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Comments (131)

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  mk_stjames
  Everyone seems to love the Windows 7 era but for me, Windows peaked GUI-wise with Windows 2000 and everything since then has felt like a poor 'skin' or misplaced 'theme' on top of something else.Windows XP's level of 'plug and play' for devices/drivers ushered in the modern OS feel from a usability standpoint, but from a 'get-shit-done' GUI and responsiveness standpoint Win 2000 (and up to Windows Server 2003 by extension) was all I ever wanted/needed.These may be rose tinted glasses though, and I'd be interested to hear counterpoints.
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  squeedles
  The Win7 UI was comfortable, and still configurable enough that I could make the tool work for me rather than having to work for the tool.I'd be more interested if it brought back the performance of Win7. That OS was released into a world that still had HDD boot drives and had to pay attention to the details. I still run a Win7 machine that boots in under ten seconds.Sadly no extension can bring either of those back and we are unlikely to see anything along those lines from MS ever again.
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  jpalawaga
  From everything I've heard, running LTSC is not a good idea for a daily-driver pc. App support/compatibility is annoying and not guaranteed. I guess if you have a small set of unchanging apps that you use and that's all it could be a good pick.Interestingly, I hear a lot of people talk about LTSC, but few talking about their positive experiences. Is this the "I'm moving to Canada," of operating systems?
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  theanonymousone
  Sorry for being (slightly?) off-topic: Is there a decent way to buy this LTSC edition of Windows?
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  vintagedave
  I love this kind of thing but feel really worried when I can't see source.
• sinuhe69
  What I miss about Windows 7 is the total control over the system, not the GUI styling. In fact, some features of Windows 10+ are quite handy, for example the desktop tiles, windows corners or build-in virtual desktops. However, on Windows 7 you can set many things independently: windows caption bar size, menu font, message texts etc, which all require tweaking the registry in Windows 10+. Classic 7 is only a styling tool and it will not bring me back these settings and control.
• andy800
  2 applications: StartAllBack and Winaero Tweaker are both lifesavers, as far as I'm concerned. Both allow you to customize the look and feel of different elements so you can run the latest Windows 11 but still preserve elements of the traditional UI's - classic Start Menu, analog clock (sounds quaint but it has a second hand and the calendar is much more responsive), different versions of Windows Explorer, etc.
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  insumanth
  I have used windows 7 since it launched and moved to 10 & 11. I like some design elements of windows 7, but I would absolutely not use it today.If you think, "I should try this", Any reason why? I'm really curious to know
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  rie_t
  I really do miss the design of Windows 7 and the apps of that era (think Office 2007 style)I hope it comes back
• billfor
  Similarly I think Android 4 or 8 were the best UI for phones, and anything beyond 8 just gets in the way.
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  bambax
  At work I am made to use Windows 11 and I hate it immensely. Everything's so slow. Nothing operates properly. In addition to forced reboots which are annoying as hell, it also reboots after some time on sleep, for no reason whatsoever. Copilot is everywhere and cannot be truly disabled without admin rights. While not strictly a Windows issue, Outlook is an incredible piece of garbage. It doesn't know if it's running and so can be launched more than once; the icon for new messages doesn't show when it should; search is still as broken as ever; the ribbon, which makes little sense in other Office apps, is absurd in Outlook; folders are useless and confusing; etc.At home, while I have a Mac Mini 4, a MacBook Air, and several Linux boxes, I still use an old PC on Win7 as my primary machine. Is it insecure? Probably. But today "insecure" feels more like a feature than a limitation. No forced updates of anything => everything that works, keeps working indefinitely.
• muterad_murilax
  Michael MJD published a video about it yesterday:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLecpASQacM
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  theletterf
  Can we have something similar for macOS (to turn the UI to Mac OS 9)?
• dartharva
  Will this get LTSC's security updates? I can seriously try this out as a daily driver if yes
• anon
  undefined
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  Imustaskforhelp
  can something like this happen for linux, I would love to see a linux desktop environment like windows 7for windows 8 on linux, there's this: https://github.com/er-bharat/Win8DE
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  anthk
  This can create both incompatibilities and use more resources than Windows 7 itself.
• ck2
  actually Windows 7 has a special mode that turns off all aero entirelyI cannot remember what it is calledbut makes it look almost like XP and the UI is very fast and crispit's under System Properties -> Advanced -> Visual Effects -> Use visual styles on windows and buttons Windows 10 cannot do that, it cannot turn off visual system entirely