this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2026
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Yes. What's also true is that sometimes they must be. You will disagree until you find the exception.
There's nothing great about companies dropping support and also keeping the code in-house so we can't contract out improvements and fixes, but unless we change that we're stuck in a world where ridiculously expensive hardware either needs an old OS or becomes astoundingly expensive e-waste. And yes, it needs to connect sometimes. And yes, that's a scary as shit.
No, there should never be any reason to connect these versions to the internet.
If you are talking about legacy software in a corporate setting, then a vm should do the trick 99% of the time. If that legacy software needs an internet connection (which is already questionable), then you bridge only the specific port it needs to the connected interface. If that doesn't work either, then you get a separate PC explicitly for that software and disallow pretty much all other connections.
If you are talking about private use, then the only thing keeping you on a windows version older than 10 is your unwillingness to upgrade. Its understandable, but it doesn't change the fact that these versions have massive security holes and shouldn't be used anymore.
Welcome... to the real world.