Most of my time has been on a Lenovo and a Gateway laptop, each of which is more than 15 years old. My op sec protocol has been to run system restore after every internet session, and no threats have been detected by Malwarebytes. Lately, I've been setting up Win 7 in a few Optiplex 7050s. I bought these before I realized that the lack of updates for Win 7 browsers is probably slowing them down. For a related example, Win 7 Brave browser crashes now when I go to some of my favorite websites that "prohibit" ad blockers. Therefore, my Win 7 systems may become mostly obsolete sooner than I expected. I'm surprised by the Optiplex's good performance, because it's been very finicky about drivers. In the 10 years of Win 10, they've never made system restore reliable, so I'll stick with 7 as long as possible. If time permits I'll start tinkering with Zorin, now that it offers a well-regarded windows emulator. I guess secure-booting Zorin will require me to learn key tools? That's something I haven't needed to learn yet to secure-boot Win 7.
Unlike Muffin Top's computers, all of mine have been home built desktops. I currently have three Windows 7 computers, two of which consist of hand-me-down parts from when I upgraded my main computer. The media computer is the oldest with an Asus P8P67 LE and a Intel Core I5 2500 CPU, my son's computer now has my previous Ryzen 3900X on MSI MPG X570 Gaming Plus, and my current computer is running a Ryzen 9950X on a MSI X670E Tomahawk WiFi. All three computers use various AMD video cards, WD, Intel, and Aorus SSD's, and WD hard drives. The media computer and my computer also have TV tuner cards from Hauppauge and Avermedia respectively. None of these computers have had blue screens. Though not the topic of this thread (sorry), in my experience, Windows 7 blue screens are not normal and usually indicate failing hardware or severe hardware conflicts.
I think you will be pleasantly surprised by Zorin. I was. Has been my secondary OS for 2 years plus now & will become my primary in 2026 since, like you, I continue to see old age rejection by occasional websites increasing. Win 7 & compatible browsers still working on necessary sites at the moment. Zorin will & does work for me. I use the free core model. They also have a lite, an educational & a "pay for" premium model. Core version gives me everything I need & I quickly learned to be able to install anything else wanted or needed. Nice break from M$.
I guess the easy way of working around the need for a key to secure boot Linux would be virtualization. The hypervisor can provide a GUI to manage the Linux secure boot key, so the set-up doesn't have to be intimidating to someone who's never worked with key tools before.
Hi folks, Zorin has a topic of its own in the Linux section. Please take all further Zorin discussions there. BTT, please.
Hello everyone! I have spent the last 2 days getting my clean install of Windows 7 Pro up to date with this method, and I cannot for the life of me get the KB5062636 July 2025 Cumulative Update to install. I am pretty sure I've done everything right, it even shows up inside of Windows Update, just fails each time to install. Same if I try to apply it manually. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
Found this as the first error when I searched: Code: 2025-07-17 17:49:05, Error CSI 0000134e (F) Unable to load manifest for component [ml:280{140},l:200{100}]"amd64_microsoft-windows-s..edsecurityupdatesai_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7602.27820_none_c8d27f44362ff9eb"[gle=0x80004005]