I am seriously considering reverting to Win7 on my laptop (happy to keep 10 on the desktop)…just thinking I may get better performance…what do others think? The news that win7 support is stopping caused me to think on this 
Even though I am keeping the Win 7 vst list, you will notice It is really small now. I am on many forums, and it is amazing how many are staying with 7. It is not just musicians. Many companies are still using 7 to run their systems. It is said that there will be support for those systems, which could trickle down to other users. I also have reason to believe the computer music vst/daw developers are not going to drop support to Win 7 users who make up a major portion of their customers.
I will eventually move from 7 to 8.1 as I did with my backup laptop. Having seen the many people dealing with is enough for me to stay away from it. The forums are full of disgusted 10 users. I know several people still using XP.
Right now, I am very happy with 7 and 8.1 and the VSTs I have now without any further updates. I will always want to try out the new toys, but I have what I need…and many I should have never purchased.
There are others claiming not to have 10 problems, but many of them are using work arounds of some kind.
Hi.
I personally would not revert to an old OS that is being deprecated (support ending) from a computer security perspective unless you decide you freeze your baseline and keep it disconnected from the internet, and use you main PC (with more modern OS) as a “sheep dip” PC for getting the updates to the applications that you want.
Wannacry’s largest impact in the UK was on old XP machines in the public sector.
I am using Windows 10 PRO with no issues that I am aware of for my live Cantabile rig.
Biggest drawback of WIN 10 Home as far as I know is the forced updates policy in WIN 10 that can kick in when you don’t want it to. Beware that even if you use tricks to slow down and stop the downloads, if Windows has captured a download, it can suddenly decide to install it.
But with WIN10 PRO thing are back under your control if you set your update policy. My update policy is WIN7 like. I check for updates when I want to, but it will tell me when they are available.
You can upgrade a WIN10 Home license to WIN10 PRO via companies like Software Geeks who are often selling the upgrade for the £20 mark. These are legit licenses (they bulk buy them as an OEM would) and I have applied them to three machines with no issues.
thanks guys. Yeah, the plan was to totally insulate the laptop from anything online. Get it rock solid and run it from that.
The desktop DAW PC is W10 Pro already…and even though I have the updates sorta under control Microsoft keep annoying you to install them, and again I ahve read lots of stories where the latest (1903) will not even install properly and keeps re-downloading all the time, tries an eventual aborted install, then repeats the process!!
Anyhoo, as I indicated, it’s just the germ of an idea at the mo
win7 here. was a little tempted to try win10.
if it’s not broken…
internet isolation of your music system is a solid plan.
am i right to say that Cantabile web goodness isn’t win7 compatible?
i think the latest version of JUCE is win8 and upwards.
Yeah, this can be really nasty - I recall a situation where a LivePrompter tablet decided to do a Windows update right in the middle of a gig 
I have installed a tool called StopUpdates10 on my live machines and tablets - it has been working nicely so far without any impact on performance. I simply activate it on the day of a gig or important rehearsal (after having done Windows updates and making sure nothing is pending) to be sure of no nasty interruptions, and then I de-activate it again afterwards to be sure I get the (generally useful) updates and security patches.
Note: with the latest release (1903) of Windows 10 Home, updates can be can be paused for 7 days. You’ll have to let your machine run update before being able to pause again. Pretty useful! But 1903 (March update) is still very fresh and not advisable for everybody at this time, so the StopUpdates10 tool may still be useful for a while.
In general I’m completely with @Derek: I wouldn’t advise to go back to an end-of-life operating system. From a security perspective, it’s a nightmare, plus software compatibility, driver availability, etc will become an increasing issue.
Generally, even though a nuisance sometimes, updates are generally a good thing - avoiding them for too long is a good recipe for getting your system hacked or hijacked…
So far, Windows 10 has been a positive experience for me - no issues that would make me want to go back.
And while keeping your music system fully isolated may be a good idea from a security perspective (and give a very slight performance advantage by de-activating network drivers with their interrupts), it also makes things very cumbersome. If you are serious about it, this means no downloads, no automatic updates, no file synchronization via dropbox, a lot of fiddling with USB sticks… Not a very attractive proposition to me. But to each their own…
Over the past three years, I’ve had my two live laptops on Windows 10 (Pro), fully connected, with up-to-date virus protection and updates, working nicely without any serious issues. I try to keep my setup away from the bleeding edge performance-wise, so that I don’t need to scratch the last 1-2 percents of performance out of the system to run my shows - generally a healthy approach.
And of course, I don’t go crazy installing all kinds of new applications and tools on those machines - that’s a good recipe for de-stabilizing your setup - I tend to test this stuff on a different PC before allowing it on my music machines.
Cheers
Torsten
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That 1903 problem is usually due to a corrupted update database. I suffered it on one machine, and had to run the repair tools a few times before it finally did download and install correctly.
That’s what made me go PRO. t the penultimate Welsh Floyd gig I did before leaving in 2017 (I am rejoining!) the main Cantabile computer decided to go into update mode just as sound check was starting, and it sat there for two hours updating itself.
Fortunately I had a backup computer.
I assume you are on WIN10 home? On WIN10 PRO you can set your own update policy again and have it “WIN7 like”.
great discussion guys, thanks for contributing. I think my idea re the isolated laptop was to have it as a quasi “Roland Integra 7” so to speak. And it’s no biggie with transferring data - there are more ways (safe) to do this other than USB haha!
hahaha, I have even toyed with the idea of going to the darkside with an isolated Linux box, but so far my research has found not much in the way of confirmation that all is well under WINE which I would HAVE to use, at least to run Cantabile as there is nothing like it in the “Linux-Sphere”.
Hopefully the different views will allow you to form your own
Another point mentioned by Torsten, which is also a biggie for me is ease of file sync between DAW (where I build the Cantabile files) and the GIG PC. You can do that via local Ethernet rather than WIFI, which is what I do (and of course much faster as you can get a gigabit (or higher) connection on a wired lan.
My Windows tablets (LivePrompter et al) are on Win10 home - Cantabile laptops are all Pro.
Cheers,
Torsten
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Hi, Torsten
Just curious… Do you still run this stop windows update program on your PRO machines? Have you configured the PRO machines’ group policy settings to stop auto updates?
I have set group policy to ask me before any updates, but I still brute-force block updates using the tool before gigs. Feels safer to have all update mechanisms completely disabled during a gig - Microsoft has a history of “yes, we know you asked us not to do this, but we think it’s really, really important to do this update”…
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I get the feeling that I am the only one who feels that Windows 10 is - hands down - the best version of the operating system they ever released. (I’ve had ALL of them!)
1903 permits complete control over when updates are delivered now in all editions. 1903 is even smart enough to know when it has broken something during the installation and reverts automatically.
Most secure, most stable, best audio subsystem they ever had, works with all my software, is efficient with minimal work (needn’t turn off services, etc.), and is not being deprecated. Every benchmark I’ve ever seen shows Windows 7 sucked in many ways. All modern software is optimized for Windows 10. “This is not your father’s Windows 10.”
Terry
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1903 also permits uninstalling just about all the Windows Apps now as well.
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Yeah that’s IF 1903 installs at all! There have been many issues with it, as I wrote earlier,
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Hi, Torsten,
Thanks. That was why I was asking. No harm in belts and braces to be sure. 
Hi,
I mentioned above it is most likely due to a corrupt windows update data base. I’m on holiday so away from any Windows computer, but if you google “windows 10 repair update database” or something like that, it should get you in the right area.
Hi, Terry.
I think I’m with you. No issues once you have control over updates.
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