Windows 7 ended support for regular users in January 2020, almost two years ago.
Certainly remembered by many with nostalgia (among other and low) and very positively by the majority of users, this operating system certainly made history.
Although standard support ended almost two years ago, the extended support will end in January 2023.
What does Windows 7 Extended Support mean first
Standard user support means that security patches are mostly dedicated to users privatetherefore for those who live in a house, not intended (as a rule) for workers.
On the other hand, the extended support is intended precisely for people who work, it is no coincidence that only VAT numbers can do it (through legal channels).
This means that support for this operating system is set to end in less than a month.
This means that once this support is finished devices with Windows 7 installed will be potential victims of viruses, malware, ransowmare and various threat authors.
In fact, Windows protection does not derive only from the built-in antivirus (Windows defender), but also from certain lines of code that allow you to “plug holes”; so after January 2023 Windows 7 will be a house no longer under maintenance, abandoned by the municipality.
How do you prepare for this eventuality of end of support?
Trivially, the most obvious thing would be switch to windows 10, for those who can (if they have a compatible PC), there is also the possibility of updating (if desired) directly to Windows 11 (it should be noted that there is a trick explained by Microsoft itself to install the latter on non-compatible PCs).
Usually the transition from Windows 7 to Windows 10 shouldn’t be “painful”, Windows 10 usually has very good compatibility with its predecessor; however, there may be some driver issues, especially in portable devices (this suggests my experience).
In any case, before doing an upgrade from one operating system to another however, it is advisable to make a backup of the information you already have.
Once downloaded (for example) the Windows 10 tool will ask if you want to keep the applications and personal data, just say yes.
Small note about the 32-bit version of Windows 7: the 7 to 10 upgrade tool can upgrade from the 32-bit version to the 64-bit version, but in this specific case, even if the personal files will be kept, the applications will have to be reinstalled.
Once you switch to one of the later versions of Windows, a good idea could be to use the antimalware to remove any threats (unfortunately it often happens that the much-vaunted perfect Windows 7 carries threats due to missing updates or little attention from the user).
Is it possible to completely change the operating system?
Of course yes, Linux systems could be a good idea both on the security side and on the purely working side; of course it will depend on what job you do.
For example, if you have an office, it will be very difficult to manage important data with LibreOffice (usually installed by default in Ubuntu-based distributions) and for inexperienced users using Linux distributions (also designed to be more intuitive like ZorinOS) could be an effort not indifferent to learning a new operating system.
It should be noted that between command lines and different interfaces, Linux systems could have a very steep learning curve for many users.
Obviously from Windows to Linux it is not possible to make a direct backup, the most important documents will have to be saved on an external medium and then run them with the equivalent applications present on the Linux systems.
In conclusion, it must be said that in some cases (unfortunately), it may even be necessary to change PCs, if Windows 7 32-bit runs on devices that are still 32-bit, Windows 11 will definitively abandon the 32-bit environment, whereas many Linux distributions already did this years ago.
Remember that if you are a daredevil and want at all costs to keep Windows 7 not a good idea for the reasons listed above; below is a video explaining why using this operating system in 2022 is far from a good idea.
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