7 ms·

Windows 10 quietly gets one more year of support and updates

251 points by bundie 4mo ago

jbird99 4mo ago
Especially with hardware prices at the moment, this is a welcome announcement for many companies right now who need a refresh.
- jmclnx 4mo ago
  And sad for us. We may have to wait for nice cheap used hardware for use with Linux or *BSD. But I wonder if components would have been stripped out due to AI. I heard even older RAM and SDD/HDD are getting expensive.
  - Terr_ 4mo ago
    At least in a desktop context, you can get by with just a separate drive to boot-to.
vunderba 4mo ago
Anyone who still needs to run Windows 10 for whatever reason should switch over to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (version 21H2) which will continue to receive security updates up through 2032. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/release-information https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/rel...
- LeFantome 4mo ago
  Current trends indicate that regular Windows 10 may as well.
- everyone 4mo ago
  Also MS go to great lengths to make the secret good version of Windows (It honestly is very good, I'd put it up there with Linux Mint) very difficult to buy. So just torrent it. It's bad enough running Windows let alone giving money to MS.
  - shevy-java 4mo ago
    > It honestly is very good, I'd put it up there with Linux Min I am not necessarily a Microsoft hater per se, but to insinuate that Linux is on the same level as the Microsoft operating system is really strange to me. Whenever I, for instance, have to copy files to windows, I am getting annoyed at how slow it is compared to Linux. And that's just one issue I have. Another one is how slow e. g. ruby is on windows, compared to linux. The windows operating system is simply not good. Linux also has issues, in particular the main GUIs (both qt and gtk suck).
    - nly 4mo ago
      And good god...windows 11 updates still take fucking hours and still require multiple reboots. How this is still so painful after 2 decades is beyond me
      - destinator 4mo ago
        The update system is such a mess that I now dread booting into Windows. I have been in multiple situations where an update has required a reboot - but my boot manager defaults to Linux - so whatever update process was supposed to happen on reboot doesn't happen, which means that the next time I boot into Windows I am either A) waiting for an update to complete (which is so fucking slow) AND/OR B)The update runs and fails because I have taken too long between booting into Windows and for whatever reason it has to roll back and then RUN THE UPDATE AGAIN. I understand the fundamental need to reboot because some updates effect the kernel in such a way that the entire thing has to be reloaded. But it seems like Windows is rebooting for MOST if not EVERY update. If you are patching kernel level bugs with this frequency this far into the lifecycle of the product you have some very serious issues or more likely I am guessing that they are indiscriminately pushing "features" that nobody asked for and then they are just forcing user reboots because their bloated apps/slop are now using so much RAM and are so inefficient that the only way to "fix" the inevitable performance loss is to reboot (I am only being half snarky here).
      - MereInterest 4mo ago
        And even worse when the full-disk encryption requires you to unlock the computer after every reboot. It's just enough that the entire installation needs to be attended, and prevents you from doing anything else in the meantime. Meanwhile, on Linux, my emacs session has a longer uptime than Windows.
- deleted 4mo ago
  [deleted]
- osti 4mo ago
  Does that support modern gaming?
  - vunderba 4mo ago
    My only caveat is that I’m not sure how it handles multiplayer games that require anti-cheat or DRM-style mechanisms, but it’s been flawless with every title I’ve thrown at it so far (BG3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Cyberpunk, Ori, etc)
  - eska 4mo ago
    Even Riot’s rootkit “Vanguard” has reduced requirements for Windows 10.
  - badocr 4mo ago
    It does support "modern gaming" yes, but like the sibling comment mentions, at least Riot's anti-cheat demands Windows 10 22H2 (the last iteration of Win10) as a minimum. There are a few somewhat convoluted workarounds floating around that people use. Also Adobe CS seems to require Win10 22H2.
  - kgwxd 4mo ago
    "modern gaming" being a euphemism for "more proprietary software that has chained us to even worse proprietary software for decades".
    - mhurron 4mo ago
      It's actually a question relating to what some people want to do with their computer. Most people don't run an OS because of some moral objection to other OS's but because it lets them do what they want with their device.
      - 1718627440 3mo ago
        The "moral objection" here being, that it doesn't let people do whatever they want with their device.
    - 4mo ago
- giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  Linux is free and less wasteful on resources on the other hand.
  - vunderba 4mo ago
    It is, and if you can switch, it’s highly recommended. I have some pretty bespoke old RS-232 Windows software that was an absolute disaster to get working under Debian with Wine a few years back, so I (and others) might still need to keep a copy of Windows around.
    - f-az 4mo ago
      Can’t wait till Fable 6 can just decompile and reimplement old software like that.
      - Filligree 4mo ago
        Great for the americans. What are the rest of us going to do?
        lukan 4mo ago
        Use the distilled chinese models.
        SirMaster 4mo ago
        Maybe get your governments and citizens to innovate and create their own instead of relying so heavily on other countries. I thought that's the direction other countries were trying to go.
        nairboon 4mo ago
        Good thing that the US frontier labs only download data from the US internet created by US citizens /s
        farnsworthfusor 4mo ago
- ericpp 4mo ago
  You can continue using normal Windows 10 if you have a Microsoft account attached to it. They give you the option to sign up for free extended updates (until 2027).
  - jacobgkau 4mo ago
    ...which is exactly what the featured article is about. But 2032 > 2027, so I have to assume the person you replied to already knew that and was providing additional advice.
    - SirMaster 4mo ago
      But they might keep extending it...
      - antisthenes 4mo ago
        They have to update the IOT version anyway, so might as well get some money off of regular users anyway by "extending" it.
        nok22kon 4mo ago
        except they are extending it now for free
        beagle3 4mo ago
        My guess would be because too many users held out with Win10, are not really a potential income stream, and MS would rather keep them MS customers than Linux or Mac (their next machine might be a Neo rather than Win11 these days). The cost to Microsoft is essentially zero if they ate already committed to these security updates (and they are, at least for the LTSC branch and some government contracts)
        tosti 4mo ago
- ptx 4mo ago
  Well, not just anyone can buy a license for it. You need some sort of enterprise volume license agreement, as far as I can tell.
  - causality0 4mo ago
    If you're considering switching to Win 10 IoT you're probably not in the "people who pay for Windows" category.
  - thunfischbrot 4mo ago
    Within EU, you could buy licenses from one of the legal license resell markets. For everyone outside of reach of the law, there‘s massgravel.
- noxer 4mo ago
  This is bad advice that is being repeated over and over by the so called tech influencers. You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10. And for the foreseeable future you gain nothing at all. If one day the normal version acctually stops reviving security updates, it almost certainly will be possible to switch the update channel to LTSC and get the LTSC updates that way but for now this is not needed and the switch is unnecessary Also without some trickery, switching to LTSC requires a complete reinstallation, which for most people likely wasting sever hours.
  - jamesnorden 4mo ago
    > so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10 Windows gets worse with each update, so this is actually a plus.
    - noxer 4mo ago
      There are no update, windows 10 is EOL since months and even before that it did not receive any real updates in a long time. The current version is stable and gets only security updates just like LTSC. There is no point to switch, at best its a waste of time and worst you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.
      - xeonmc 4mo ago
        > you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC. That's a laughably ignorant statement for how windows app development works. Raymond Chen weeps on reading your comment. Enterprise edition is a strict superset in functionality over Home/Pro, and LTSC just adds longer support. Enterprise IoT just comes with Windows Store components sitting dormantly, which you can promptly activate with `wsreset -i` and it's then identical with consumer editions (other than TikTok and Candy Crush not being forcibly reinstalled after every "feature update") where you can install apps from the Windows Store as needed or just use winget instead. Enterprise IoT LTSC is just Enterprise IoT with longer support. There is literally and strictly no downside with using IoT LTSC, especially with the combination of official Rufus + MAS to install from official ISOs. Actually, with MAS, you can also just download the IoT LTSC iso to perform an in-place upgrade that keeps all your existing Windows Store apps and program installs etc., just follow https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-pro-etc-to-windows-10-iot-enterprise-ltsc-2021-keep-files--apps https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-...
- ssl-3 4mo ago
  We had a PC that came properly-licensed with that edition of Windows (with the matching sticker and everything), and it didn't work out as a desktop machine for the intended user. It's been a year or two and some details are lost, but IIRC there were issues with some Intuit program or other. It was probably something that could have been worked around, but workarounds tend to pile up and become difficult to track. I avoided the problem by putting a more-pedestrian version of Windows 10 on it instead.
  - noxer 4mo ago
    Some "bad" coded programs have hard-coded version check and check for the OS name instead of build number, if they forgot LTSC (and server and education) the software will refuse to run on these version. Some reg edits can fix this but its a pointless hassle, there is no need to use LTSC today there are no more annoying updates and unwanted features being added. I have a windows 10 pro machine here running since 3 month 24/7.
- avree 4mo ago
  Terrible, almost consultant-level advice - particularly on a thread about how the actual Windows 10 release is getting extended support until 2027. The IoT release is missing a ton of installed things, such as Microsoft Store Login (needed for Microsoft apps). If you want security updates, stay on your existing OS instead of using one designed for a totally different purpose, and Microsoft will continue to push out the date...
  - vunderba 4mo ago
    Not the Microsoft Store! It doesn't come bundled with Candy Crush or Cortana either. Oh the humanity!
    - avree 4mo ago
      Xbox/Microsoft Store Auth is used for a ton of logins, not just games. Similarly, you can be dismissive of Edge (another thing not included), but the Microsoft Webview Framework is Edge-based (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/?form=MA13LH https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...) and will break a variety of useful applications if it's not available. Be derisive as you want, but your advice is awful. The IoT enterprise release is for IoT use cases. The types of things people do on consumer OSes are not fully supported.
      - ptx 4mo ago
        WebView2 installs its own copy of Edge, as far as I can tell. Multiple copies even.
      - Krssst 4mo ago
        Using Windows Server 2025 (it has an evaluation version), I encountered a few problems (Xbox Controller needing to dig out de Windows 7-era drivers, Meta Quest audio not working, using pnputil to import missing drivers from a normal Win11 install) but otherwise it's been quite smooth sailing. Not having Store login sounds bad, but it also means the system cannot trick you into linking your account to a Microsoft account, which is a plus (though accidental login is reversible IIRC). (I am not sure if Minecraft, which is the only game I know to require such login, actually worked or not). Using not-for-purpose OS for gaming does lead to some hiccups, but to me those hiccups are preferable to the constant fight against your OS trying to shove things down your throat or disregarding your choices (of not wanting copilot, of wanting a local account, of not wanting ad-like stuff in the OS). (Fedora would be easier to setup at that point, but anticheats...) I also tried the IoT LTSC evaluation which generally worked better (basically, it has all the drivers the Server version is missing, plus QoL features like Win+V are enabled by default) but buying legitimate keys was not possible as a regular consumer.
- QuantumGood 4mo ago
  About $300, and a lot of total install time for this non-upgrade path version.
greenavocado 4mo ago
You can get a completely minimalist Windows 11 by grabbing an ISO from Microsoft then reprocessing the ISO by feeding it into this utility: https://github.com/christitustech/winutil https://github.com/christitustech/winutil (Win11 Creator Tab) to get a NEW ISO which you then install. The end result is an extremely clean and stable Windows 11 installation. The resulting image can remove telemetry, bypass hardware requirement checks, and enable local account setup out of the box. Official docs: https://winutil.christitus.com/ https://winutil.christitus.com/ https://winutil.christitus.com/userguide/win11creator/ https://winutil.christitus.com/userguide/win11creator/
- delta_p_delta_x 4mo ago
  To anyone reading this: please don't use ISOs downloaded from not-official sources. Use an autounattend.xml, the mass graves, and a WinGet JSON to customise an online image. [1]: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ [2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/package-manager/winget/export https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/package-manager/wi...
  - layer8 4mo ago
    The tool linked by the parent doesn't download ISOs from non-official sources.
  - greenavocado 4mo ago
    Did you even read what I wrote?
    - delta_p_delta_x 4mo ago
      I did. You said: > to get a NEW ISO which you then install This is not good.
      - greenavocado 4mo ago
        LOL. The entire ISO transformer code is open source.
animanoir 4mo ago
[dead]
mawadev 4mo ago
What even is Microsoft's strategy? Windows 11 requiring TPM, Secure Boot and being all react wasn't great. Now we have a hardware shortage and ai in everything. I miss the time when it was "My computer" and not "This PC". I just hope they keep Windows 10 around till 2030 and longer...
- inquirerGeneral 4mo ago
  [dead]
- senfiaj 4mo ago
  >> Windows 11 requiring TPM, Secure Boot and being all react wasn't great. For me a bigger concern is that Windows 11 requires MS account, and making harder and harder to bypass it. This is a disrespect for my freedom and privacy. The hardware is not the biggest issue because it might catch up eventually. https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-use-windows https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-...
  - lazide 4mo ago
    Also the constant turning on despite my prior explicitly disabling of spyware (memory ‘live sampling’ to the cloud for ‘virus protection’, one drive ‘auto backup’), and features I’ve explicitly disabled like copilot. It’s creepy as fuck, and for no real benefit to me that I can tell.
    - Terr_ 4mo ago
      > spyware The privacy-destroying "telemetry" continues to transmute from a theoretical problem to a realistic concern too. For example, many printers puts forensic marks onto pages identifying their serial number, while MS/Apple log all your device serial numbers, which in turn is subject to seizure/threats/theft. The upshot is you can't print an "anonymous" flyer stating I Dislike The Regime without the risk that thugs of said regime will be outside your door later. > memory ‘live sampling’ "Citizen, the signature of a Wrongthink picture was detected in your telescreen..."
tjoff 4mo ago
Needs to be logged in, so not exactly user friendly. But made me happy, I was afraid I might have to do updates again now I can continue life not being bothered by windows update.
- layer8 4mo ago
  You can use https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU to bypass the account requirement.
- toast0 4mo ago
  I think you can log in to activate without changing to a microsoft account for desktop login (or at least you can switch back, I have some machines on microsoft account and some not)
firefoxd 4mo ago
I was a ubuntu user and work forced me to use a windows machine. Over the years I've accumulated so much software that I have no intention of leaving behind (photoshop cs2). In the past year though, I've been transitioning back to Ubuntu. So many software now offer Linux support, there's even less incentives to stay with Microsoft products. And of course is doing everything in it's power to alienate us.
- shevy-java 4mo ago
  Have you tried wineHQ? It works very well IMO. But I also understand your point of view here; I have a second computer system on my left running Win10.
techteach00 4mo ago
Windows 10 for me until new games won't run on it
- kgwxd 4mo ago
  And then?
  - pooploop64 4mo ago
    Old games only
    - ethagnawl 4mo ago
      This is pretty much where I've landed. Even aside from issues with W10 specifically, I'm so tired of having to download GBs of updates and then figure out which launch params to use to trick $GAME into launching when I find a few spare minutes to play games using Steam. Contrast that with my Miyoo Mini+ handheld which lets me dip into games immediately whenever I have a few spare minutes (around the house, waiting for an appointment, waiting for kids, etc.). There are _thousands_ of games I've missed over the years and I've pretty much decided that I don't need to (i.e. can't) keep up with AAA releases or new consoles.
    - techteach00 4mo ago
      I'll just play Aliens a Comic Book Adventure like a good DOS boy till I drop dead. Idc
  - techteach00 4mo ago
    Steam box probably
- bauble 4mo ago
  My last Windows machine is for games. Hopefully I'll be able to get a Steam machine for an easy exit. If a game doesn't run on it, I won't buy or play it.
- robby_w_g 4mo ago
computer23 4mo ago
They could actually help with the RAM and SSD shortage by extending support for Windows 10.
shevy-java 4mo ago
I have Win10 on a computer on my left side as "backup" system. I decided I won't change to Win11, so Win10 will be last Windows version to use. It's no issue in that I am using Linux since late ~2004 anyway, but I am also unwilling to cater to Microsoft anylonger. I think it is time that governments no longer force people to use Windows in general. For similar reasons I reject the upcoming mandatory age sniffing that lobbyists are pushing for (together with their attempt to kill off VPNs).
b3ing 4mo ago
I wonder if it’s because hardware costs are going up
grouchomarx 4mo ago
this will probably go on for a long time, which is great because I won't install win11
freediddy 4mo ago
Why does Windows 11 still have "Control Panel" and "Settings", both of which are similar but entirely different? I hate Microsoft, I was very happy with Windows 10 but Windows 11 is different for no reason except to be different.
- McGlockenshire 4mo ago
  The reason for this is that there are still drivers for old hardware that hook into the old control panel elements to actually function. If you get rid of the control panel applets, you break the drivers. This is also an old and out-of-date complaint. Almost all of the settings are now inside the Settings application and only inside the Settings application, with the related control panel applets gone.
- fluoridation 4mo ago
  Don't forget the Windows NT configuration consoles like MMC, and other 9x configuration dialogs not accessible from the control panel, like the one to show or hide desktop icons.
AlexandrB 4mo ago
The old "Windows alternates good and bad releases" rule is dead and buried. Every major version since Windows 7 has been a downgrade on what came before. I'd rather be using Windows 8 than Windows 10 and you will have to drag me kicking and screaming into Windows 11.
- sunaookami 4mo ago
  This rule was always wrong and stupid, people skipped versions and never started at the beginning to fit the narrative.
abroadwin 4mo ago
"Quietly" seem to be the most popular headline word this year.
- mattbettinson 4mo ago
  Biggest LLM giveaway these days
- bitwize 4mo ago
  Win11 has come up short, So 10 needs more support. How do they offer it, according to AI? Quietly, quietly, quiet... L-Y!
- zerocrates 4mo ago
  "Quietly," like in "has quietly become the biggest/best X" is silly and everywhere, but "quietly" in this sense of "they didn't announce it and people just happened to notice the change" is fine and descriptive I would say.
flerchin 4mo ago
Do the start menu ads pay for this? It is conceivable that they could.
- customguy 4mo ago
  You mean do the ads in the Win11 start menu pay for Win10 updates? Or does Win10 have ads in the start menu, too?
  - flerchin 4mo ago
    Windows 10 has ads in the start menu. https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/76s2fq/windows_10_puts_ads_inside_the_start_menu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/76s2fq/windo...
    - customguy 4mo ago
      Oh, I had no idea, probably because I use Open-Shell Menu (a start menu replacement). Thanks for clearing up this totally false assumption of mine, I thought one of the reasons they made Win11 was to update the fine print to enable crap like this. But if they can do that in Win10, too, I really don't get why they ever bothered with Win11 and not just kept updating Win10 to turn it into whatever they want.
nizbit 4mo ago
Thanks DoD! While you’re at it let’s keep SCCM around for another 50 years! Woooo!
sedatk 4mo ago
Too late. Had to switch to Fedora last year because my machine didn’t support TPM 2.0 and the CPU was one generation older. I know TPM 1.3 is less secure, but I didn’t care in the context of that specific machine. I wish I had the option. Fedora runs great on it though.
silentsea90 4mo ago
"quietly" is a dead give away for claude. It is everywhere.
Grombobulous 4mo ago
I predict it will be extended at least another year if not two on top of this. The install base is just too high. Microsoft has to support it, or find a way to convince more people to upgrade.
msabalau 4mo ago
Nice, it gives me another year to think about what I want to do with my old gaming laptop
temp987 4mo ago
when I need the Web I use Live Linux. I do not EVER let MS, or anybody else muck up my computer system(s).
trashface 4mo ago
The updates themselves can be a driver of new Win 11 computer purchases. My dad got a bad update (I couldn't figure out which one) which froze his computer a few minutes after boot. I had to reset Windows, and it worked again after that, though now the pain is mine because I have to reinstall/reconfig all his stuff. But a normal person without a free tech-support guy like me around might have just bought a new PC at that point.
- throwawaytea 4mo ago
  Funny story, my parents also bought a new windows 11 laptop because of random trouble on their older windows 10 laptop. Used only for a media PC to HDMI out to the living room tv. They control it via wireless mouse and keyboard from the sofa. The new windows 11 laptop was slower, weirder, and got stuck on some update. So back to Costco it went after 75 days of the 90 day return Policy. I installed Linux Mint Mate on the old windows 10 laptop and they're happy.
lowbloodsugar 4mo ago
Folks can’t afford to buy a new computer right now, so M$ needs to give them an alternative to installing Ubuntu and finding out it’s plenty fast on their windows 10 machine.
overgard 4mo ago
I wish there was a security-only-updates channel for Windows in general. I basically want no new features, I just want something that doesn't change and doesn't brick on random tuesdays.
nitrat3 4mo ago
Does windows have any other lockin then one click .exe running? Is there any other reason people choose to use it over linux? Stability is basically same too..
- bluetidepro 4mo ago
  Gaming support for Linux still isn’t 100% there like Windows. It’s still about a 50/50 chance a popular AAA or indie pc game supports Linux.
- SmashDan 4mo ago
  It's much less fiddly for games is the only reason for me.
- quietbritishjim 4mo ago
  It's nothing inherent about Windows (not even one-click .exe files), it's existing programs and drivers that only run on Windows, which of course only run on Windows because it was already popular. For me it's MS Office. Sorry, but OpenOffice.org and the Google apps still don't come close. (And of course Office file formats are their own lock in, very analogously to the programs that run on Windows.)
- zzrrt 4mo ago
  The lockin is that you buy a new computer, and when you turn it on Windows is there. Like 1% of people have any concept that they could change that or how they would go about it. It doesn't suck enough yet for them to try changing it. If you want to talk about why not macOS or Chrome, there are different reasons, but of the people buying PCs, that's why they're on Windows.
- okanat 4mo ago
  Forget about web development. All profession-specific software except web and app programming still runs best on Windows. Engineering, simulation, city planning, accounting, complex management, supply chain optimization, media production, statistics. If you're getting paid for some output where computers play an extra-boost tool role, simply being a means to the job, the software you'd use will be on Windows. If a piece of software is specialized enough that people maintain it for decades, if it has nice detailed and complicated GUIs to handle complex tasks, it will be on Windows. It will rely on Windows' stable API. Those software goes back to 80s and 90s. They have organically grown. Linux kernel requires thousands of developers to keep alive. Linux kernel is much simpler than profession-specific software. Windows Stable ABI allows much fewer people (low 100s) to maintain much more complex software than the kernel. Even without the stable ABI, Linux is hostile to the closed source software unless that software is served via a TCP socket. Web can challenge this with Web Assembly and some combination of edge / datacenter computing now. Still quite the way out for demanding things like local simulation and CAD/CAM. There should also be strong economic reasons to throw actually trillions (unlike AI and other SV bullshit balloons) worth of software and entire systems out, not just to spite MS.
nilamo 4mo ago
And all of the 3 people using it will rejoice.
tmaly 4mo ago
I already enrolled in this extended update, so I am happy that I get some additional time. The big issue is that my bios doesn't have a way to switch to what is needed to meet Windows 11 requirements, and I would have to wipe my machine. I was looking for all these hacks, but I need to use my machine for work so I have to stay on Windows 10 for now.
mancerayder 4mo ago
Too late! Win10 Pro absolutely demanded and harassed me til I upgraded to the dreaded 11. I put up with it for gaming and did registry hack workarounds to stop the stupid web connectivity and TV-like content it was pushing. It wasn't enough. The system was rebooting with updates all the time, messing with my settings I'd googled, and then someone on HN said: 'Linux on the desktop runs Steam games better than ever. Join us, brother.' I installed Fedora Workstation 43, played my games (albeit with a few quirks), but then as a side effect started all these little Linux and Claude projects after I got home from work, which I hadn't done since my 20s. Thank you, brother!
h4kunamata 4mo ago
I cannot see a single reason why Windows still being used within business: 1. Endless security issues 2. Companies have to spend millions of dollars to make it secure, and fail 3. Everything is SaaS nowadays, you just need a browser and fast internet 4. Linux distros can easily replace Windows, no licensing, no dramas, no subscriptions My guesses is that companies still have Windows because of the support, they can burn money monthly for some other company to provide support when things go bad. You do not need that for Linux distros, it just works, faster, no matter the hardware age, it just works. If you are end user, you have even less excuses to use Windows period. Everything from gaming to banking, from coding to 3D editing, work just fine on Linux.
- Austizzle 4mo ago
  There are plenty of popular games that don't work on Linux, a notable example being Fortnite. One of the most popular games of all time.
  - h4kunamata 4mo ago
    >There are plenty of popular games that don't work on Linux Games that require kernel level spyware installed??? Good luck getting a Linux user to do make such stupid choice. Giving you a company kernel level aka full access to your operating system just to play a game. Yeah mate, normal people won't do that. Fortnite?? Couldn't give half care about this game.
    - Austizzle 4mo ago
      You don't need to like Fortnite. There are plenty of other games in the same boat. The point is that "normal people won't do that" is objectively false. Fortnite is just a good example because it's so popular. At any given moment there are tens or hundreds of thousands of normal people playing Fortnite, on windows, with anti cheat on.
    - not_a9 4mo ago
      > kernel level spyware What does it spy on? I can only assume you’ve fully devirtualized and reversed Easy Anti-Cheat to be making such statements > full access to your operating system Man Epic Games must be cooking if they can poke at VTL1
vkaku 4mo ago
If you need Windows for whatever reason, abandon it and switch over to Linux with Wine, Steam or anything else that you really need it for. By now, Windows has gotten so bad, there is absolutely no reason to go to a newer version in order to make it work on existing hardware.
scary-size 4mo ago
Already switched to CachyOS, haven’t booted to Windows 10 since then. Desktop gaming was my only use, everything else happens on an M1 Air. It’s a delight, no pop ups, sell ups, Cortana and whatever else MS kept throwing at you.

251 points by bundie 4mo ago

Especially with hardware prices at the moment, this is a welcome announcement for many companies right now who need a refresh.

jmclnx 4mo ago
And sad for us. We may have to wait for nice cheap used hardware for use with Linux or *BSD. But I wonder if components would have been stripped out due to AI. I heard even older RAM and SDD/HDD are getting expensive.
- Terr_ 4mo ago
  At least in a desktop context, you can get by with just a separate drive to boot-to.

vunderba 4mo ago

Anyone who still needs to run Windows 10 for whatever reason should switch over to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (version 21H2) which will continue to receive security updates up through 2032. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/release-information https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/rel...

LeFantome 4mo ago
Current trends indicate that regular Windows 10 may as well.
everyone 4mo ago
Also MS go to great lengths to make the secret good version of Windows (It honestly is very good, I'd put it up there with Linux Mint) very difficult to buy. So just torrent it. It's bad enough running Windows let alone giving money to MS.
- shevy-java 4mo ago
  > It honestly is very good, I'd put it up there with Linux Min I am not necessarily a Microsoft hater per se, but to insinuate that Linux is on the same level as the Microsoft operating system is really strange to me. Whenever I, for instance, have to copy files to windows, I am getting annoyed at how slow it is compared to Linux. And that's just one issue I have. Another one is how slow e. g. ruby is on windows, compared to linux. The windows operating system is simply not good. Linux also has issues, in particular the main GUIs (both qt and gtk suck).
  - nly 4mo ago
    And good god...windows 11 updates still take fucking hours and still require multiple reboots. How this is still so painful after 2 decades is beyond me
    - destinator 4mo ago
      The update system is such a mess that I now dread booting into Windows. I have been in multiple situations where an update has required a reboot - but my boot manager defaults to Linux - so whatever update process was supposed to happen on reboot doesn't happen, which means that the next time I boot into Windows I am either A) waiting for an update to complete (which is so fucking slow) AND/OR B)The update runs and fails because I have taken too long between booting into Windows and for whatever reason it has to roll back and then RUN THE UPDATE AGAIN. I understand the fundamental need to reboot because some updates effect the kernel in such a way that the entire thing has to be reloaded. But it seems like Windows is rebooting for MOST if not EVERY update. If you are patching kernel level bugs with this frequency this far into the lifecycle of the product you have some very serious issues or more likely I am guessing that they are indiscriminately pushing "features" that nobody asked for and then they are just forcing user reboots because their bloated apps/slop are now using so much RAM and are so inefficient that the only way to "fix" the inevitable performance loss is to reboot (I am only being half snarky here).
    - MereInterest 4mo ago
      And even worse when the full-disk encryption requires you to unlock the computer after every reboot. It's just enough that the entire installation needs to be attended, and prevents you from doing anything else in the meantime. Meanwhile, on Linux, my emacs session has a longer uptime than Windows.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]
osti 4mo ago
Does that support modern gaming?
- vunderba 4mo ago
  My only caveat is that I’m not sure how it handles multiplayer games that require anti-cheat or DRM-style mechanisms, but it’s been flawless with every title I’ve thrown at it so far (BG3, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Cyberpunk, Ori, etc)
- eska 4mo ago
  Even Riot’s rootkit “Vanguard” has reduced requirements for Windows 10.
- badocr 4mo ago
  It does support "modern gaming" yes, but like the sibling comment mentions, at least Riot's anti-cheat demands Windows 10 22H2 (the last iteration of Win10) as a minimum. There are a few somewhat convoluted workarounds floating around that people use. Also Adobe CS seems to require Win10 22H2.
- kgwxd 4mo ago
  "modern gaming" being a euphemism for "more proprietary software that has chained us to even worse proprietary software for decades".
  - mhurron 4mo ago
    It's actually a question relating to what some people want to do with their computer. Most people don't run an OS because of some moral objection to other OS's but because it lets them do what they want with their device.
    - 1718627440 3mo ago
      The "moral objection" here being, that it doesn't let people do whatever they want with their device.
  - 4mo ago
giancarlostoro 4mo ago
Linux is free and less wasteful on resources on the other hand.
- vunderba 4mo ago
  It is, and if you can switch, it’s highly recommended. I have some pretty bespoke old RS-232 Windows software that was an absolute disaster to get working under Debian with Wine a few years back, so I (and others) might still need to keep a copy of Windows around.
  - f-az 4mo ago
    Can’t wait till Fable 6 can just decompile and reimplement old software like that.
    - Filligree 4mo ago
      Great for the americans. What are the rest of us going to do?
      - lukan 4mo ago
        Use the distilled chinese models.
      - SirMaster 4mo ago
        Maybe get your governments and citizens to innovate and create their own instead of relying so heavily on other countries. I thought that's the direction other countries were trying to go.
        nairboon 4mo ago
        Good thing that the US frontier labs only download data from the US internet created by US citizens /s
      - farnsworthfusor 4mo ago
ericpp 4mo ago
You can continue using normal Windows 10 if you have a Microsoft account attached to it. They give you the option to sign up for free extended updates (until 2027).
- jacobgkau 4mo ago
  ...which is exactly what the featured article is about. But 2032 > 2027, so I have to assume the person you replied to already knew that and was providing additional advice.
  - SirMaster 4mo ago
    But they might keep extending it...
    - antisthenes 4mo ago
      They have to update the IOT version anyway, so might as well get some money off of regular users anyway by "extending" it.
      - nok22kon 4mo ago
        except they are extending it now for free
        beagle3 4mo ago
        My guess would be because too many users held out with Win10, are not really a potential income stream, and MS would rather keep them MS customers than Linux or Mac (their next machine might be a Neo rather than Win11 these days). The cost to Microsoft is essentially zero if they ate already committed to these security updates (and they are, at least for the LTSC branch and some government contracts)
        tosti 4mo ago
ptx 4mo ago
Well, not just anyone can buy a license for it. You need some sort of enterprise volume license agreement, as far as I can tell.
- causality0 4mo ago
  If you're considering switching to Win 10 IoT you're probably not in the "people who pay for Windows" category.
- thunfischbrot 4mo ago
  Within EU, you could buy licenses from one of the legal license resell markets. For everyone outside of reach of the law, there‘s massgravel.
noxer 4mo ago
This is bad advice that is being repeated over and over by the so called tech influencers. You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10. And for the foreseeable future you gain nothing at all. If one day the normal version acctually stops reviving security updates, it almost certainly will be possible to switch the update channel to LTSC and get the LTSC updates that way but for now this is not needed and the switch is unnecessary Also without some trickery, switching to LTSC requires a complete reinstallation, which for most people likely wasting sever hours.
- jamesnorden 4mo ago
  > so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10 Windows gets worse with each update, so this is actually a plus.
  - noxer 4mo ago
    There are no update, windows 10 is EOL since months and even before that it did not receive any real updates in a long time. The current version is stable and gets only security updates just like LTSC. There is no point to switch, at best its a waste of time and worst you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.
    - xeonmc 4mo ago
      > you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC. That's a laughably ignorant statement for how windows app development works. Raymond Chen weeps on reading your comment. Enterprise edition is a strict superset in functionality over Home/Pro, and LTSC just adds longer support. Enterprise IoT just comes with Windows Store components sitting dormantly, which you can promptly activate with `wsreset -i` and it's then identical with consumer editions (other than TikTok and Candy Crush not being forcibly reinstalled after every "feature update") where you can install apps from the Windows Store as needed or just use winget instead. Enterprise IoT LTSC is just Enterprise IoT with longer support. There is literally and strictly no downside with using IoT LTSC, especially with the combination of official Rufus + MAS to install from official ISOs. Actually, with MAS, you can also just download the IoT LTSC iso to perform an in-place upgrade that keeps all your existing Windows Store apps and program installs etc., just follow https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-pro-etc-to-windows-10-iot-enterprise-ltsc-2021-keep-files--apps https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-...
ssl-3 4mo ago
We had a PC that came properly-licensed with that edition of Windows (with the matching sticker and everything), and it didn't work out as a desktop machine for the intended user. It's been a year or two and some details are lost, but IIRC there were issues with some Intuit program or other. It was probably something that could have been worked around, but workarounds tend to pile up and become difficult to track. I avoided the problem by putting a more-pedestrian version of Windows 10 on it instead.
- noxer 4mo ago
  Some "bad" coded programs have hard-coded version check and check for the OS name instead of build number, if they forgot LTSC (and server and education) the software will refuse to run on these version. Some reg edits can fix this but its a pointless hassle, there is no need to use LTSC today there are no more annoying updates and unwanted features being added. I have a windows 10 pro machine here running since 3 month 24/7.
avree 4mo ago
Terrible, almost consultant-level advice - particularly on a thread about how the actual Windows 10 release is getting extended support until 2027. The IoT release is missing a ton of installed things, such as Microsoft Store Login (needed for Microsoft apps). If you want security updates, stay on your existing OS instead of using one designed for a totally different purpose, and Microsoft will continue to push out the date...
- vunderba 4mo ago
  Not the Microsoft Store! It doesn't come bundled with Candy Crush or Cortana either. Oh the humanity!
  - avree 4mo ago
    Xbox/Microsoft Store Auth is used for a ton of logins, not just games. Similarly, you can be dismissive of Edge (another thing not included), but the Microsoft Webview Framework is Edge-based (https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/?form=MA13LH https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview...) and will break a variety of useful applications if it's not available. Be derisive as you want, but your advice is awful. The IoT enterprise release is for IoT use cases. The types of things people do on consumer OSes are not fully supported.
    - ptx 4mo ago
      WebView2 installs its own copy of Edge, as far as I can tell. Multiple copies even.
    - Krssst 4mo ago
      Using Windows Server 2025 (it has an evaluation version), I encountered a few problems (Xbox Controller needing to dig out de Windows 7-era drivers, Meta Quest audio not working, using pnputil to import missing drivers from a normal Win11 install) but otherwise it's been quite smooth sailing. Not having Store login sounds bad, but it also means the system cannot trick you into linking your account to a Microsoft account, which is a plus (though accidental login is reversible IIRC). (I am not sure if Minecraft, which is the only game I know to require such login, actually worked or not). Using not-for-purpose OS for gaming does lead to some hiccups, but to me those hiccups are preferable to the constant fight against your OS trying to shove things down your throat or disregarding your choices (of not wanting copilot, of wanting a local account, of not wanting ad-like stuff in the OS). (Fedora would be easier to setup at that point, but anticheats...) I also tried the IoT LTSC evaluation which generally worked better (basically, it has all the drivers the Server version is missing, plus QoL features like Win+V are enabled by default) but buying legitimate keys was not possible as a regular consumer.
QuantumGood 4mo ago
About $300, and a lot of total install time for this non-upgrade path version.

greenavocado 4mo ago

You can get a completely minimalist Windows 11 by grabbing an ISO from Microsoft then reprocessing the ISO by feeding it into this utility: https://github.com/christitustech/winutil https://github.com/christitustech/winutil (Win11 Creator Tab) to get a NEW ISO which you then install. The end result is an extremely clean and stable Windows 11 installation. The resulting image can remove telemetry, bypass hardware requirement checks, and enable local account setup out of the box. Official docs: https://winutil.christitus.com/ https://winutil.christitus.com/ https://winutil.christitus.com/userguide/win11creator/ https://winutil.christitus.com/userguide/win11creator/

delta_p_delta_x 4mo ago
To anyone reading this: please don't use ISOs downloaded from not-official sources. Use an autounattend.xml, the mass graves, and a WinGet JSON to customise an online image. [1]: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ [2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/package-manager/winget/export https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/package-manager/wi...
- layer8 4mo ago
  The tool linked by the parent doesn't download ISOs from non-official sources.
- greenavocado 4mo ago
  Did you even read what I wrote?
  - delta_p_delta_x 4mo ago
    I did. You said: > to get a NEW ISO which you then install This is not good.
    - greenavocado 4mo ago
      LOL. The entire ISO transformer code is open source.

animanoir 4mo ago

[dead]

mawadev 4mo ago

What even is Microsoft's strategy? Windows 11 requiring TPM, Secure Boot and being all react wasn't great. Now we have a hardware shortage and ai in everything. I miss the time when it was "My computer" and not "This PC". I just hope they keep Windows 10 around till 2030 and longer...

inquirerGeneral 4mo ago
[dead]
senfiaj 4mo ago
>> Windows 11 requiring TPM, Secure Boot and being all react wasn't great. For me a bigger concern is that Windows 11 requires MS account, and making harder and harder to bypass it. This is a disrespect for my freedom and privacy. The hardware is not the biggest issue because it might catch up eventually. https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-use-windows https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-...
- lazide 4mo ago
  Also the constant turning on despite my prior explicitly disabling of spyware (memory ‘live sampling’ to the cloud for ‘virus protection’, one drive ‘auto backup’), and features I’ve explicitly disabled like copilot. It’s creepy as fuck, and for no real benefit to me that I can tell.
  - Terr_ 4mo ago
    > spyware The privacy-destroying "telemetry" continues to transmute from a theoretical problem to a realistic concern too. For example, many printers puts forensic marks onto pages identifying their serial number, while MS/Apple log all your device serial numbers, which in turn is subject to seizure/threats/theft. The upshot is you can't print an "anonymous" flyer stating I Dislike The Regime without the risk that thugs of said regime will be outside your door later. > memory ‘live sampling’ "Citizen, the signature of a Wrongthink picture was detected in your telescreen..."

tjoff 4mo ago

Needs to be logged in, so not exactly user friendly. But made me happy, I was afraid I might have to do updates again now I can continue life not being bothered by windows update.

layer8 4mo ago
You can use https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU https://github.com/abbodi1406/ConsumerESU to bypass the account requirement.
toast0 4mo ago
I think you can log in to activate without changing to a microsoft account for desktop login (or at least you can switch back, I have some machines on microsoft account and some not)

firefoxd 4mo ago

I was a ubuntu user and work forced me to use a windows machine. Over the years I've accumulated so much software that I have no intention of leaving behind (photoshop cs2). In the past year though, I've been transitioning back to Ubuntu. So many software now offer Linux support, there's even less incentives to stay with Microsoft products. And of course is doing everything in it's power to alienate us.

shevy-java 4mo ago
Have you tried wineHQ? It works very well IMO. But I also understand your point of view here; I have a second computer system on my left running Win10.

techteach00 4mo ago

Windows 10 for me until new games won't run on it

kgwxd 4mo ago
And then?
- pooploop64 4mo ago
  Old games only
  - ethagnawl 4mo ago
    This is pretty much where I've landed. Even aside from issues with W10 specifically, I'm so tired of having to download GBs of updates and then figure out which launch params to use to trick $GAME into launching when I find a few spare minutes to play games using Steam. Contrast that with my Miyoo Mini+ handheld which lets me dip into games immediately whenever I have a few spare minutes (around the house, waiting for an appointment, waiting for kids, etc.). There are _thousands_ of games I've missed over the years and I've pretty much decided that I don't need to (i.e. can't) keep up with AAA releases or new consoles.
  - techteach00 4mo ago
    I'll just play Aliens a Comic Book Adventure like a good DOS boy till I drop dead. Idc
- techteach00 4mo ago
  Steam box probably
bauble 4mo ago
My last Windows machine is for games. Hopefully I'll be able to get a Steam machine for an easy exit. If a game doesn't run on it, I won't buy or play it.
robby_w_g 4mo ago

computer23 4mo ago

They could actually help with the RAM and SSD shortage by extending support for Windows 10.

shevy-java 4mo ago

I have Win10 on a computer on my left side as "backup" system. I decided I won't change to Win11, so Win10 will be last Windows version to use. It's no issue in that I am using Linux since late ~2004 anyway, but I am also unwilling to cater to Microsoft anylonger. I think it is time that governments no longer force people to use Windows in general. For similar reasons I reject the upcoming mandatory age sniffing that lobbyists are pushing for (together with their attempt to kill off VPNs).

b3ing 4mo ago

I wonder if it’s because hardware costs are going up

grouchomarx 4mo ago

this will probably go on for a long time, which is great because I won't install win11

freediddy 4mo ago

Why does Windows 11 still have "Control Panel" and "Settings", both of which are similar but entirely different? I hate Microsoft, I was very happy with Windows 10 but Windows 11 is different for no reason except to be different.

McGlockenshire 4mo ago
The reason for this is that there are still drivers for old hardware that hook into the old control panel elements to actually function. If you get rid of the control panel applets, you break the drivers. This is also an old and out-of-date complaint. Almost all of the settings are now inside the Settings application and only inside the Settings application, with the related control panel applets gone.
fluoridation 4mo ago
Don't forget the Windows NT configuration consoles like MMC, and other 9x configuration dialogs not accessible from the control panel, like the one to show or hide desktop icons.

AlexandrB 4mo ago

The old "Windows alternates good and bad releases" rule is dead and buried. Every major version since Windows 7 has been a downgrade on what came before. I'd rather be using Windows 8 than Windows 10 and you will have to drag me kicking and screaming into Windows 11.

sunaookami 4mo ago
This rule was always wrong and stupid, people skipped versions and never started at the beginning to fit the narrative.

abroadwin 4mo ago

"Quietly" seem to be the most popular headline word this year.

mattbettinson 4mo ago
Biggest LLM giveaway these days
bitwize 4mo ago
Win11 has come up short, So 10 needs more support. How do they offer it, according to AI? Quietly, quietly, quiet... L-Y!
zerocrates 4mo ago
"Quietly," like in "has quietly become the biggest/best X" is silly and everywhere, but "quietly" in this sense of "they didn't announce it and people just happened to notice the change" is fine and descriptive I would say.

flerchin 4mo ago

Do the start menu ads pay for this? It is conceivable that they could.

customguy 4mo ago
You mean do the ads in the Win11 start menu pay for Win10 updates? Or does Win10 have ads in the start menu, too?
- flerchin 4mo ago
  Windows 10 has ads in the start menu. https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/76s2fq/windows_10_puts_ads_inside_the_start_menu/ https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/76s2fq/windo...
  - customguy 4mo ago
    Oh, I had no idea, probably because I use Open-Shell Menu (a start menu replacement). Thanks for clearing up this totally false assumption of mine, I thought one of the reasons they made Win11 was to update the fine print to enable crap like this. But if they can do that in Win10, too, I really don't get why they ever bothered with Win11 and not just kept updating Win10 to turn it into whatever they want.

nizbit 4mo ago

Thanks DoD! While you’re at it let’s keep SCCM around for another 50 years! Woooo!

sedatk 4mo ago

Too late. Had to switch to Fedora last year because my machine didn’t support TPM 2.0 and the CPU was one generation older. I know TPM 1.3 is less secure, but I didn’t care in the context of that specific machine. I wish I had the option. Fedora runs great on it though.

silentsea90 4mo ago

"quietly" is a dead give away for claude. It is everywhere.

Grombobulous 4mo ago

I predict it will be extended at least another year if not two on top of this. The install base is just too high. Microsoft has to support it, or find a way to convince more people to upgrade.

msabalau 4mo ago

Nice, it gives me another year to think about what I want to do with my old gaming laptop

temp987 4mo ago

when I need the Web I use Live Linux. I do not EVER let MS, or anybody else muck up my computer system(s).

trashface 4mo ago

The updates themselves can be a driver of new Win 11 computer purchases. My dad got a bad update (I couldn't figure out which one) which froze his computer a few minutes after boot. I had to reset Windows, and it worked again after that, though now the pain is mine because I have to reinstall/reconfig all his stuff. But a normal person without a free tech-support guy like me around might have just bought a new PC at that point.

throwawaytea 4mo ago
Funny story, my parents also bought a new windows 11 laptop because of random trouble on their older windows 10 laptop. Used only for a media PC to HDMI out to the living room tv. They control it via wireless mouse and keyboard from the sofa. The new windows 11 laptop was slower, weirder, and got stuck on some update. So back to Costco it went after 75 days of the 90 day return Policy. I installed Linux Mint Mate on the old windows 10 laptop and they're happy.

lowbloodsugar 4mo ago

Folks can’t afford to buy a new computer right now, so M$ needs to give them an alternative to installing Ubuntu and finding out it’s plenty fast on their windows 10 machine.

overgard 4mo ago

I wish there was a security-only-updates channel for Windows in general. I basically want no new features, I just want something that doesn't change and doesn't brick on random tuesdays.

nitrat3 4mo ago

Does windows have any other lockin then one click .exe running? Is there any other reason people choose to use it over linux? Stability is basically same too..

bluetidepro 4mo ago
Gaming support for Linux still isn’t 100% there like Windows. It’s still about a 50/50 chance a popular AAA or indie pc game supports Linux.
SmashDan 4mo ago
It's much less fiddly for games is the only reason for me.
quietbritishjim 4mo ago
It's nothing inherent about Windows (not even one-click .exe files), it's existing programs and drivers that only run on Windows, which of course only run on Windows because it was already popular. For me it's MS Office. Sorry, but OpenOffice.org and the Google apps still don't come close. (And of course Office file formats are their own lock in, very analogously to the programs that run on Windows.)
zzrrt 4mo ago
The lockin is that you buy a new computer, and when you turn it on Windows is there. Like 1% of people have any concept that they could change that or how they would go about it. It doesn't suck enough yet for them to try changing it. If you want to talk about why not macOS or Chrome, there are different reasons, but of the people buying PCs, that's why they're on Windows.
okanat 4mo ago
Forget about web development. All profession-specific software except web and app programming still runs best on Windows. Engineering, simulation, city planning, accounting, complex management, supply chain optimization, media production, statistics. If you're getting paid for some output where computers play an extra-boost tool role, simply being a means to the job, the software you'd use will be on Windows. If a piece of software is specialized enough that people maintain it for decades, if it has nice detailed and complicated GUIs to handle complex tasks, it will be on Windows. It will rely on Windows' stable API. Those software goes back to 80s and 90s. They have organically grown. Linux kernel requires thousands of developers to keep alive. Linux kernel is much simpler than profession-specific software. Windows Stable ABI allows much fewer people (low 100s) to maintain much more complex software than the kernel. Even without the stable ABI, Linux is hostile to the closed source software unless that software is served via a TCP socket. Web can challenge this with Web Assembly and some combination of edge / datacenter computing now. Still quite the way out for demanding things like local simulation and CAD/CAM. There should also be strong economic reasons to throw actually trillions (unlike AI and other SV bullshit balloons) worth of software and entire systems out, not just to spite MS.

nilamo 4mo ago

And all of the 3 people using it will rejoice.

tmaly 4mo ago

I already enrolled in this extended update, so I am happy that I get some additional time. The big issue is that my bios doesn't have a way to switch to what is needed to meet Windows 11 requirements, and I would have to wipe my machine. I was looking for all these hacks, but I need to use my machine for work so I have to stay on Windows 10 for now.

mancerayder 4mo ago

Too late! Win10 Pro absolutely demanded and harassed me til I upgraded to the dreaded 11. I put up with it for gaming and did registry hack workarounds to stop the stupid web connectivity and TV-like content it was pushing. It wasn't enough. The system was rebooting with updates all the time, messing with my settings I'd googled, and then someone on HN said: 'Linux on the desktop runs Steam games better than ever. Join us, brother.' I installed Fedora Workstation 43, played my games (albeit with a few quirks), but then as a side effect started all these little Linux and Claude projects after I got home from work, which I hadn't done since my 20s. Thank you, brother!

h4kunamata 4mo ago

I cannot see a single reason why Windows still being used within business: 1. Endless security issues 2. Companies have to spend millions of dollars to make it secure, and fail 3. Everything is SaaS nowadays, you just need a browser and fast internet 4. Linux distros can easily replace Windows, no licensing, no dramas, no subscriptions My guesses is that companies still have Windows because of the support, they can burn money monthly for some other company to provide support when things go bad. You do not need that for Linux distros, it just works, faster, no matter the hardware age, it just works. If you are end user, you have even less excuses to use Windows period. Everything from gaming to banking, from coding to 3D editing, work just fine on Linux.

Austizzle 4mo ago
There are plenty of popular games that don't work on Linux, a notable example being Fortnite. One of the most popular games of all time.
- h4kunamata 4mo ago
  >There are plenty of popular games that don't work on Linux Games that require kernel level spyware installed??? Good luck getting a Linux user to do make such stupid choice. Giving you a company kernel level aka full access to your operating system just to play a game. Yeah mate, normal people won't do that. Fortnite?? Couldn't give half care about this game.
  - Austizzle 4mo ago
    You don't need to like Fortnite. There are plenty of other games in the same boat. The point is that "normal people won't do that" is objectively false. Fortnite is just a good example because it's so popular. At any given moment there are tens or hundreds of thousands of normal people playing Fortnite, on windows, with anti cheat on.
  - not_a9 4mo ago
    > kernel level spyware What does it spy on? I can only assume you’ve fully devirtualized and reversed Easy Anti-Cheat to be making such statements > full access to your operating system Man Epic Games must be cooking if they can poke at VTL1

vkaku 4mo ago

If you need Windows for whatever reason, abandon it and switch over to Linux with Wine, Steam or anything else that you really need it for. By now, Windows has gotten so bad, there is absolutely no reason to go to a newer version in order to make it work on existing hardware.

scary-size 4mo ago

Already switched to CachyOS, haven’t booted to Windows 10 since then. Desktop gaming was my only use, everything else happens on an M1 Air. It’s a delight, no pop ups, sell ups, Cortana and whatever else MS kept throwing at you.