legacy systems

The Louvre’s security collapse reads like a horror story for IT teams: auditors found the video‑surveillance server protected by the literal, case‑sensitive password “LOUVRE,” multiple security applications left unpatched for years, and critical monitoring software still running on an...

The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) quietly disclosed that it has spent approximately £312 million modernising its IT estate — a programme that included removing 31,500 Windows 7 laptops and upgrading them to Windows 10, patching tens of thousands of vulnerabilities...

Microsoft's attempt to remake decades of Windows settings into a single modern app has reached a tipping point — users, journalists, and even Microsoft itself have been forced to clarify what "phasing out" the classic Control Panel actually means, and why the debate matters far beyond nostalgia...

Windows’ software ecosystem is a long, eclectic museum — and among the relics are small, single-purpose utilities from the late 1990s and 2000s that still solve problems better than many modern apps. This piece revisits five such veterans — Volumouse, Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU), Ethervane...

Microsoft's quiet pruning of legacy code just reached PowerShell: Windows PowerShell 2.0 is being removed from new Windows images, and for most people that will be a net win — fewer attack vectors, fewer weird compatibility surprises, and a cleaner baseline for automation on Windows 11 and...

A stubborn little triumph unfolded on the internet this week: an enterprising tinkerer managed to resurrect Windows 7, coerce the Steam client into running on it, and — after a series of creative workarounds — boot Hollow Knight: Silksong on that ancient platform, delivering a textbook example...

Valve has set a firm deadline: beginning January 1, 2026, the Steam desktop client will stop receiving official support on 32‑bit editions of Windows — effectively ending the platform’s last mainstream accommodation for 32‑bit Windows and putting a clear migration clock on the tiny group of...

Steam will stop supporting Windows 32‑bit installations on January 1, 2026, a move that, if confirmed and implemented as reported, will leave the vanishingly small number of users still running Windows 10 in its 32‑bit form without client updates, security fixes, or official Steam Support help —...

Windows 10’s ascent from cautious upgrade to the world’s most-used desktop operating system finally reached a symbolic milestone in December 2018, when third‑party telemetry showed Windows 10 edging past Windows 7 in global market share. That crossover—reported as 39.22% for Windows 10 versus...

Microsoft ended free security support for Windows 7 years ago, and the practical consequence is the same now as then: continuing to run an unsupported, 11‑year‑old operating system leaves machines more exposed to newly discovered vulnerabilities, and the simple advice to upgrade — to Windows 10...

If you still have a working copy of Serif PagePlus 7 and a stack of .ppp files, the short answer is: yes — you can usually move PagePlus 7 to a new PC, but it’s rarely a one-click affair and the right approach depends on three things: the installer and product-key you have, the Windows edition...

Dave Plummer’s confession — that his Windows NT port of the beloved Space Cadet pinball ran “as fast as it could,” eventually spiking to “like, 5,000 frames per second” on modern hardware — is as entertaining as it is instructive, and it revisits a compact engineering lesson about timing...

Mozilla’s decision to keep Firefox 115 ESR alive for older machines is the latest twist in a multi-stage, pragmatic approach to supporting users who remain on end-of-life operating systems — the Extended Support Release for Firefox 115 will now be maintained for Windows 7, Windows 8/8.1 and...

Microsoft has fixed a hard deadline: Windows 10 reaches end of support on October 14, 2025, and the calendar is not negotiable—users must choose to upgrade, buy a short-term extension, or accept growing security risk. Background / Overview Microsoft’s lifecycle policy for Windows 10 has been...

Microsoft’s decision to stop issuing security updates for Office 2016 and Office 2019 on October 14, 2025 forces a clear choice on millions of users and IT teams: upgrade to a supported platform, migrate to Microsoft 365, or accept the operational and security trade-offs of third‑party...

On August 24, 1995, Microsoft unleashed a consumer operating system that would reshape everyday computing, not just as a technical milestone but as a cultural event: Windows 95 combined a sweeping user-interface overhaul, aggressive marketing and architectural changes that together accelerated...

Windows Live Mail’s built‑in spam controls — the Safety Options, Safe Senders/Recipients lists, Blocked Senders, international filters and message rules — can still give you effective inbox control, but only if you set them deliberately and understand their limits on modern Windows systems. This...

Microsoft's late-summer move to soften the blow of Windows 10's end-of-support is a rare mix of relief and a reminder: the clock is still running. The company has rolled out a consumer-focused Extended Security Updates (ESU) program that gives many Windows 10 users a one-year security lifeline —...

Microsoft has set a firm date to excise a long‑running compatibility relic: Windows PowerShell 2.0 will be removed from shipping Windows images beginning with Windows 11, version 24H2 (rollout starting August 2025) and will follow in Windows Server 2025 (September 2025) — a change already...

The Australian Taxation Office is preparing to pilot an enterprise-grade AI coding assistant for its roughly 800 core developers, a move that could reshape how government software is produced — from legacy COBOL modernization to automated test generation — while raising familiar questions about...