Does anyone have problems with their sites on Windows 7?

Coffee Lounge
#1

I have been working on this particular site for 2 years now and I get very frustrated with some of the feedback from the client. Most of the time it seems to be because of cache issues. He has got into the habit of pressing Ctrl-F5 every 5 minutes!

Over the last couple of weeks I have been making changes and he keeps coming back to me saying that things don’t work. I have updated files, even manually adding a URL parameter like '?vers=123' etc to try to get around the cache issue.

This morning I decided to go to his offices and see for myself (again!). He’s right, on his machine I went to the site, updated some data through an update form and the changes were not saved. There were no console errors.

I then went on to other machines in his office, this time ALL of them saved the changes correctly! WHAT!?! I spent 2 hours checking and double checking.

None of the machines are new, in fact I don’t think any are younger than 8 years old. They are not quick, some are excruciatingly slow. But the difference between the boss’s machine and the others is that his is still running Windows 7. All the others are Windows 10. All machines (including the Windows 7 machine) are 64-bit and vary between 4 and 8Gb RAM, and all running Chrome.

Surely the fact that his machine is Windows 7 cannot be the cause of the troubles, can it?

#2

Is he running some useless anti virus software Riggers? AVG or Avira? Get him to drop it, reboot, clear browser cache and check for Chrome update. Then try again. As far as I can remember Windows 7 has Defender? Should suffice… Saying that I believe Windows 7 is no longer supported for updates? Not sure though…

#3

Hi Dave, he uses Avast and I did think of that but he has Avast on all machines. I know there are times when these anti-virus bits of software can be a real pain but trying to convince a customer they shouldn’t use that particular software can be difficult.

Your suggestion is a good one. I will go back on Monday and uninstall Avast, and try again. I believe you are right about the Windows 7 support.

I have a constant battle with him trying to get him to update hardware and software. He is the only boss I know that has an inferior machine to his workforce (not by much though). And, like a lot of businesses, the computers are their main tool but they spend very little money on a maintenance or upgrade programme.

Any other thoughts to take with me on Monday regarding Windows 7 set-up?

Cheers

#4

You dont mention the browser used but you can check on cache issues easily in chrome

Open the developers console then click AND HOLD on the page refresh icon

You should see this

image

Select Empty Cache and Hard Reload

#5

If I recall the win 7 version of defender is anti-malware only, you need to use Microsoft Security Essentials on windows 7 (also free)

#6

Hi Brian, I did mention “and all running Chrome” and yes I used the “Empty Cache and Hard Reload” trick in all cases.

I will certainly bear in mind what you say about Microsoft Security Essentials. I suppose my initial goal is to see if Avast is causing any issues, then we can decide where to go from there. Cheers

#7

Sorry, i missed that. I confess I suspect the issue will be elsewhere. |I would press him to upgrade, the overhead for win 10 is less than that of Win 7 so it should even run better. Win 7 if effectively obsolete.
You can still use Microsoft’s upgrade tool to install on a Win 7 system free

#8

I will be pressing for an upgrade (doubt he’ll go the whole hogg and go for a new machine!) so let’s see what happens. He did tell me he tried to upgrade to Win 10 a few years ago and said it was slow and rubbish so he went back to 7. In his speak that could mean anything :slight_smile:

#9

Just a thought. Kill his firewall temporarily in case it is blocking anything, will be on by default