[Hidden-tech] VM MS-Windows 7 upgrade: necessary or worth bothering?

Jan Werner jwerner at jwdp.com
Thu Jan 16 11:58:04 UTC 2020


There is no reason at all to upgrade Windows in the VM.

The end of support for Windows 7 means just two things: You will no longer receive 
security updates from Microsoft, and you may not be able to get drivers for newer 
hardware. The second of these clearly does not apply here, and, unless you expect to surf 
the Web and/or retrieve your emails from within the VM, neither does the first.

Physically, a VM is just a file that contains a bootable image of a working computer 
environment. If you are worried that the environment within the VM might be contaminated 
by malware when you use it, backup the VM file(s) *before* you start the VM.

Then, when you need to use the VM again, restore a copy from the backup to work with. 
That way, you will always be guaranteed an uncontaminated environment in the exact state 
it was when you backed it up.

Jan Werner
_____________

Robert Heller via Hidden-discuss wrote:
> At the Wendell Free Library we have a 99.9% Linux shop. We have 1 virtual
> machine that runs MS-Windows 7 (happens to be a 32-bit install, although the
> server is 64-bit). This VM is used (two times a year) for one thing only: to
> run a Java program that talks to the heating system to change it from summer
> mode to winter mode and back again. It is a Johnson Controls system. No other
> applications are ever run on it, just the one Java program (which as far as I
> can tell only runs under MS-Windows, despite being written in Java).
> 
> Is it worth the trouble to upgrade this VM?  I have no clue if the Java
> program will even run under MS-Windows 10, and I suspect if we want to run a
> newer version of the Java application, we would need to have Johnson Controls
> upgrade the firmware in the HVAC, which would probably cost $3,000 or some
> such (that is what it cost when we had things upgraded from the MS-Windows XP
> version...).  It might actually be cheaper to replace the HVAC control
> system with something *other* than Johnson Controls.  Eg pull the Johnson
> Controls "box" and replace it with a Raspberry Pi or something.
> 
> 


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