DX 12 for Windows 7

Community General Discussion
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Blizzard and Microsoft just confirmed that DX 12 will be avaiable for Windows 7 users as of patch 8.1.5

I must say, im very surprized, in a good way.

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I’m surprised they bothered for an OS that has 10 months (ish, 14th jan 2020) left to go for regular customers.

I’d almost call it a waste of resources.

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Wow, that came as a surprise!
The only reason to downgrade to win10 gone. :clap:

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Win10 can be an upgrade depending on your usage.

For me it was an absolute overhaul and shows on system resources whilst I work. Just thought I’d point it out in case you were intrigued! :hugs:

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Even though I loved Win 7 and probably the last Windows OS that felt like an OS instead of some Fisher Price product…

I do think it is the wrong message to send about an OS that is at the end of its life. Nearly everyone should be moving away from it the moment it stops getting security patches.

Probably didn’t take much time/resources but it still is a waste nonetheless.

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Not really looking forward to that tbh.
Choosing between enduring some vulnerabilities or using a OS wich BSOD has a sadface emoticon… and forced updates… and ads.
Decisions decisions

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It is worth noting that, as stated in the MSDN blog, you will not get the full potential performance from DirectX 12 on Windows 7. Windows 10 contains some core OS optimizations that are designed to speed up the performance of DirectX 12.

Still, those with DirectX 12-capable hardware should get better performance than DirectX 11 on Windows 7.

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Win10 is the worst OS ever.
Dont start me on the thing. Its full of spyware and is basically malware itself in every possible way.
If blizz does not support win 7 anymore and does not port it to console or make a linux distro, ill be quitting wow over this.

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I do not support this view, but bear in mind that Blizzard has a long history of supporting OS’s well beyond their EOL. It is unlikely they’ll be dropping support for Windows 7 any time soon.

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Non sense.
I was using win xp up to a year ago. No problem at all.

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I will NOT use win10 ever again.
Sorry, but the choice is clear to me and should be clear to B aswell. MS has shown to be totally aboard the corporatist, global band wagon, which is now collecting all my data, likely selling it to 3rd parties and it will result in ppls freedom taken away.
I will never accept that.

And then im not even mentioning the resources it eats, the continuous starting of bogus services that i, not anyone else needs, etc etc.
Dunno if anyone noticed it, but there is no license sticker on your home oem computer anymore. They get their monies by other means. This is a break with what MS always did.

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You can say nonsense as much as you want, I clearly said: Nearly everyone should move on.

Being ignorant of the drawbacks of staying on an end of life OS isn’t the same as ‘No problems at all’. Nor does me saying its better to move on mean: you can’t run it.

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Ok, you did say nearly.

Still the big problem is not older os-es that may have exploits. First of, since most ppl do move away, the use of those exploits also soon fades.
Secondly, and this is way worse, the idea of ppl that they are safe, if they have an os that is continuously updated, with all the normal protection, is a false sense of secutiry. After all the years i worked in the field, the conclusion was simple; if you dont know what you are doing and just click on everything, thinking you are safe, THAT is where you get all the malware from.

So i much rather see that ppl learn the basics with an os that has exploits, then ppl not knowing anything with an os that is ‘protected’.
Specially if that OS is malware itself.

I havent even used a virusscanner in over 10 years. Yet had 1 virus ever, late 90ies. As you may know, it starts by setting your network and system(s) up right. And that is even impossible to do in win10, simply bc you cannot turn off a load of services.

If anything, win10 has more holes in it than swiss cheese.

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That working in a field wasn’t a professional environment I guess. :wink:

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I don’t use my computer for personal information, just gaming with an email that’s basically dummy.

That and my work pc is literally for work, if someone wants to give me time of work by some intrusion please do! :joy:

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Yup. xD

Classic WoW supported Windows 98 even though it came out in 2004 and kept getting patches that were compatible with Windows 98 throughout 2006.

I never did play WoW on Windows 98, although I almost wish I had.

Anyway I’m afraid I agree with Sarathustra that…

Microsoft has indeed gone complete spy-o-holic on Windows 10, and I will not permit it. I’m forced to use it at work, but that’s Windows 10 Enterprise with telemetry turned off, which is notoriously the only way to get rid of telemetry on Windows 10, so that’s OK. I switched my home PC to macOS, and as soon as they come out with a non-crappy desktop, I’ll switch entirely to Mac.

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I think you can even use Windows 8 you don’t have to upgrade to 10 although I wish Microsoft would stop rapidly pushing new OSes and give us time to use them and wish that blizzard keeps the support longer for win7.

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A false sense of security? Nu-huh.

It’s simply one part of a defense in depth strategy. Not a single professional will call Sec Updates “the only measure you have to implement”.

Yes, the weakest link is always the end-user. But making a mistake on W10 has a higher chance of being mitigated than doing the same on an older OS - even if that OS is still being maintained.

Oh, and shouting “I don’t use a virusscanner and only had 1 virus in the 90s”, that is without context doing a worse job than your “false sense of security”-example. I take it you do on demand scans, but otherwise; how do you know you’re not being spied on by now.

W10 is perfectly customizable. There are 1000 tools and scripts to turn off all the nonsense and telemetry, heck even the welcome screen changed to turn most of it off. And well, since we’re on a gaming forum; it simply performs better on the same HW.

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Network monitoring? Not on the PC mind you, network monitoring on the PC can also be hit with rootkits because Microsoft just could not resist doing massive telemetry, so all network monitoring programs had to start filtering “spam” from Microsoft, which unfortunately means they no longer do their bloody jobs. All the virus writer has to do is mark it as traffic from Windows.

Antivirus scanners are about as useful as a 5th wheel on a cart. Malware these days don’t require admin privileges and any attempt to just straight up remove them will do more harm than good, see e.g. ransomware programs.

That is assuming you even can. A huge amount of malware these days is installed alongside software you buy and not from the internet. Rootkits are very popular, and many of them are even signed, such that antivirus programs won’t find them, assuming they can even see them at all.

There are 3 golden rules when trying to avoid malware today, and none of them have anything to do with antivirus programs:

  1. Don’t download stuff you don’t trust. This includes mainstream companies you don’t trust also. A good example would be Sony, who’ve been caught installing malware on people’s PC’s several times. Another good example would be the Danish government, who got the brilliant idea of including a keylogger, screengrabber, clipboard grabber on the laptop of everyone taking a test, then send the data off to Amazon in Ireland using 56-bit DES encryption with the key 12345678. Yeah, really.
  2. Adblockers, and never let up on this. Ads are by far the most widespread malware vector, and should be treated as such. After I started blocking ads, the rate of my getting malware dropped to near 0.
  3. Don’t use the administrator account on Windows, and consequently don’t use Program Files. Install programs for you, not the entire system. Just a little bit of separation between the user and the system32 folder can work wonders!

Do that, and you’ll almost certainly be fine. If not, reinstall Windows.

Sincerely

  • Professional software developer with 6 years of experience
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I’m sorry - I agree with everything you said, but you’ll have to add at least a number 4:
Keeping software (including drivers and OS) up to date.

Your 3 points become rapidly less valuable once the system you’re running on is (getting) outdated.