Evernote suddenly not working on Windows 7

[Tiggerlou 26]

There's a forum discussion for Windows 10 and above. Another one for 6.25 and under. So... what happens to those of us on Windows 7?

I'm still on Win7 for complicated reasons. It worked just fine until I had to reboot my computer a few days ago. Suddenly, clicking the desktop icon does absolutely nothing at all. Went on the forum to find out wassup and saw that someone said it only works on Windows 10 now.

Whaaa?? I need Evernote for work and this is just awful.

Please help.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Have you tried the web client yet ?

Apart from this, Windows 7 is end of life, and produces all sort of security issues since its support ended. It is not only putting your own computer at risk, it means as well that others can be harmed, for example through your machine being part of a botnet, delivering DDOS attacks.

Why not install something safe, and run Win7 in a virtual machine, if you still have complicated reasons not to part with it ?

[Tiggerlou 26]

Believe me, I'd love to upgrade. The problem is some very old outliner software that I've used for many MANY years. Hundreds of really important business and personal documents are in that software. Couldn't find a good replacement for that outliner until recently and I've been laboriously converting them all. That is an enormous job, which i've only been able to do by dribs and drabs. Can't upgrade to Win10 until that's done.

I have no idea what it means to run Win7 in a virtual machine. What does that mean?

Oh and DUH. It didn't occur to me to login to the web version --THANK YOU for that suggestion! That means I can keep using Evernote until I finish the document conversion and upgrade.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

About a virtual machine: You need to run an application that practically simulates a real computer for the software. You define the computer when setting it up, like how much CPU cores, how much RAM, how much disk space. It shares the devices of your real computer, like keyboard, mouse, USB, graphics etc. Into this workspace the operating system is installed, and into the operating system the applications are installed, just if it was on a real computer.

For example: I switched to a Mac, but have some Windows-software that does not run in MacOS. So I installed a Windows 10 in a VM, and can run my software in this Win10-session, as if it was on a real Windows-computer. Most software works, only very little (mostly games) have trouble.

Free VMs for home use on Windows computers are Microsoft Hyper-V, VMWare and Oracle Virtual Box. When I was on Windows, I had VirtualBox running. Was not difficult - there is an assistant to install it, and the OS inside of it.

The outside OS like Win10 protects the inside OS like Win7 against the "world", which means threats have a hard time to get in. Even if there is a problem inside, you usually have snapshots of the VM, and can simply reset the whole virtual computer with a mouseclick. This is why security issues are often tested inside of a VM.

Best would be to get another Computer (not to mix up your existing one), with Win10, install a VM there, put Win7 inside, install your software, and try it out. If it works, you can make the switch. The host computer needs CPU cores and RAM to share, so to run a Windows VM, it needs at least an 6-core CPU (better 8-core) and 16GB of RAM, plus disk space to share. For performance, the disk should be an SSD, not a turning drive.

[Tiggerlou 26]

Thanks for all this detailed information. I really appreciate it.

 

[mattbel66 0]

I also have windows 7, and I can't upgrade to a higher version due to all my important files for work and hobbies that permeated the entire system, so it was just impossible to pull them all out and not lose integrity. If you, like me, have Evernote, this is the only solution, then you can run it on large vmware app volumes since my computer allows me to do this. I use Evernote for work too, but in addition, I have a large number of useful features that simplify my work a little more. It seems to me that there are no more options if you want to stay with Windows.