Microsoft recently made few changes for Windows 7 users: If you don’t have antivirus, your Windows 7 system won’t run auto updates. Which mean you are no longer protected against Specter and Meltdown based attacks. You have two options:
1st option: Install Antivirus. We recommended AVAST (free version with minimal install settings)
2nd option: Set the registry key yourself (with your IT help of course.) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\QualityCompat to “cadca5fe-87d3-4b96-b7fb-a231484277cc” as dword:00000000.
According to few blogs you can make those changes by using following .reg file but we haven’t test it and therefore please use it on your own risk. LINK
