good contributions that are presented unconstructively.

          You’re just being controversial.

          That’s not a strong enough reason to downvote someone.

          • honeycrispy38 minutes ago
            Thanks for pointing this out. I don't participate in HN discussions like I used to because the HN crowd and I don't agree on much, and down-votes is not an engaging counter-point.
        • agildehaus4 hours ago
          Through Azure, Office, LinkedIn, gaming. Not so much Windows.
          • skrebbel3 hours ago
            Indeed! That's why they moved Windows to the B team.
          • jack_pp4 hours ago
            They're fucking up even gaming, that awful gamebar is a pain to disable. Had to do it from powershell and even after it's gone Alt + W won't work in games.
            • 306bobby4 hours ago
              I have a de-bloated win11 build running on my gaming rig, and I still occasionally get the prompt "no program to open link: ms-gamebar://" or something similar
        • ranger_danger4 hours ago
          I'm assuming they were referring to a non-monetary goal.
    • juujian4 hours ago
      Windows 7 kind of pulled me back from Ubuntu. Alas it was only for a few years.
    • stronglikedan2 hours ago
      I find Win10 to be a much more refined and polished experience, only ruined by telemetry.
    • lunias3 hours ago
      Satya Nadella became CEO in 2014, mainstream Windows 7 support ended in early 2015. The dark ages continue.
    • mschuster914 hours ago
      Windows 10 is decent if you have the Pro version. 7 is good but is a PITA on touchscreen or HiDPI devices, although I have to say even 10 still has its bugs. Never tried 11 though, I'll keep riding 10 on my machines.
      • Krssst4 hours ago
        Windows 10 was the start of the forceful push towards use of Microsoft accounts and telemetry, dark patterns to achieve that and weird features nobody wants like like Bing search in the menu or the help opening bing in Edge rather than an actual help or your browser of choice, all that to improve random KPIs without considering user satisfaction.

        Compared to that, Windows 8 was misguided but not a strong attempt at disrespecting user consent.

  • g947o5 hours ago
    > Bob Pony, a known enthusiast in the Windows community

    I am 100% sure this guy has all the good intentions, but from a security perspective, I don't know if it is any better than a completely unpatched Windows 7 ISO.

    • gjsman-10005 hours ago
      Unpatched Windows 7 is vulnerable to WannaCry/EternalBlue, among other well-known weaknesses.
      • selfhoster114 hours ago
        Not the point. The point is that nobody who doesn't know him knows whether he can be trusted, and the ISO itself might be prepared on a compromised machine unintentionally. This is very much a supply chain issue.
        • antisthenes35 minutes ago
          You're right. The ISO might have been prepared on a Windows 11 machine.
  • SpikedCola5 hours ago
    And it downloads at ADSL speeds for the full experience (although Cloudflare in front of the ISO kind of breaks character).

    https://imgur.com/a/HEjIEVn

  • merpkz4 hours ago
    Going to get this and install it on my old Asus core2duo laptop from circa 2008 - damn thing still is going strong, despite plastic becoming so brittle it has not one single panel left without cracks in it. Currently it has XP on it, but that is missing whole bunch of drivers, like touchpad not working and BIOS AHCI has to be in compatible mode otherwise it will bluescreen. It's going to be nostalgia machine where all the games I used to play back in the days are installed.
  • honeycrispy5 hours ago
    I have 24h left on the download. Is anyone who has the file willing to create a torrent to share? I can't click on the twitter link for some reason.
  • WithinReason5 hours ago
    Security updates up to 2026? If I knew this I wouldn't have upgraded to Win11 recently :)
  • mschuster914 hours ago
    From a security perspective, I'd really really like not just a pre-baked image, but also instructions on how to replicate that using only files and tools with known-good hashes and/or digital signatures.

    I too distinctly remember the times I earned my money cleaning up malware, and a few times the root cause was someone using pre-cracked install media from some shady torrent.

    • axus4 hours ago
      I imagine some beefy Microsoft support contracts were required to get all of these updates through this month, with restrictions on redistribution; this isn't Linux!

      Is there any reason that downloading this is more legal than downloading the latest Hollywood movie?

      • mschuster914 hours ago
        > Is there any reason that downloading this is more legal than downloading the latest Hollywood movie?

        Windows ISOs with updates being baked in by third parties (usually computer magazines) has been a thing for well over a decade, ever since MS ceased to do Service Packs. So the pure act of distributing an ISO that hasn't been modified other than applying the official update packages should have enough precedence on the side of distribution being allowed that MS won't be able to do much more than maybe sending a nastygram your way.

        What you definitely shouldn't do though is pre-crack the ISOs... but I doubt Microsoft even cares about that at this point. Massgrave (a very popular collection of activators for everything from Windows through Office) is hosted on Github.

        Unlike earlier times, MS doesn't (need to) care about piracy any more, at least not from private users. The real revenue comes from enterprise and government contracts and, most importantly, the cloud.

        • axus2 hours ago
          So legally a gray area, but ethically and financially not a problem.
  • hiprob3 hours ago
    Windows Vista technically got to live to see Frutiger Aero come back
  • 5 hours ago
    undefined
  • macrocyclo4 hours ago
    Only the ones after it got bad
  • ranger_danger5 hours ago
    Infinite captcha loop for me. Not using a VPN/proxy/1.1.1.1/anything like that.
  • majorchord4 hours ago
    Piracy is allowed on HN now?
    • cornonthecobraan hour ago
      Maybe a nit, but this isn't piracy. Windows has been officially free to download and install since Windows XP. That was when Microsoft switched to their Product Activation DRM, and the license key became the bit you paid for.

      Tangent: I miss MSDN AA

    • blell4 hours ago
      Yes? All news articles contain a link to archive.is as a pinned comment.
      • WalterGR4 hours ago
        There are no pinned comments here. Any archive.is links are posted by random members.
        • blellan hour ago
          But are pinned by mods.
      • majorchord4 hours ago
        I don't see one here?
        • 13174 hours ago
          because this one isn't paywalled
    • Maken4 hours ago
      This still requires you to have a valid Windows 7 or Vista key.
    • ofrzeta4 hours ago
      It's Abandonware, isn't it?
      • majorchord4 hours ago
        AFAIK That is not a valid legal defense in the US. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
    • haunter4 hours ago
      Always have been
    • megous4 hours ago
      Piracy is a socially responsible thing to do these days, when MS reportedly helps persecuting and killing people. IBM of 2020s.
    • CalRobert4 hours ago
      Imagine if we actually discussed hacking!