For a long time, especially after the withdrawal of official support for Windows 7, Windows 10 claims to be the most used operating system on desktop PCs. This is something that nobody can argue, since the difference with the rest of the proposals is quite wide.
That does not mean, as you can imagine, that all users are in love with this version of Microsoft’s operating system. In fact, in these times, many users prefer to make use of open source systems such as Linux distributions, for example. In the same way, those who are not very keen on learning to use these alternative systems, prefer to continue with older versions of the Redmond software.
Here other proposals from the same firm come into play, such as the aforementioned Windows 7, version 8.1, or even XP in some cases. Everything will depend on the type of use we make of our computer or the claims we have about it. Most of these teams with old versions of the system are perfectly valid to carry out conventional and basic tasks. We must also bear in mind that many are, in a way, forced to use discontinued versions due to issues related to software compatibility. By this we mean somewhat specific older programs that only work, for example, in Windows XP.
What is 0Patch
Some of you may not know it, but one of the main drawbacks that we find when using a system without official support is related to security. This does not only mean that we will not receive the latest features sent by the firm, but that we will not receive any other updates. This includes the important updates and security patches that are sent constantly.
This means that an unsupported system will be exposed to all kinds of attacks and vulnerabilities that may arise. In fact, the risks and dangerous elements increase with the passage of months and years of use. To give you an idea, Microsoft updates its software with support and sends security patches, at most, monthly. Hence, when Windows 7, a system with millions of active users, stopped receiving support, the 0Patch company decided to help them to protect their computers.
Actually, we are talking about a security firm that is responsible for launching updates for Windows and other software solutions. Specifically, these are patches that do not modify Windows files like the official ones. Actually, what these 0Patch patches do is locate the different vulnerabilities in the PC’s RAM and patch them. It is evident that with this type of movement what is achieved is that these computers are protected, even if they do not receive updates from Microsoft in the case at hand.
Protect Windows with third-party patches
However, not all computers with old Microsoft operating systems receive these types of updates, often due to ignorance. There are millions of users without any official support who work with their computers on a daily basis and also unprotected. But with everything and with it, despite everything they do not want their data and applications to be in any kind of danger, so they should take some kind of precaution. That is why in these lines we are going to talk about how you can protect your unsupported computers with 0Patch.
Download and installation
Once we have made the determination to use 0Patch patches on our unsupported Windows machine, the first thing we will do is download the 0Patch console. This is something that we achieve from the official website of its developers.
Here we will find a button that says Download Free Agent from where we download an executable file that we save on the local disk. Next, we go to that same location to execute the file that we have downloaded, install the application console that we will use for these patches that we are commenting on. It is installed like any other program and we only have to follow the wizard.
However, before we can start working with this console that we are talking about, it will be mandatory that we take a step before starting.
Registration in the 0patch application
We tell you all this because before we can take advantage of third-party updates for our Windows without support, it is mandatory that we register on the platform. This is something that it will ask us as soon as we access the console for the first time. For all this, all we need is a valid email account in which we will have to confirm the registration, and a password that we define. Once we have these credentials we will be able to access the program as such.
Once we have confirmed our email account, we reload the console again to now be able to access it. At that moment we already have the opportunity to enter the corresponding access credentials that we have just defined.
User interface
From that moment on the screen we will find the main user interface that the 0patch console presents to us. From now on we will be able to control the parameters that we are looking for in these same lines. From the outset, we are going to find a series of sections that indicate the patches that we have available for installation at that moment, as well as the time the console was synchronized for the last time.
Also, in the upper part of the main interface of the console we find a series of icons in the form of shortcuts. The first of them, of which I have spoken, is shaped like a car accelerator, while the second is formed by a rectangle. By clicking on it we will see a list of applications that need to be patched, as well as the programs , in addition to the system itself, that have been recently updated.
But perhaps one of the most interesting elements that we are going to find in the 0patch console, we see it in the third of the shortcuts that we comment. This is in the shape of a shield and when we click on it we find an extensive list with all the patches already installed that we can make use of at that moment.
We will obtain a good amount of information about each of them and also the program gives us the possibility to deactivate them independently. To do this, all we do is change its status in the Status field on the left.
Keep Windows unsupported with 0patch
Once we have seen that the user interface offered by the console of this application is quite simple, the same happens with its mode of operation. In fact, we could say that everything that takes place here is practically automatic. For this reason, the first thing we must do is keep active the selector called Agent Status of the main interface of the 0patch console.
Explore that the program itself is synchronized from time to time with the platform’s servers in search of possible patches to download and install on our computer. In addition, all the information related to them can be found within the console itself. As soon as changes are made, they will be stored in the section called Log, which is the last tab that we see in the application interface.
Therefore, as we can see first-hand, keeping our Windows PC updated without support will be very easy thanks to 0Patch.