Re: Protecting no longer supported Windows7
On 15.01.2020 18:39, The Wanderer
wrote:
It also means Microsoft will now change many downloadable support
packages so they won't run anymore on Windows 7
Possible, although I wouldn't expect them to bother to go and make
changes en-masse. It's more likely that they just won't bother to make
sure that future changes to such packages remain compatible with Windows 7.
It happened before with Windows XP, so I'm expecting this trend will
continue with Windows 7 and Windows 8.x
I know that, because to this day I still have to maintain several
Windows XP hosts for various reasons.
and delete TechNet articles about Windows 7,
Are you sure? I've never seen them do that with previous releases; at
the least, I'm fairly sure I keep running across Technet articles (and
other support documents) marked as being for older Windows versions,
when I'm looking for ones that apply to something newer.
Yes, I'm sure. Windows GUI, Control Panel applets, etc, contain many
URLs that lead to help pages and articles, but when you actually
click on them you will get "Page not found or moved" page from
"*.microsoft.com" domain as a result.
If you will search manually for official documentation you may find
it, but accuracy and completeness of it won't be guaranteed. I've
seen too many TechNet\Microsoft hosted articles with broken URLs to
think otherwise.
and also 3rd party software developers now have rights to deny any
support for Windows 7.
They had that before; it just wasn't a particularly good idea in many
cases. Some of them will probably start doing this, while others will
probably continue offering as much support as they did before, at least
for a good while.
I'm talking mostly about niche software, like banking software, CAD,
Adobe and Microsoft products, anti-virus software, anything that
depends on the Internet, like browsers and email clients, etc and of
course, WHQL driver updates for all kinds of hardware.
If Windows 7 is unsupported it doesn't means it will stop function,
it means, in terms of support and maintenance, you're on your own. It
will stay as secure as it is to this day
Modulo the discovery of new security vulnerabilities, which currently
exist but aren't yet known about, anyway. So technically true, but
doesn't mean what it might appear to mean at first glance.
Personally, I'm half-expecting one or more previously unknown zero-day
vulnerabilities to be revealed and start being actively exploited today,
now that the only people who will be getting patches for them are the
ones who have paid extended-support contracts with Microsoft.
Yes, if you agreed to maintain a legacy software you have to
understand all the risks and develop a strong protection scheme
along with disaster recovery backup plan. A configuration of a
firewall simply won't be sufficient.
and it doesn't really depend on firewall, if you won't open
(port-forward) high risk service ports (like RDP, SMB, etc) to the
internet, of course.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about here. While yes, if you
wall a Windows 7 computer off from access to the Internet any security
vulnerabilities it may have will become far closer to irrelevant than
otherwise be the case, anything short of that will still leave ways by
which it could get infected (especially assuming less-than-perfect
security behavior on the part of users) - and the full wall-off would
most likely be impractical for real-world use.
That is because you've ommited last part of the quote, probably. I'm
assuming OP is having very basic understanding about IT security, so
I tried to warn him about firewall wouldn't be the ultimate solution
for every and all security problems. It will help, but only for some
cases.
That said, I think it is impossible to suggest anything more than
that without knowing additional information about OP's current
infrastructure.
--
With kindest regards, Alexander.
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