Should I be migrating away from OBS because it no longer supports Windows 7?

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choppergirl

New Member
I loathe Windows 10 and 11, they are absolutely unsuable as production work environments.

So I'll be sticking with and using Windows 7 for life.

OBS Studio is the only software I use that has ceased upgrade support for Windows 7. I think they are shooting themselves in the face, but it is what it is.

I actually use OBS for a very simple thing - a FRAPS replacement to capture 1080p game footage at 2,000,000bps.
There's probably other programs out there that can do this just as well that will continue to be updated. Suggestions?

For the most part, I've found OBS to be rock solid.

The user interface has had me though in the past pulling my hair quite a bit to figure out, particuarly the whole Scenes section.

I've lost a lot of footage in the past because it was recording the wrong screen and didn't know it. I have to leave preview on now all the time.

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Starting and Stopping Recording is all I do

I found it infuriating that there was no built in way to play a confirmation sound when starting and stopping recording. I fixed this with a plugin, that works sporadically. Sometimes it plays the sound, sometimes it doesn't.

I also find it very frustrating, that when you start and stop recordng, all you get on screne for confirmation is a Pause bar icon showing up ont he Start Recording button, and then it goes away when you stop. And I'm asking myself, why? Why would you do this. Turn the whole button Red when I'm recording, or flash it, and Green or back to Grey when I'm stopped. Or something. That I can see at a distance.

I've struggled to find just a simple 2 key macro keyboard to use as hotkeys to start and stop OBS recording, and have yet to find a working solution. The programmable ones on ebay die a quick death and can't be reprogrammed by me; HIDmacro mostly doesn't work to remap keys,

It would be nice if you guys offered a simple keypad solution to control the most basic functions of OBS. I'm not talking a Streamdeck. I'm talking something very primitive and simple. Like I said, all I need to do is start and stop OBS recording.

CHOPPERGIRL
 
koala

koala

Active Member
choppergirl said:
I loathe Windows 10 and 11, they are absolutely unsuable as production work environments.
Click to expand...
What production work environment would that be? Since Windows is omnipresent in all kinds of production environment and people are really productive with it, it's probably more an issue with your attitude towards Windows (you just don't like it) than a technical issue.
From my experience, Windows 7 is outdated in comparison to Windows 10. And Windows 10 is actually outdated by Windows 11. Migrate to Windows 11, the upgrade is still free. Everything is improved: from stability to usability. Some functionality changed location, but finally with Windows 11 the confusion between the oldschool control panel from Windows XP times and new settings panel almost comes to an end.

Whether OBS is recording or not can be seen from the icon in the system tray. Settings->General->System tray->Enable.

Hotkeys can be defined in Settings->Hotkeys. If you need physical keys, you configure your physical keypad to press some not too common keystrokes that will not collide with your usual keys, then configure these keys in OBS Settings->Hotkeys for start/stop recording. It's not required the physical keypad is able to emulate obscure arbitrary keys, it's only necessary to emulate some not too common keys which can then be defined in OBS.
 
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Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
I too resisted the initial Win10 releases. But now I've gotten use to the couple of quirks that impact me, and I know how to disable a bunch of M$ defaults meant to mimix MacOS... just as there was plenty of default options I changed in NT4.0, Win2K Pro and every release since then. I find VDI optimizations guide to be good reference materials
That said, with lack of security updates, and known unpatched WIn7 vulnerabilities, using WIn7 offline only is the only practical safe approach... all else is most likely foolish/silly, except for those who truly know what they are doing... (and such a person wouldn't have initiated a post like this one, as they'd already know the answer, and how to work around it)

So, I've found Win11 to be in MS's every other desktop OS release paradigm (utter junk) for last couple of decades (WinME, Vista, 8, etc). Then again, MS code quality for patches has been dropping across Win10 & 11 of recent memory. For me, for years, Win10 has bene perfectly stable/reliable, and not overly resource intensive (RAM, CPU). The only thing I have just reluctantly accepted is disk consumption bloat ... but that has been getting worse for a long time, and recent releases aren't that much worse... I do fondly remember a fully functional WinXP C:\ drive of 4GB (pagefile on D) and that being plenty... nowadays 60-100GB :(
There are very few WIn7 system left that are operating safely. For example, validated manufacturing line environments is a common place to have Win7 hold-outs. Such has also led to huge ransomware/malware attacks and factory shutdowns. So micro-segmentation, white-listing apps, etc all required to safely operate unsupported OSes (M$ cost for extended Win7 support is REALLY pricey and restricted)

So, presuming typical consumer Internet communication (ie not fully proxied via modern/secure systems), using an unpatched OS is just asking for trouble. The current Win10 isn't that bad, and is a free update, with a lot of the silly/obnoxious stuff being items you can disable within a few minutes... I expect to hold off on Win11 until I get a new PC that needs the new kernel scheduler optimizations in Win11. and even then, it will be a begrudging upgrade...
So personally, I have other battles to fight, and the WIn10 changes isn't one of them. I am too technical to be comfortable in Apple's MacOS walled garden, and Linux is still not ready for prime time for my use cases (without completely unreasonable, to me, compromises in application maturity, function, etc).. I'd have loved to switch to Linux, but I'm not willing to spend that much time to work around it's current state (for my use cases) for little to no gain...
 
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DeaVain

New Member
My own tale, which was primarily driven by OBS may be relevant.

I was in a similar situation, years of Win7 experience (and before that, 3.0, NT, 2000 etc.) in a tech IT environment. I did not want to invest any more learning into what was a marketing driven environment (10 was to be the last one right?).

But you need modern (sometimes ultra-modern) bits. Say for example, someone develops a way *in software* to mask a background without a green screen, nut it needs all sorts of other libraries to make it work. To get that stack to work on Win7 is pretty much un-doable. Getting it to work in Linux will be a more travelled route.

Staying up to date with development teams is important, and a layered modern development environment is a part of that. So when you come along with your borked bits someone can help.

At a simplistic level, this is what an operating system upgrade gets you.
 
deFrisselle

deFrisselle

Member
The old versions of OBS that are Windows 7 compatible still work so keep using that You'll just be frozen with those features and such just like staying on Windows 7 Could also just us FRAPS or any other simple screen capture program OBS seems overpowered for your use case anyway
 
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