6 ms·
- You can only run Windows safely on a machine disconnected from the internet and your internal network. - If you have nothing of value, like if all you have i
by exceptione 3y ago
- You can only run Windows safely on a machine disconnected from the internet and your internal network.
- If you have nothing of value, like if all you have is just some games, you could run Windows on bare metal, but make sure to shield your internal network from it.
- Running anti-virus on what is essentially a really nasty virus makes no sense, as are the various tweak tools that give you a false sense of security.
- shp0ngle 3y agoYou need to use LTSC, the only good version of Windows. It doesn't have Edge. Unfortunately they don't really sell you license legally as an individual. There are shady resellers online.
- dartharva 3y agoThere are several ISO dumps available on the internet that you can download untouched LTSC images from. You can check the hashes from the official Microsoft support site if you need to be sure.
- jacooper 3y agoAfaik it lacks a few things important for gaming on new machines.
- rkagerer 3y agoLike what?
- gray_-_wolf 3y agoI had driver issues, the nvidia drivers refused to install on LTSC due to "system too old" error. True, at the time it was very new laptop, and it would probably work fine if I tried it now.
- mananaysiempre 3y agoBetter support for scheduling on Intel’s heterogeneous cores (≥12th gen CPUs) and AMD’s aggressive dynamic frequency scaling (Ryzen 7040) isn’t coming to Windows 10 ever, from what I understand.
- birksherty 3y agoNot sure what you are talking about. I am gaming on it for years and as my main PC.
- npteljes 3y agoFor one, I missed the game bar, for its convenient background recording capability. So what I did is I re-enabled the Store, and then download the game bar with it.
- TwentyPosts 3y agoWell, if you really want to play games then you should just use Linux nowadays. Not even ironic, I see more issues on Windows nowadays than on Linux. That might say a lot about the games which I play, though.
- jorvi 3y agoThe DE most people will end up running (Gnome) doesn’t even support VRR. Older games have a decent probability of stuff like controllers not working. Gaming on Linux has vastly improved yes, but its still much worse than on Windows.
- soraminazuki 3y agoAgreed, there's no reason to go through crazy hoops to use an OS made by a vendor that repeatedly and openly works against the user at every step of the way.
- cqqxo4zV46cp 3y agoThere literally is. Because it’s better for gaming. I say this as someone that doesn’t care in the slightest about gaming OR Windows. I just fail to see what this “pretend that a vendor that you don’t like isn’t offering anything of value” attitude ever does for anyone. It certainly doesn’t add to the conversation in any meaningful way.
- soraminazuki 3y ago> a vendor you don’t like That’s quite some euphemism for describing a vendor that steals sensitive user data, bombards users with ads, and pulls all sorts of tricks to force users into submission. They’re even stealing IMAP credentials [1], and I’m just stunned that they can pull that off without fear of criminal prosecution. Windows is hostile, unreliable, and unfit for any purpose. But people are supposed to turn a blind eye because of some diminishing advantage the OS has in gaming? At what point can one be allowed to say no? [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38212453 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38212453
- 3y ago
- cm2187 3y agoThe problem is that it also doesn't the fix for what is broken, for instance the start menu was unusable for half of the life of win10 (was hanging every time you opened it). Windows server is a similar alternative but has the same problem than LTSC.
- SushiHippie 3y agoFor educational purposes ;) https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts https://massgrave.dev/ https://massgrave.dev/
- bsagdiyev 3y agoIf you want avoid using activation scripts, build an enterprise ISO with UUPDump and then use vlmcsd to activate it. All I can say is that way has worked for about 5 years so far with no issues...
- pipes 3y agoWhat does this do?
- SushiHippie 3y agohttps://massgrave.dev/faq.html https://massgrave.dev/faq.html
- pipes 3y agoHonestly I'm not just being difficult, I'm still not sure. Is it someone of pirating windows or office?
- SushiHippie 3y agoBasically you can get normal Windows already without paying from Microsoft itself. But on this site they also publish Windows LTSC ISOs which you can not get directly from Microsoft unless you are an Enterprise. Plus, the scripts allow you to activate all of these Windows version and I think also Microsoft Office. The script is abusing bugs that are long known but not fixed. And Microsoft does not seem to care, as the script is hosted on GitHub (which is owned by Microsoft) since a long time. The repository also has ~60k stars, so it isn't "secret" that this exists.
- 3y ago
- pipes 3y agoI did this for a while. I ran into something that was unfixable. It was quite a few years ago and my memory is hazy. But it was games related and I couldn't run something due to missinf DLLs and not being able to install a fix (or just paste in the required DLLs). I eventually gave up. I tried for days to find a work around. Shame, because it is a much better experience.
- windowsrookie 3y agoLTSC was the best version, but now apps are starting to require specific release versions of windows. The current Windows 10 LTSC is based on Windows 10 21H2, and will not be updated beyond that. Ableton 12 for example requires Windows 10 22H2. So until Windows 11 LTSC is released, I have been using Windows 11 Pro Education. It seems to be almost as good as LTSC (ships without most of the bloatware), but allows you to run a current version of Windows. Windows 11 still feels much slower than Windows 10, even on a modern system clicking on the wifi icon takes 1-2 seconds for the window to open and then you can see elements of the window load. Opening file explorer is the same. This a fresh install on a Ryzen 6800H laptop with a fast NVME SSD. Then there are all the popups asking me to use OneDrive, Edge, Etc. Truly a terrible OS.
- bonton89 3y agoI'm curious if Ableton 12 actually requires 22H2 or just is only supported. I was struggling with what to do with this recently on my wife's PC. I don't care for 11, she isn't interest in linux and 10 drops support in 2025 for regular editions. I went with enterprise LTSC iot because I figured that the support problems probably won't amount to much until after 2025 anyway. That version goes to 2032 of security updates but I suspect the install won't last that long regardless.
- nso 3y agoMy computer was last upgraded 11 years ago (I had to do some trickery to be able to install Win 11) It obviously has specs dwarfed by yours. The wifi icon appears the instant I click. Freshly installed whenever Win 11 was available.
- shp0ngle 3y agoDidn't try the Education, will do it sometimes
- nerdjon 3y ago100% this. For me Windows has become an unfortunate necessity just due to gaming (Please don't try to tell me I can just game on Linux, I want my games to work every time and I don't want to deal with Proton). Even going so far as installing Windows 10 LTSC on my steam deck and it has been amazing. Better performance, battery life, no annoying features, etc. I am looking forward to Windows 11 LTSC to come out to get some improvements, but I have not had any issues with gaming on Windows 10 LTSC.
- weberer 3y agoProton is a dream nowadays. It seems to get 10x better every year. The problem is that there are some popular games that use a kernel-level anti-cheat that will never work in Proton. Honestly, I think the best option is just to not buy those games in order to disincentivize their bad behavior. Yes, I'm fine with never playing Fortnite if it means never having to deal with Windows again.
- nerdjon 3y agoIt isn't just kernel level anti-chat, while yes that is an easy thing to point the finger at and valid. It is also just the chance of a game making some random change that has nothing to do with Anti cheat and that breaking the proton compatibility, this happened with Halo Infinite and others. The ease of proton also goes out the window once you leave Steam and SteamOS. There are various things out there but if you own games on other platforms it does take more work which is a barrier for non technical people. Don't get me wrong, Proton is a great piece of technology. But it is still a compatibility layer that will never be perfect. A layer that I don't have to even think about on Windows, everything just works. It is all tradeoffs.
- theyeenzbeanz 3y agoYeah I’ll pass on games that essentially want to install spyware only to be forced always online anyways. Never have to deal with that issue on indie games.
- jojobas 3y agoSame with Mac OS. It calls home with full access to your everything even when your can't log in.
- eimrine 3y agoEvery modern CPU does this without even a requirement to have OS, I mean Intel ME and analogs.
- gpderetta 3y agoAlthough it might have the capabilities and be backdorable, has ME or similar been observed actually calling home?
- npteljes 3y agoEvery modern CPU can do this, but they don't, unless explicitly configured to do so. We know this because it would have been news already if they do. Network activity is suspicious. And Intel ME has been with us for 16 years now!
- TheRealDunkirk 3y agoWhen Intel proposed the CPUID in the Pentium III, everyone panicked. I felt confident that, if there were nefarious things happening at that level, people would have figured it out. After many months of hand-wringing in the tech spaces of the time (/., et. al.), people started waking up to the fact that Intel had, in fact, already buried the CPUID in the Pentium II all along, and "we" had already been "had." Moral of the story: do not ever trust that "it would have been news already," for anything.
- npteljes 3y agoI don't trust the media fully either, but I think that if a proper remote execution vulnerability would have been found, and also exploited en masse, that would surely make the news. And if there wasn't, for 16 years, then I think we can assume that the thing is not more rickety than the rest of human constructed reality. Also, please note that the discussion is not about possibility. It was explicitly stated that "Every modern CPU does this", and here, "this" refers to "calls home with full access to your everything". Now, that is patently false.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- naikrovek 3y ago> You can only run Windows safely on a machine disconnected from the internet and your internal network. This is asinine and designed to stoke furor. I don't like what Microsoft is doing here, either, but that doesn't mean that Edge knowing about your Chrome data makes anything unsafe. You're trying to inflame, and it's blatantly transparent. I don't know you, but I hope you're better than that. Microsoft's missteps stand on their own. You don't need to make statements like this to point them out. Their missteps are quite obvious on their own.
- exceptione 3y agoI can understand that it sounds extreme, but I am sincere about it. These are not merely missteps. There is an extremely long trail (just search MS news) where it has become crystal clear that MS knows not any boundary in principle. MS acts like the computer and its data as its own, the user is just a hostage. (Even in a dual boot setup MS keeps setting Windows as default boot option). The amount of telemetry, browsing history and what not that MS pumps out of your devices is mind boggling. The tech savy user has limited control about that. And they need to stay vigilant because each update can introduce new attacks on their privacy or security. You should not trust such an actor. I did the math and moved over to Linux completely.