I feel that. I just bought myself a thin and light MSI laptop which was stuck on 20H2 and the only update path is to W11 - thus forcing the update down my throat. I'll probably move to Pop OS for this laptop if W11 doesn't work out.
MSI will not honor warranty for any other versions of Windows than 20H2 and W11, AFAIK. I usually keep a backup image just in case, but W11 is OK except for a total lack of customisation compared tp W10 and them having moved everything around. Since it's a new laptop, I'll sse if I can get used to it. I'm not planning on interacting with the OS very much, just browsing, Youtube and the occasional LTSpice run. I also don't use any of the built-in apps, preferring webmail and Firefox rather than email clients. No gaming either so Linux is still a vaid option. I never got to use Pop OS on the Raspberry Pi because of the kms issues, would like to take it for a spin someday.
In the Windows XP era, I knew a white-haired JPL/NASA scientist who was still using DOS. He was running some sort of long-term experiment that required a little bit of data to be automatically logged every day, and DOS was still doing the job just fine, so he had no reason to change. There was no Internet connectivity involved, obviously. And his experiment had been running since long before USB existed, so he didn't need that, either.
These days something from the Arduino family and an SD card shield would probably do everything he needed, but neither Arduino nor SD card existed at the time.
For anyone who still needs or wants DOS for whatever reason, FreeDOS is an excellent option: https://www.freedos.org/
-Gnobuddy
And if you don't need a full DOS but just need to run DOS software, there's Dosbox... https://www.dosbox.com
I'm not sure I understand the difference between their abilities (FreeDOS and DOSbox). What can FreeDOS do that DOSbox cannot, or vice versa?
-Gnobuddy
You can play the original Prince of Persia from your Linux box.
Long ago my seven year old kid found dosgames.com and tried most of them that were well rated using dosbox.
Long ago my seven year old kid found dosgames.com and tried most of them that were well rated using dosbox.
FreeDOS boots on naked hardware. DOSbox run inside Windows.
Point taken.
Also sumkinda java-y thing in a browser; there are a lot of old DOS games playable at archive.org
https://archive.org/details/msdos_Commander_Keen_4_-_Secret_of_the_Oracle_1991
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_showcase
There's also a micro-minimal Win3x shell:
https://archive.org/details/win3_WINSOLIT
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There is also a full CD image (ISO) of Windows XP SP3 on archive.org. I did a double-take when I saw that. There are comments below from people who downloaded and installed it successfully.
Dunno what The House that Gates Built would think about that. This not the type of corporation to be gracious, even when it comes to long-obsolete products.
-Gnobuddy
I think I had to by an old XP DVD to reload it onto my laptop. It worked, since the MS number is pasted on the bottom of the laptoptop. They don't do that anymore, do they?
archive.org has dozens of ISOs for Windows 7. Some even have key-codes in the description. Commenters say that some come pre-loaded with viruses?? May be useful, may be dangerous? I'm not interested b/c I have two more Win7 full-kits than I have machines who want 7.
I also saw Win31. (You need a late DOS first before you start to load Windows3.)
A lot of these claim to be for emulators, not bare metal. If an emulator is truly good, how can software know? Of has old software been hacked to look-for emulator hooks?
I also saw Win31. (You need a late DOS first before you start to load Windows3.)
A lot of these claim to be for emulators, not bare metal. If an emulator is truly good, how can software know? Of has old software been hacked to look-for emulator hooks?
Once I had a friend's laptop HDD fail, and I put a 32 bit XP, but my friend insisted I put 64 bit.
He then went on the net, and through the HP site to Microsoft, and it got authenticated as legal automatically.
Must have been something on the motherboard that told them it was legit.
MS does not support the older versions, even Windows 7 is no longer supported, and the product keys may be available quite cheap.
They had offered stripped down XP for the OLPC project at $2.50 each...that project was in some ways responsible for the Intel Atom and other low power embedded CPUs.
When I checked out the price, Win 7 Professional was about $150 in retail here in India in about 2009. It was a DVD in a display pack.
Nigel reports getting a Win 11 key for 10 GBP, big difference now.
Old versions of Win XP, particularly versions that do require service packs, can be dangerous, as they sometimes get locked due to piracy...even XP had some form of piracy detection.
Some installers here had ISOs with 5 product keys, they got them for about $35 each, perfectly legit XP Pro, with no issues.
At that time, Nero (CD/DVD writing suite), was among the companies which were anti piracy...but their OEM packs were not having that issue.
That itself is a long, and not relevant topic.
He then went on the net, and through the HP site to Microsoft, and it got authenticated as legal automatically.
Must have been something on the motherboard that told them it was legit.
MS does not support the older versions, even Windows 7 is no longer supported, and the product keys may be available quite cheap.
They had offered stripped down XP for the OLPC project at $2.50 each...that project was in some ways responsible for the Intel Atom and other low power embedded CPUs.
When I checked out the price, Win 7 Professional was about $150 in retail here in India in about 2009. It was a DVD in a display pack.
Nigel reports getting a Win 11 key for 10 GBP, big difference now.
Old versions of Win XP, particularly versions that do require service packs, can be dangerous, as they sometimes get locked due to piracy...even XP had some form of piracy detection.
Some installers here had ISOs with 5 product keys, they got them for about $35 each, perfectly legit XP Pro, with no issues.
At that time, Nero (CD/DVD writing suite), was among the companies which were anti piracy...but their OEM packs were not having that issue.
That itself is a long, and not relevant topic.
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You could quite legally download Windows 7 ISOs from Microsoft's own servers (before it reached EOL). Microsoft wasn't worried, because once you installed Win7, it would only run for a few hours (mebbe a few days) before gradually strangling itself to death, unless you put in a valid key, and allowed it to connect with Microsoft's authentication servers.
In 2017 I was still in charge of keeping some 30 Win 7 PCs running. We had multiple water leaks into one lab that corroded Ethernet cables and hubs, resulting in erratic and flaky Ethernet for the next two years. I found that without an Internet connection, even a fully installed and authenticated PC running Win 7 would soon display a black background instead of a blue one, along with flashing warnings suggesting that this was a pirated copy of Windows.
That ticked me off no end, because the institution I work for paid a lot of money for a full site license for the thousands of Win 7 computers on its five campuses, and this sort of warning message could really give our students the wrong idea. Another typical bit of obnoxious and inept bullying from Microsoft.
Getting back to downloading Windows ISOs legall, I believe you can still download Win 10 ISOs from Microsoft, entirely legally, and for the same reason as Win 7. MS newer operating systems will not run for long after a fresh install without getting an official blessing from MS authentication servers, so an ISO won't do you any good without a valid authentication key.
AFAIK, Win XP - at least some versions of it - was different. You still had to enter a valid authentication key after an install, but it would continue to work without an Internet connection. Lists of valid authentication keys soon became available on the 'Web, because pirating Win XP became a wholesale industry in many poorer countries, where the $100 / $150 USD cost of an official copy represented several months wages; faced with choosing between starvation, no computer, or pirated software, lots of people headed for the third option.
So MS was very keen to prevent illegal copies of Win XP being burned to CDs and sold, and therefore very keen to make sure no Win XP ISO files were floating around the Internet.
IMO it's a great pity that millions of people chose to pirate Win XP, because if those millions had headed for Linux instead, they could have had free and legal software that already worked better than Windows in many ways, and with that big a user base, Linux would have evolved and improved even more rapidly than it has.
I was already Linux-only in 2001, before Win XP was released late that year. In 2001 most Linux distributions were quite rough around the edges - but even at that early stage, Linux worked better for me than Windows ever had, in a multitude of ways. In addition to the usual office stuff (email, documents, spreadsheets) I taught myself HTML on Linux, learned how to install and run Apache to create a classroom intranet, taught myself enough Perl to write a collection of useful classroom utilities to run on my classroom intranet, et cetera, et cetera.
Linux was (and is) a fantastic platform on which to learn programming and software development. Back then, at a time when you still had to fork over quite a lot of dough for any compiler on Windows, Linux already had a plethora of free programming languages, programming editors, compilers, and what have you for the taking.
Same story in many other areas, too. Photoshop sold for a lot of money back then, while The Gimp was free on Linux. Microsoft Office would bleed you dry, but equivalent and entirely free office software was already available on Linux.
-Gnobuddy
Win 10 and 7 go for about $2 here for the ISO at no name shops.
There are links to authenticate, most not legal.
Like I said before, most new PCs come with legal OS pre installed, and the price difference is minimal, less than $10 or so.
Everybody here had laptops with free Dos for so much, and Windows preinstalled at a 30% price rise.
Naturally, people went for pirated software in a poor country.
Then MS got wise, and reduced the fees.
So it is less of an issue, and some government sites insist on legal software, and some CNC shops.
More incentive to use legal, or assorted Linux flavors.
Ubuntu was available as CD free just by filling an on line form.
I downloaded and tried Manjaro and Fedora, will need confidence before switching over.
There are links to authenticate, most not legal.
Like I said before, most new PCs come with legal OS pre installed, and the price difference is minimal, less than $10 or so.
Everybody here had laptops with free Dos for so much, and Windows preinstalled at a 30% price rise.
Naturally, people went for pirated software in a poor country.
Then MS got wise, and reduced the fees.
So it is less of an issue, and some government sites insist on legal software, and some CNC shops.
More incentive to use legal, or assorted Linux flavors.
Ubuntu was available as CD free just by filling an on line form.
I downloaded and tried Manjaro and Fedora, will need confidence before switching over.
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I have 98SE, XP SP2, SP3 pack, Win 7, 10, Server 2003 ISOs.
Many Linux versions, from Knoppix 5 and Puppy Linux 4 and later.
Ubuntu 9, I think.
Some CDs have lost part of the data, they are almost 20 years old.
So sentimental value only.
If you really need to, use a better method of storage.
Many Linux versions, from Knoppix 5 and Puppy Linux 4 and later.
Ubuntu 9, I think.
Some CDs have lost part of the data, they are almost 20 years old.
So sentimental value only.
If you really need to, use a better method of storage.