Widows 7 blog post and system requirements

[Qie Niangao]

28 minutes ago, Loleeta Lennie said:

the agreement between LL and Firestorm, will cause Firestorm developers to eventually block the final remaining Windows 7 compatible viewer

What "agreement" is this?

It is true, though, that it will gradually become harder and harder for Firestorm developers to retrofit LL's viewer and platform changes onto Windows 7. That will take years, bit during that time the Windows 7 box will get less and less tolerable as web browsers and other common software is no longer updated. This is not a Second Life-only thing.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

41 minutes ago, Loleeta Lennie said:

Firestorm Disables older versions per every other new version. Which means at some point, the agreement between LL and Firestorm, will cause Firestorm developers to eventually block the final remaining Windows 7 compatible viewer. That day will happen now. As a Creator, I can't stand the LL viewer. Many others feel the same way. And that will be the day we will be forced off of SL.

The Firestorm developers can support Windows 7 for as long as they want. Of course SL will stop working under Windows 7, everything will. We’ve known this is coming for years. Being forced off SL because an OS that hasn’t been sold for years is finally depreciated is like getting run over by a glacier. Microsoft stopped selling it almost seven years ago. People should have stopped using it when they started giving away Windows 10 five years ago. There is no excuse to still be using Windows 7.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

1 hour ago, Solar Legion said:

When it is finally stabilized, use ReactOS. I

They're going along the NT-based path and I don't as yet see any signs of implementing a dotnet environment, (although somebody could always port Mono to ReactOS).

There are some things that linux doesn't really do as easily as Windows, or at least, they do implement things like file-synching between folders on networked machines, but it's so eye-wateringly tedious to get right compared with the clicking-simplicity of windiff.

Like Qie, I've got Lubuntu on a machine and it can access SecondLife well enough using several TP-viewers that even give support for Bake-on-Mesh, and if a machine can run Windows7 well enough to access SL, it can certainly manage Lubuntu/Zorin/Mint/Raspberry Pi's desktop with a TPV, so I don't see the doom and gloom picture that's being pushed here.

There is, of course, Wine... (Oh, must we?)

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

34 minutes ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

There is no excuse to still be using Windows 7.

You can make the same argument about classic cars, there's no reason to drive something that doesn't have ABS, airbags, traction control, bull-bars... but some of us still do.

[cheesecurd]

Ok so this went the other way I was hoping it would go, I cut out a lot of stuff originally mentioning Windows 7 going EOL and what that means for the end user.

Im gonna Tldr my views on that.

For you, the average everyday user, you browse the internet and play SL and maybe a few more games. This means almost nothing at all for several years for you.

Microsoft dropping support for updates doesn’t really affect you until the overall userbase dwindles and major software developers stop updating for it. IE not enough users to support updating antivirus, browsers, game clients, etc. 

The chances of you getting some kind of exploit affecting your machine that was related to the OS is very slim. And at that it’s mostly dependent on the user. You are responsible for your internet security and simply being connected to the web you’re expected to know what you’re doing and how to not get buttblasted by malware constantly. 
I have not used antivirus since I was 10 and most of my machines are not updated unless something I ran needed a service pack, be it windows XP, Vista or 7. I’m currently posting this from Windows Vista with no service packs, no firewall, windows defender, any antivirus and I’m using an outdated fork of Pale Moon/Firefox from 2016. I have never experienced anything malicious affecting this laptop though it’s because I know what im doing. I’m not clicking every ad for “big women in your area now” or chancing risky music download sites.

So for the users still on 7, you have some years to go before you will find yourself using old versions of software or running into compatibility problems because people stop supporting it. And even then you will find there are 3rd party options, such as windows XP service pack 4 which is community created, modern compatibility video codecs, updated browsers like New Moon for XP and adblockers that work for them.

Your computer will not stop working randomly, you won’t instantly be affected by ransomware, chances are you haven’t updated windows in months anyway if ever at all. I think most people still using 7 probably disabled automatic updates around the time it wanted to force a Windows 10 upgrade on you anyway.

LL dropping support just means they won’t test for it. That’s not to say newer viewers will just stop working. You also may not need to use a newer viewer at all. The Windows XP legacy viewer worked until I think the big thing that came  after bento, animesh? And that viewer was a years old version by that point.

But that’s not the point I was trying to make here. That’s not too important, carry on, upgrade, move to Linux, who cares. The issue is that they’re going to go look at this page of system requirements to delete “Windows 7” when for some unholy reason the words “Nvidia GTX 295” are still on that page over a decade past that cards relevance, when that card barely functions for SL because it’s two GTX 285’s stuck together in SLI which sl doesn’t use.

That page is an absolute joke and is completely useless and needs to be properly updated.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

7 hours ago, animats said:

That's because, with Windows 10, you're the product, not the customer. It's adware.

Windows 10 without ads, the enterprise version, is about $500.

I have a Windows 7 machine, used only for the few remaining things that need Microsoft. Everything else is on Linux, including Firestorm.

msdn/partner account,  499 a year,  all kinds of software there to use, I do.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

I fixed it.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Lyssa Greymoon

[Ardy Lay]

I'd still be using Windows NT4.0 SP6a if Moe would let me.

[OptimoMaximo]

22 hours ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

In defence of 3DBuilder, I actually found it quite handy. I build something in SL ten times larger than I actually want, export it as an OBJ (or a DAE in which case it has to then go via Blender to get re-exported as an OBJ or 3DS), pass it into 3DCrafter to scale it by 1/10th and re-orient the axes, then put it into 3DBuilder and do any final tweaks such as edge-bevels, and finally send it via Cura to a 3D Printer. Before that, I had to do a lot of fiddling about in Blender and typically made things far worse.

You can defend 3dbuilder because you find Blender to be quite painful to work with in the first place. In my case, I'd find all those export /import between different applications way more painful and I'd rather be at ease to do all those operations in Maya alone. (like, why are you scaling things down by 1/10 in an application if you need to run the model through blender in the first place? You can easily scale it down in there without the additional software... But anyway, to each their own workflow) 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

1 hour ago, OptimoMaximo said:

(like, why are you scaling things down by 1/10 in an application

Because SecondLife works to 0.01 metres as the minimum, and I need a much smaller resolution. 3DCrafter does an excellent job of resizing an entire object, but the free version doesn't support some of the object intersections that 3Dbuilder does, and I find building in it rather disorientating. Blender's interface drives me nuts, and again, gives a feeling of disorientation. SecondLife offers me the most natural feeling when making things, followed fairly closely by Sketchup, but as that application raises so many people's hackles I'll say no more.

[H8]

Because SL is blooming and bursting at the seams, Linden Lab is going to stop supporting OS used by over 33% of userbase.

Just like when some smart.ss decided it's a good idea to disable second names and force people into using numbers just to finally find available name.

Or when wasted tens of millions to develop a dead platform..known as Sansar :)

Source: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

[OptimoMaximo]

12 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Because SecondLife works to 0.01 metres as the minimum, and I need a much smaller resolution. 3DCrafter does an excellent job of resizing an entire object, but the free version doesn't support some of the object intersections that 3Dbuilder does, and I find building in it rather disorientating

Yeah I sort of guessed the reason why you wanted to scale things down from SL in general, but then if your problem is merging things down into a single surface (boolean addition), it's again more simply done using an all round application. I don't even know whether it exists anymore, but I'd rather fold over ArtOfIllusion (free and opensource afair) than jumping through infinite hoops from an app to another. 

12 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Blender's interface drives me nuts, and again, gives a feeling of disorientation.

Fair point 😁

Edited January 11, 2020 by OptimoMaximo

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Things like Anim8tor and ArtOfIllusion might be another reason for people sticking with earlier OSes, not all of them will run under Windows 10. I'm tempted to try a dual-boot W10/W7 system to try and get the best of both worlds.

 

[sirhc DeSantis]

22 hours ago, cheesecurd said:

...You are responsible for your internet security and simply being connected to the web you’re expected to know what you’re doing and how to not get buttblasted by malware constantly. ..
 

You make some fun points but frankly I no longer trust humanity to sit the right way round on the toilet.

Personallly i did the 'try for 3 weeks' thing way back and while it was ok I decided to wait until a bit more stability had filtered through. Then the reversion back to Win7 promptly bricked my box. Of course I had the temerity to be running a dual boot linux/win and had been swapping in disks as I refurbed. You know - just using the box as the tool it is meant to be I may switch eventually but not in any rush to do so. Will need to find some new swear words first.

BTW, expecting the Lab to keep info pertinent and up to date? You must be new around here =^^=

[Jules Catlyn]

I was a big Windows 7 fan as well and until August of last year was coming into SL on a far from powerful 2012 PC which i managed to keep going. I am not big in technical knowledge but i managed. I am also lower income so saving for a new PC was difficult but i managed to get quite a decent sum together to eventually buy a good machine. What really gets to me us that i hear many complain that they don't have the money to buy newer hardware. Yet a lot of them own a car less than 5 years old, a cell phone less than 2 years old, go on holidays or have other hobbies they sustain with their income. Second Life is my biggest hobby and i knew at one time my PC would die. So i saved little amounts here and there during the 7 years i had the other PC. My point is, hobbies cost money and even on a low income it is possible to save money here and there and that a mounts to quite the sum after 7 years. I am not really sympathetic to the claim that there are no funds to change hardware.

From a user standpoint: I cant say i dislike Windows 10. It does the job well for me and it isnt much different from Windows 7 when it comes to user experience. So i don't see many reasons there to not switch from Windows 7 to 10.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

21 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

I'd still be using Windows NT4.0 SP6a if Moe would let me.

3.51 is as much as I can allow.

[Essence Amore]

I use windows 7  I am premium member but I use computer  2009 been updated but many do not want to use window's 10.  But is sad because some may walk I don't want to say this. But my friend said he have to rebuild me computer he does want me to put on the main computer I use I really feel that second life should look at that the sake of the customers.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Vanoralynna

[Essence Amore]

I was able to log in upstairs computer sl would really need to think about this not every one wants window's 10 I know but we all come on here.

Edited January 12, 2020 by Vanoralynna

[Ansariel Hiller]

Why should LL rethink their decision? It's not that they disallow connecting people still using Windows 7. And it's not that nobody knew Windows 7 will reach its end of life in 2 days - that was known for several years! Microsoft even added warnings in Windows 7 informing users for the several past months! The people now coming out of their holes and complaining about it are pretty much ridiculous - like sitting there for at least 5 years knowing this day would come, but instead of preparing they apparently resorted to praying and hoping. Sorry to say, but there is nobody to blame except for yourselves. There was time enough to think of a solution - and still is in terms of connecting to SL - even for people low on money.

[Jackson Redstar]

I am sure there are those that are still raging that Windows 1.0 isn't still being supported. It was such a good OS on their Commodore 64 machines!

if one takes a little time to watch youtube vids on Win 10, they would know all the "privacy" issues in Win 10 can easily be turned off. and the primary issues with Win 10 is outdated, unsupported hardware and/or software. But then again, those people probably still jam out on their sony walkmans and use their flip phones still and really, really miss the lovely noise modems made to connect to the interwebs.

[bigmoe Whitfield]

Think with this is, MS will do what they did before,  XP became unsupported because the tools to build the viewers with went to newer tools that will not compile or build under windows and the redistributals will not work under windows xp.   So once that happens and it will because ms likes to tinker,  7 will lose it's place and people will have to move to windows 10 (or what ever there is next) or lose their SL,  I had to bite the bullet several years back and build a whole new system, was not cheap, but will last me for a very very long time to come and still have massive headroom for upgrades. 

[cheesecurd]

I will be doing everything in my power to use Windows 7 until nothing i want to use it for functions anymore.

Windows 10 is completely awful and i refuse to ever touch it.

4 hours ago, Ansariel Hiller said:

There was time enough to think of a solution - and still is in terms of connecting to SL - even for people low on money.

People dont want to move to Windows 10 for similar reasons to me. A lot of people just really dont like it and dont want to use it. Whether its for privacy concerns or dislike of the UI, advertisements, aggressive update policies that are hard to disable, a lack of overall user control without really digging, resource usage...

Theres a lot of reasons, and its why so many people are still using it. Anyone capable of knowing how to upgrade their OS also knows a windows key is about 5$ on ebay, or isnt needed, or you can upgrade from 7 with your key, which you can use something like mstoolkit or dazloader to work around anyway.

But in the end, if people dont want to, they wont. Its not a good product in the eyes of everyone and you have alternatives, one is to stay with Windows 7.

I could care less about LL dropping support even if the timing is dumb, its not going to affect anyone for some years. Though i understand the concern is them dropping support just as Microsoft does, which is pretty dumb. Theres no reason to do that when the userbase is still so large. Many developers continued support for XP and Vista for a few years after their EOL dates.

Im posting this from Windows 7, and will be playing SL on windows 7, and will continue to do so until it doesnt work or 3rd party options wont anymore.

[Ansariel Hiller]

@cheesecurdcan you please stop advising people to stay on Windows 7? If you want to waste spend time trying to prevent your installation becoming a time bomb for yourself and everyone else, then it's your thing. But that's nothing the normal user wants to and will do. But telling everyone else it's save to continue using it is the same kind of advice like telling people it's a good idea to drive a car without using a seatbelt. Saying that: Good luck with your Windows 7.

[cheesecurd]

@Ansariel Hiller can you please stop advising people to move to windows 10? If you want to waste time trying to make all your user configuration settings to actually stick, then its your thing. But that's nothing the normal user wants to and will do. But telling everyone else its acceptable to have your freedoms as a consumer thrown out the window is the same kind of advice like telling people its a good idea to stay in abusive relationship because they pay your bills. Saying that: Good luck having no privacy and being shown desktop level advertisements on 10.

B)

[Ardy Lay]

I have been using Windows 10 for some years now and have never seen "desktop level advertisements".  I feel like I am missing out on some H8 here.  Where are my desktop level advertisements?

Seriously though, I am gonna miss, well, did miss, Windows 7, sort of.  Some really old hardware I was using did have vendor driver support for Windows 7 but not for Windows 10.  To be fair, the vendor pulled driver support for Windows 8 because the hardware was 12 years old then and failing in ways people were constantly attributing to driver problems.  So the vendor just gave up on the old stuff and focused on drivers for the fast-moving Windows 8 to Windows 10 infrastructure changes.  Same thing happened with other hardware in that same computer when I went from Windows 2000 to Windows XP then again from Windows XP to Windows 7.  ISA Ethernet and sound cards gave way to PCI replacements,  Then the AGB video card gave way to a PCI Express replacement, which needed a motherboard change and that needed a CPU and RAM change.  Etc., etc....

I considered using one of the many Linux distributions but the "support" there was saying "You have to use the right hardware, so piss off loser."  Yeesh.  I asked around and one of the, now former, Lindens told me that less than two tenths of one percent of Second Life login sessions were made from Linux Kernel operating systems and about half of those were ending abnormally.  I TRIED IT ANYWAY.  It worked.  Second life worked fairly well on Slackware Linux when I tried, years ago.  Sound worked.  Heck, even Voice Chat was working for me but I was told that was because I cheated.  I don't know what I cheated with though.  I just installed and ran.  My problem with that Linux setup was NOTHING ELSE worked.  Well, nothing else that I wanted to do.  Sure, there were "replacements" for most of it, but I didn't want to go that route.  PERSONAL PREFERENCE at work there.

Anyway, back to the Windows 7 thing.  Yup.  It's time for developers to move on.  And that Steam statistic quoted earlier in this thread is weird in that it's including a bunch of Windows 7 installations that it did not include on the previous run.  Don't just look at the summary, as the H8ter wants, look at the trends.  I don't know what is going on there but it shows more Windows 7 systems being used to complete the survey than completed it the previous run.  I wonder if some significant user base that was not participating began participating on this run?  (This is VOLUNTARILY PROVIDED data. It is not automatic.  It is not compulsory.  One has to initiate the submission and manually complete it.)  I rather suspect Linden Lab is still collecting data on what OS is hosting Viewers logging in to the Second Life service.  I do not, however, expect Linden Lab to divulge that information.  It is for them to use in deciding where to commit their manpower.

Use what you want.  Ignore the hate and vitriol here unless you are trying identify those people to filter them out of the potential pool of givers of good advice.