[NJTechDiv] FW: [NFBCS] Windows 7 Support Has Ended As Of January 14, 2020

[Tracy Carcione]

Forwarding from the NFBCS list.  Do with it what you will.
Me, I'm hanging onto my Windows 7 machine a while longer.  I bought a new
laptop with Windows 10, but it is definitely much slower than my old Windows
7 machine.  Go figure.  It's a bitter disappointment.
Tracy


-----Original Message-----
From: NFBCS [mailto:nfbcs-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Curtis Chong via
NFBCS
Sent: Monday, February 17, 2020 4:58 PM
To: 'NFB in Computer Science Mailing List'; 'Discussion of the Graphical
User Interface, GUI Talk Mailing List'
Cc: Curtis Chong
Subject: [NFBCS] Windows 7 Support Has Ended As Of January 14, 2020
Importance: High

Windows 7
Support Ended After January 14, 2020

By Curtis Chong

 

 

Windows 7 has been around for about a decade, and for people who are not in
the habit of regularly buying new computers, this operating system has
served them well. For many blind computer users, Windows 7 became the gold
standard of operating systems.  Because of the stability of this operating
system, some folks allowed their service maintenance agreements for JAWS
and/or ZoomText to expire, figuring that everything was working fine and
hence not in need of any updates. Many of us have read the Microsoft
announcement declaring that support for Windows 7 ended as of January 14
<https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4057281/windows-7-support-ended-on
-january-14-2020> , 2020. What does this mean for Windows 7 users?

 

First, while computers running Windows 7 will continue to work, Microsoft is
no longer sending out any security or other updates. Using a good antivirus
program (I'm not talking about the free ones) can reduce your computer's
vulnerability to security threats, but if your system is actually
compromised, I can guarantee that you will eventually not be able to get any
help at all to recover from the attack.

 

Secondly, Microsoft customer service is no longer available for Windows 7
technical support. This means that you will not be able to get any telephone
help at all from Microsoft for Windows 7-not even from the Microsoft
Disability Answer Desk.

 

Finally, technical support for screen reading and magnification software
will become less and less available as technical support personnel
necessarily focus most of their attention on current versions of programs
like JAWS and/or ZoomText. There will come a time when Freedom Scientific,
the company which sells these two programs, will announce that the next
version of JAWS and/or ZoomText will no longer work with Windows 7.

 

What should a Windows 7 user do? Here are my suggestions.

 

1.         Buy a new computer.

While it is certainly possible in some cases to upgrade your existing
computer to Windows 10, experience has shown that upgrading an existing
Windows 7 computer to Windows 10 creates enough problems that the upgrade is
hardly worth the effort. A brand new computer with a clean installation of
Windows 10 will give you a much cleaner (and more stable) operating system.
For around $500, you can get a respectable laptop computer with a
decent-sized keyboard and a good amount of memory and disk storage.

 

2.         Update your screen reading or screen enlargement program.

It is essential that your screen reading or enlargement software is current.
Windows 10 has been around for a few years now, but it is continually being
updated-with a major update coming about once every six months. Screen
reading and enlargement software has to be kept up to date to deal with the
sometimes significant changes which Microsoft continues to introduce every
time a major update is released. If you have allowed your service
maintenance agreement to lapse, you are likely going to have to pay a few
hundred dollars to bring your access technology up to date. Fortunately, for
users of JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion, Freedom Scientific now offers home
annual licenses
<https://store.freedomscientific.com/collections/software-for-home> .
Instead of paying, say, $300 to bring your software up to date, you can pay
an annual fee of $90 (for JAWS), $80 (for ZoomText) or $160 (for Fusion,
which includes both JAWS and ZoomText) by acquiring the appropriate home
annual license from the Freedom Scientific eStore, located at
https://store.freedomscientific.com.

 

The good news for long-time users of Windows 7 is that Windows 10 continues
to offer the same keyboard commands and Windows Desktop which Windows 7
users know. In other words, once you move to Windows 10, you will hardly
notice the difference between what is happening on your new system and what
used to happen on your old equipment-with the possible exception that
everything will seem to run a lot more quickly.

 

 

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