John, the reason for auto updates is security, security and more security. The reason to run Win 10 and not 7 is security, security and more security. Am I being clear? Paranoids will say auto updates are simply a way to spy on you, take over your computer, stage a coup in DC...If you believe that, stop reading this.

I'm not a computer pro but I work for a company who hires an outside IT firm to handle all of that. They are absolutely adamant that we move our server to Win 10 so we are soon even though it will really cost because of too many things to go into here. It's a CPA firm and security is vital because we deal with clients financial info including tax returns.

The IRS seems to come up with a new wrinkle every week it seems concerning ID theft, hacking and all that. There are new regs that if a tax prep firm has a breach they can be subject to penalties if not sued based on what kind of security is in place. IRS estimates the US government has lost something like 50-60 BILLION to ID theft hackers. That's enough money to fund any one of several government agencies for a year. People are very passionate about paying too much taxes. I used to live in Calgary years ago and it's the same there.

Bottom line Win 10 is more secure and if you care about that Win 7 simply will not cut it. Windows Defender is way, way better in Win 10. So much so that the IT company stopped installing their own security suite on Win 10 systems. Defender is good enough. Edge is a more secure browser than anything else out there. This is security only, not other features you may or may not like. Adding 3rd party AV software to Win 7 does NOT bring it anywhere close to Win 10. The fact that lots of our favorite music programs run faster on 10 is just a bonus. I totally understand the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality but that does not apply here.

While an individual like us at home are not huge targets subject to all these regs, smart people see what's going on in industry and make changes accordingly with their home systems.

I will say one thing in defense of using an older OS and that's for certain specific instances where a person like a home music producer has some expensive legacy hardware/software that simply will not work with 10. Ok, pull it off the internet and have fun.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.