Ask Paul: January 17 (Premium)

Happy Friday. Here’s another great set of reader questions to get the weekend started.
Installing updates on Windows 7
anderb asks:

Have Microsoft indicated when it will be no longer possible to apply any updates to a brand new installation of Windows 7?

I was just thinking about this, in part because I’ve been trying (unsuccessfully) to install Windows Vista in a virtual machine. Will it get all of the available updates, or does Microsoft turn that off? Every time a version of Windows exits support, Microsoft publishes a note explaining that it will “no longer receive new security updates, non-security hotfixes, free or paid assisted support options, or online technical content updates from Microsoft” (or similar). But what about existing fixes? Will those always be available?

Short version, I don’t. If Microsoft does actually turn off the ability to get the existing updates, I’d imagine that it will be years down the road, many years in Windows 7’s case, given its popularity. It would be dangerous to customers to do otherwise.

Does anyone else know what the policy (if any) is here? I will try and find out myself.
Windows wireless adapters
will asks:

Do you have any experience or advice on the best wireless display adapter to use with Windows? I know Microsoft has one and I have had mixed results with the v2 units and was looking for something to use in conference rooms.

I’ve only used the Microsoft adapters now for the past several years, sorry. They seem to work … OK. But I don’t need them regularly, thankfully. Any wired connection is, of course, much more reliable (and less convenient).
Windows Insider Program confusion
Daishi asks:

My memory of hearing you describe the new Inside rings system was essentially just that new additions introduced to the Fast Ring are under active feature and UX development and they stay in that ring until they are considered finished. This can take as much or as little time as necessary and may mean that features they can’t get to a place they are happy with never graduate past this stage. Once ready they are shifted to the Slow Ring for testing on a broader array of hardware and then at the end of each June and December whatever has made it this far is rolled up to be the next public release.

Some of that is right, but Microsoft has never described the roll that the Slow ring will play in this new system. Previously, each ring (except Release Preview) and the Skip ahead option all applied to a specific version of Windows, each of which had its own low-level changes, new features, and new app versions.

To me this seems like a perfectly straight forward and sensible approach for them to take, but I’m regularly hearing you, Brad and MJF complain about it.

Right. Because it’s not really straightforward or sensible, nor is it compatible with the way Windows has been developed to date, at least not as explained.

If the low-level systems in Wind...