Critics blast Microsoft's limited reprieve for those stuck on Windows 10

Microsoft's latest attempts to ease the transition to Windows 11 for Windows 10 users "don't go far enough," according to privacy campaigners that worry about the prospect of millions of PCs going to landfill. Last week, Microsoft confirmed it would make the first year of Extended Security Updates (ESU) free. Kind of. To …

[rh16181618190224]

I signed up to the rewards program. I got the 1000 points in 3 days, less than an hour actually "earning them" by messing around. So it's not onerous. And if you are serious about keeping your current OS up to date, that amount of time or the relatively small fee is annoying but everything Microsoft does nowadays is annoying.

So you could wait until closer to the end date before picking up the 1000 points.

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

What are they and what did you do to "earn" them?

[MontyMole]

Do a search on Bing and you'll find out.

[navarac]

So it's really a scam to make you use Bing-bong then!

[katrinab]

Search for random things on Bing mostly

[Anonymous Coward]

So, create a throwaway MS account, run a VM that does random improbable Bing searches all day long. You get points, MS gets rubbish data. Win-win.

[excperr]

Doing the gimp and grind for MS or?

[LBJsPNS]

A MS account is required for any of this, is it not?

I wouldn't know, I switched my home and business to Linux years ago. But I'm not trading my data to MS for trinkets.

[Dan 55]

I see Marketing has taken over security policy at Microsoft.

[wolfetone]

Marketing has always taken precedence over security at Micro$oft.

Let's be honest. If getting updates to Windows 10 is as easy as earning nothing points then is there really a hard and fast rule/reason to upgrade to Windows 11?

I can understand the hard switch off of XP to 7, but if updates can be this easily obtained for an old system then it's a load of old Balmer's baloney that we must upgrade to 11.

[doublelayer]

I'm not sure I understand your question. There's no reason why you need to update unless you need something they're not including in the old thing, and most of the time, the thing they're not including is security updates. If you don't pay, they stop including them in October. If you do, they'll stop in three years. Either way, they could keep writing security updates forever. Nothing would stop them from writing patches to Windows 10 until 2100. They could have provided unlimited patches for XP too. They're just choosing not to.

What counts as a "hard and fast rule/reason" to update anything? The closest I can think of is if the old thing was guaranteed to break at some point which the new one prevents, but in the case of software, any change to fix such a thing can be released as a patch to the old thing.

[Dan 55]

Until now we were told you needed to update because security updates were being withdrawn and you had to jump to the next platform to continue to get them, more or less like Apple.

Now that is not the case, apparently messing round in Bing for a while is enough to get 1000 points and security updates now there's no reason to update to Windows 11 and every reason to avoid it.

Why would MS do this... I guess they worked out their Office Home subscriptions were in danger.

[doublelayer]

I think they're doing this for two reasons. They have always cut off operating systems at some point, but usually, the equipment that shipped with the old one either was quite old at the time (XP) or it could easily support the newer option (7). We've been complaining ever since they announced the Windows 11 hardware requirements that they're too strict and leave behind working equipment. Microsoft may have hoped that enough of that would be replaced by their deadline, but they may want to avoid bad press for a few more years so that when they do cut off those machines, they'll look older.

The second reason is simple. They're already building those patches for businesses who want to pay more, so why not charge individuals who also want them? And for those who would complain too much about the price, they'll let them use rewards points which, although I don't have them, seem easy enough to get if this is a big deal. I wouldn't be surprised if there turns out to be a registry key somewhere which also enables these, though no guarantees it will stay working. Of course, after a few years, we'll be back to the same place we are now.

[FirstTangoInParis]

> hard turn off of XP to 7

There are still bits of XP to 7 still lurking in W11. The screensaver control panel for one, though most of it doesn’t have any effect anymore. It is not a clean code base. In fact looking at the management tools, W11 is actually 10.0.2xxxx, so not even a minor revision on W10 if they were using Semantic Versioning.

[rh16181618190224]

Do a search on Bing for Microsoft Rewards Dashboard.

Basically you have to use Bing signed in with a Microsoft Account. Then say you want to enroll in the rewards program.

The Account needs to be (and I'm paraphrasing here) an administrator on your computer for the points to be redeemable for an ESU. Microsoft's ESU documentation says it is not rolled out yet. Once it is rolled out, the ESU is applicable up to 10 devices, presumably all using the same Microsoft Account.

You can earn 500 points just by downloading the Bing App to your phone. You don't have to use it once you have the points, and you can delete the Bing search history from the App.

[PCScreenOnly]

That's shit

The only admin on my laptops is a local account that I know the password to, no one else.

All our accounts are standard user and only have any kind of MS interaction for Onedrive

so their local admin with ms account is a huge security risk - not bad for ESU

[LBJsPNS]

So, give MS acess to everything on your computer. For an ESU that hasn't been rolled out yet. Because when has MS ever lied?

Haaaaaaa, hahahahahahaha. You funny person. You make me giggle.

[OhForF']

Handing out incentives to use accounts with elevated privileges to search on Bing shows where Micros~1's priorities are.

Obviously their most important issue is protecting our computing systems. /s

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

But...

For the machine to get its free updates, will you need to have it signed in using that Microsoft account all of the time? Right now, all of the Windows PC's in my home, of which only one runs Windows 11, only have local accounts on them. I'd rather pay, Microsoft or 0patch, to keep them that way.

BTW, one thing that never seems to get mentioned is that, given Microsoft won't allow Windows 11 to run on perfectly good PC's that don't have their arbitrary hardware requirements, their cutting off Windows 10 support means they knowingly are creating a malware epidemic. Sounds like a lawyers Class Action field day to me, at least in the US.

[HenryCrun]

Re: But...

I have W11 running on an old box with an AMD FX-6300 cpu with 16GB of RAM. It gets updates as normal. I wait to see if it gets 25H2 later this year.

[kmorwath]

"could use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud"

Cui prodest? Why MS wants those data there, in exchange for the extension? Which processing wants to perform on those data - and moreover, one need to setup a MS account.

[doublelayer]

Re: "could use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud"

The last article explained this: they will probably use more than the free storage limit, so you'll probably end up buying more OneDrive space or an Office365 membership which comes with that, and then they get paid. It's not about the data, which we both know is nearly useless to them. And yes, this is Microsoft trying to make money from people who aren't updating. Whatever our opinions on the ethics of that, we should stop acting surprised that they're doing it since they've had paid extra support for old Windows versions lots of times before.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: "could use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud"

There's no way I'm gonna back-up my stuff to OneDrive. At least not unencrypted. I'll stick with Mega, thank you very much!

[Danny 14]

Re: "could use Windows Backup to sync their settings to the cloud"

then dont use W10, just install ubuntu desktop on grandads old PC and be done with. I really dont get why people complain as much. If you want to use W10 for whatever reason then jump through the MS hoops. Education? LTSC is software assurance on OVS-ES and EES so install that and be done till 2029 (2019, not 2022) on that ancient hardware. Home user? Then let MS slurp your data via their bing reward crap or pay up ESU, or buy a shady LTSC license from ebay, or install linux and stop using MS.

Yes it sucks to see a perfectly usable pc not able to run a stable OS whilst others can pay to carry on, but that is MS. Lay with stray dogs, get fleas.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I’d like to know…

If I upgrade a technically incompatible W10 machine to W11 via the well publicised alternative method, what will happen down track?

Will MS just nuke the licence?

[andy gibson]

Re: What I’d like to know…

A monthly Windows update that scans the hardware and then either nags you, or disables the machine?

[Mage]

Re: Will MS just nuke the licence?

It will brick, because it's unsupported. Though sometimes they do that to supported versions.

Windows 1991 - 2016. (NT since 3.51).

Linux 1998 - now.

Which one has disabled drivers / HW or refused to boot after upgrades or updates?

[doublelayer]

Re: Will MS just nuke the licence?

"Which one has disabled drivers / HW or refused to boot after upgrades or updates?"

In my experience, both of them, and both because of mistakes, not intentional actions. I've had Linux updates break things even to the point of the machine not booting. They clearly weren't going for that, and it isn't common, but if I told you I hadn't experienced it, I would be lying. The same is true with Windows.

[LunaFerret]

Re: it will brick

No, it will not "brick." What a ridiculous thing to say. The hardware won't be locked down in any way, only the software. At absolute worst, they could block your Windows install from being used at all but, with MS, the worst would probably be that it would stop updating anything at all, and/or nag pop-ups and maybe a watermark. If that.

I have a feeling nothing negative at all will happen to those installs.

[MatthewSt]

Re: it will brick

It _will_ brick. They'll start switching on instruction sets that are only available in modern processors and then your device won't boot. Search POPCNT for an example

[that one in the corner]

Re: it will brick

That isn't bricking your PC, it just isn't booting that specific OS install.

You will still be able to get into the BIOS setup. Plug in a bootable USB memory stick (or pop in a DOS boot floppy, if you are lucky enough to still have the drive installed) and it will come alive again. Install any other OS that is compatible with your hardware.

Bricked! If the definition of "bricked" to a Register reader has dropped to "I need to run any OS installer but don't have the specialist skills and equipment" then what have we come to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: it will brick

Look up what bricking actually means. Hint: it's not screwing up an OS install.

[williamyf]

¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

There will be other problems, depending on how "Incompatible" your system is. These include but are not limited to:

Yearly updates (Win11 2xH2) not installing automaticaly (but monthly patches install fine). You must install yearly updates manually.

Some patch breaking functionality because it uses a feature/codepath that "should" be present. This may be as simple as a driver stops working, or as hard as the system failing to boot.

Some 3rd party SW not working because, since it is running on Win11, it tries to use stuff that is not pressent on unssuported systems.

Performance degrading if certain codepaths are used.

The system as a whole stops working if certain codepaths that use features not present become mandatory

In order to maximize the chances of success of a "non-supported" Win11 machine:

1.) Update to the latest Firmware available to you at the time of install.

2.) Keep firmware updated over the years.

3.) Make your firmware use UEFI as the primary option over CSM, or better yet, disable CSM completely

4.) If your system has any sort of TPM (hardware or firmware based), enable it, even if it is TPM 1.2 or lower.

5.) Enable SecureBoot if available

6.) Get the latest drivers for all your stuff from the manufacturer's websites, and apply those post install

7.) Post install, test your drivers for VBS compliance.

8.) There is an (unoffical) floor were Win11 on unsupported systems will work "mostly" trouble free, is a 7th gen intel or Zen+ AMD, both with TPM1.2 or higher.

9.) There is a "range of machines" that "probably" will work but may see degraded performance in the future, that is 4th to 6th gen intel, or an AMD processor that has HVCI but no MBEC (I forget the exact cutoff), and both have some sort of TPM.

10.) Processors with no MBEC instructions will most likely see performance degradations in the future, or plain refuse to work.

11.) Processors with no HVCI (below 4th gen intel, I do not remember the cutoff for AMD) will most likely experience problems in the future.

12.) Drivers that do not play nice with VBS may stop to work, depending on the importance of the subsystem controlled by said driver, this may render the system unoperable.

13.) Systems with TPM lower than 2 may experience problems in the future.

My recomendation, save yourself the hassle, go instead with Windows Server With desktop Experience 2022 (supported until ~2033), failing that, go with Windows Server with Desktop Experience 2019 (supported until ~ 2030). For both of them follow the Firmware and driver recomendations above.

[A. Coatsworth]

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

>>Yearly updates (Win11 2xH2) not installing automaticaly You say that as if it was a bad thing. I am sure it is not

After the latest autoinstall they destoyed several workarounds to make the Win 11 interface less horrid, like the register keys to eliminate thumbnail view in the task bar, which feels like a really petty thing to do.

[williamyf]

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

No yearly updates IS a bad thing, as those receive security patches only for 18months after launch. After that point you are more or less as insecure on Win11 with no patches as you are on Win10 with no patches

[LBJsPNS]

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

And after all that, you have...

Windows. :(

[williamyf]

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

Just imagine...

¡Being able to interact to customer and providers that use windows-only programs like Office or Quickbooks!

¡Being able to run windows only programs that you normaly use! Instead of, you know, disrupting your workflow, or say, forcing your company to spend money, time and energy re-training you and your co-workers...

¡Being able to run all those bespoke applications that people who are long gone from the company have developed over the years!

¡Being able to run many windows games, specialy recent and/or protected ones with no Fuss!

Do not misunderstand me, Linux (and FOSS in general) is great, I started using it in the uni in '96 for my thesis (¡and the NIST ATM Network Simulator was FOSS too!), and have been using it at work ever since. But a flat-head screwdriver is not the same as a philips which is not the same as a torx. And no screwdriver shall be used as a chisel. Use the right tool for each job.

[An_Old_Dog]

Just Imagine ...

Being able to run all those bespoke applications that people who are long gone from the company have developed over the years!

Sure, go ahead and imagine that. But that imagination is just that, and not necessarily reality.

During the Windows 3.X/Windows 9X era, Microsoft bent over backwards to ensure as much as possible, that older software would work on newer versions of Windows.

With office-political changes inside Microsoft, that pholosophy changed. With later versions of Windows, breaking changes were intentionally introduced ("Just buy new software."), and each new version of Windows had a new driver model. Yes, there are semi-useful settings for running older non-driver software on newer versions of Windows, but your success in using them will vary wildly.

With respect to drivers, you're definitely boned. Hardware companies frequently do not provide works-with-newer-versions-of-Windows drivers for their older hardware products. They want you to buy something new. And, Microsoft does not include drivers for many older models of scanners and printers in their newer versions of Windows.

Your "bespoke applications written by people who are long-gone from the company" may ("frequently are"?) not be well-designed and well-commented, so modifying or re-writing them to work on newer version of Windows may be difficult-to-impossible.

Do not pretend migrating a business to a newer version of Windows is easy and pain-free. It is not. (Migrating older documents and spreadsheets to newer versions of Microsoft Office is a similar, but seperate topic.)

[Danny 14]

Re: ¿Nuke the License? No, I am 99.9999% sure not. But...

Browser office is just fine. Works well on chromebooks.

If you are a company and you are still running W10 on your vast fleet because the machines cannot take W11, then I would seriously look for another line of work as your company has serious cashflow issues. W11 runs on (roughly speaking) series 8 intel CPUs onwards. Refurb office grade dell series 8 machines are about £150 each.

A company that relies on a bespoke application that will not run on W11 (but runs on W10? thats odd, the codebase is the same, what on earth was this app developed on?) I know of a client who still uses a VB6 app successfully on W11, you need to register mscomctl and fiddle with it but it WORKS. Anyway, again I would look for another job as this is a security nightmare waiting to happen, especially if said app has not been updated in many years.

What games do you run on a machine not new enough to run windows 11? Im guessing they are not internet enabled games. Might as well run an airgapped machine on W10 for those 1999 games.

Either update to W11 or dont. Put linux on or dont. Technology moves on, the same as when we started needing a coprocessor to compete and 286s wouldnt run 3.1 citrix properly so you couldnt run most logons. Many packard bell machines wept on the scrapheap that year.

[Ilgaz]

VBS is a nightmare, can't disable

MBEC is the big deal here, Intel i5 Gen 7 doesn't have it, so you clearly see 15-20% performance drop along with horrible fan sound whenever you launch a program. I tried to disable VBS (Which makes use of it) in every imaginable method, even asked AI. No luck.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: What I’d like to know…

You shouldn't be asking yourself this question. Just install Linux Mint.

[BobChip]

Re: What I’d like to know…

No need to know anything - from now on. I have (or used to have) a copy of Win 10 on a 2 Tb SSD in a multi-system machine which can run any one of up to 5 OSs by way of SATA power switches selected on boot up. The other 4 drives run Linux or other nix OSs. I could easily run Win 11 if I wanted to do so. I don't! I kept a Win 10 setup just for the occasional - and now increasingly rare Win project and some old games. Having observed the way in which MS is aggressively pushing an increasingly unattractive working environment, I have had enough. 2 days ago, I finally finished a small project that required a Win system to complete it. I do not expect to be asked to do any more in the future - that market has vanished. Today I reformatted the Windows drive and installed a fresh copy of Linux Mint. A much better use of a 2Tb SSD, IMHO.

My entire workspace is now free from anything made by M$, and is completely hassle free as well. My entire (small) business runs smoothly and easily on Linux, and much more securely now as well.

Just ditch Windows and discover just how much simpler and more agreeable life becomes!

[big_D]

Re: What I’d like to know…

I have a 2016 HP laptop and a 2017 Ryzen 1700 desktop both running Windows 11 for over a year... Both get updates fine.

Microsoft "could" decide to turn off support at any point, that is the risk you have to run. That said, by the time MS probably get around cutting off updates for unsupported hardware, that hardware will probably be at least 10 years old, so will have had a good run for its money. The HP laptop (Core i5) is so slow under Windows 10 these days, I'm seriously thinking of swapping it to Linux, where it will replace my 2010 Sony Vaio laptop, which runs SUSE Tumbleweed.

That said, these days, I tend to hardly power them up, I do most things on my MacBook Pro with Parallels and Windows 11 and Ubuntu VMs... It saves the hassle of swapping back and forth between physical machines, I mainly ssh into the Sony these days, along with my Raspis.

[Mage]

Greed & pressure to upgrade

They are actually still supporting it. So the plan is fuelled by greed to charge for what should be free, and stupid pressure to upgrade to an OS with little advantage, some disadvantages and security theatre features that should be optional,

Stupidity.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Greed & pressure to upgrade

This is just a back-stop in case too many people defect towards Linux Mint. In that case the terms and conditions for free updates magically disappear.

[anthonyhegedus]

If they can provide 3 years of updates to win10 for $30 a year to customers, they're still producing updates. If they're still producing updates, they could let everyone have them. The only reason to not let people have it for free is to encourage people to go to win11. This means (usually) buying a new PC, with a new windows licence.

Microsoft aren't doing this for any technical reason, or operations reason. They're doing it for pure profit. If they had to wait 3 more years for people to switch to windows 11, that's three years of lower revenue from windows 11 licences.

Perhaps they're having cash flow problems?

[David 132]

Whilst I absolutely agree with you, the reasoning you use is a little shaky.

“If they can provide 3 years of updates to win10 for $30 a year to customers, they're still producing updates. If they're still producing updates, they could let everyone have them”

Let me paraphrase ad absurdam:

“If a baker can provide 3 years of bread for $30 a year to customers, they’re still producing bread. If they’re still producing bread, they could let everyone have it”

Dare I suggest that Microsoft are only creating, testing (haha! but seriously…) and distributing the updates… because there is a revenue stream from doing so?

Microsoft cutting off W10 support and arbitrarily not providing an upgrade path is scummy, absolutely. But to say that because they’re continuing to produce patches at a cost ($30/year or lots of lovely Bing data-harvesting) they “should” provide those patches for free is not the right counter-argument for us to use :)

[Richard 12]

Bad example

Each loaf of bread costs a certain minimum amount of materials, time and energy to produce. It reduces when making more, but 1000 loaves always costs a lot more than 10 loaves.

Each copy of software costs very nearly nothing. Much less than 0.1 cents, probably less than 0.001 cents at scale - especially as most of the cost is borne by the consumer via things like BITS.

The cost of production is essentially fixed no matter how many copies are made. 10 copies costs exactly the same as 10,000, or a million.

Secondly, MS are a monopoly.

Thirdly, most consumers do not go looking for updates, and don't know that they ought to care. So MS are in fact creating a massive botnet.

Fourthly, it may well be unlawful, because security defects mean it's not fit for purpose. EULAs cannot override consumer rights, so someone may well decide to make a point.

[LunaFerret]

Well, more to the point, if they're making updates for 3 years if you pay for them, someone is going to download those updates and offer them to the public for free. It might have to be a torrent but, honestly, probably not.

[David 132]

Security updates from an unauthorised torrent? Mmm... OK... I think I'd rather take my chances without them!

[LogicGate]

" While the extended security updates will give organizations time to line up their upgrade strategies, the gap between Windows 11 features and the older Windows 10 will continue to widen, particularly around Universal Apps (a.k.a. AppX) and cloud and AI-related features.""

Sounds to me like another good reason to stay with 10.

[btreynolds]

Eye roll

I wonder how many of these complainers are Apple users. Nobody supports old tech like Microsoft does.

[LBJsPNS]

Re: Eye roll

"Nobody supports old tech like Microsoft does."

Linux has entered the chat

[williamyf]

save yourselves thehassle

If your system is officially incompatible with Win11, but "powerfull enough" , and you want support beyond 2026, go with Windows Server with Desktop Experience. Either the 2022 version (supported until ~2033) or 2019 (supported until ~2030).

Both can be obtained legally, and will pass any certification, regulatory, audit, or insurance requirements you, your company or your industry may reasnably have.

[Roland6]

Re: save yourselves thehassle

Just to add/clarify:

WS2025 whilst the most recent release, contains the W11 desktop experience and shares the W11 core, hence is unsupported on hardware that doesn’t satisfy the W11 minimum requirement.

So if you want to maintain the W10 desktop experience it’s WS 2019 or 2022 as these use the W10 core.

[williamyf]

Re: save yourselves thehassle

I used to think the same, but someone at ElReg corrected me. Server 2022 is a beautifull hibrid that has Win10 deskto experience, but uses a Win11 core withe relaxed requirements under the hood

Mostlikely,because serverpeople "should know" what they aredoimg in general.

[Roland6]

Re: save yourselves thehassle

Thanks for the nuanced clarification with respect to WS2022.

Motivation for my “clarification” was that really cheap WS2025 licences are available. So whilst it might be tempting to buy this instead of the more expensive 2019/2022 licence, it doesn’t have the W10 compatibility of 2019/2022.

However, if you are happy with W11 but don’t want all the junk, WS2025 is a sensible purchase.

[Freddellmeister]

Re: save yourselves thehassle

Why not Windows Server 2025 that I successfully run on Ivy Bridge Servers already?

[Dennis_the_performance_dork]

Or just air gap

Most of my fleet is on Fedora, and all my clients are on Win 11 or MacOS. I have one machine that's running Windows 10, and I only use it to watch television/streaming or to play old video games (Had a nice round of Alpha Centauri the other night). When October comes, I'm just gonna unplug the Ethernet, buy me a Roku for the streaming stuff, and just keep it offline for Civ 4, Sims 3, and such . . . My brother is doing the same with his Win 10 machine. He has a couple of Macs and a couple of Chromebooks for his and his wife's daily drivers and only uses the Windows machine for rare things or gaming.

An Athlon FX 8 core is good enough for what I do with Windows -- I don't need a new one for no apparent reason except to get Copiloted or have it screen shot everything I do. Wish I could do the same for my clients, but alas, they need freaking Intuit stuff and Thompson stuff that ONLY works on Windows.

Wonder how they account in those percentages for people who just opt out or go Linux? When I unplug it in October, it won't be counted.

[big_D]

Re: Or just air gap

We still have a few XP machines kicking around the labs. The lab equipment they are connected to only works with XP, nothing newer, not even Windows 7 XP Mode, but they are all air-gapped, have local printers and the results are then filed in folders.

I know an admin at another company that has a CNC machine that only runs on XP. When they need support, the supplier asks for the TeamViewer number to do remote support. They are told, that as soon as they deliver a version of the software that runs on a supported version of Windows, they can get a TV number, otherwise they will have to "remote control" the operator in order to sort out the problem.

[naive]

Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

From MS perspective such a thing would make sense, nobody has an excuse not to update and they get quite some new cash flowing in their direction.

But maybe they got too cozy with hardware manufacturers to be able to drop the TPM requirement in W11.

[williamyf]

Re: Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

It would acomplish nothing, as any machine with a supported processor (8th gen intel or Zen2 AMD) already has TPM2.0 , either in hardware or in firmware, so, a TPM-Free win11 with the same processor requirements is redundant.... Actually, would be some sort of con, selling you for $60 something you do not need at all.

So, I can hear all you ask ¿Why won't microsoft sell a $60 version of Win11 that allows for older processors and optional TPM?

Well, that exists, Microsoft has been selling it since late 2022. Is called Windows Server 2022 with Desktop Experience. Can be had from U$D34 (key in offer) and Up. Not sure of how much directly from Microsoft. The underlying code is Win11 based with relaxed requiremtns (because server people should know what they are doing) and Windows 10 Desktop Experience. Is supported until ~ 2033. As long as your CPU can handle it, you are golden:

CPU: 1.4 GHz 64-bit processor compatible with x64 instruction set, supporting NX, DEP, CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, PrefetchW, and Second Level Address Translation (EPT or NPT)

Using server 19 or 22, properly done, will pass any certification, audit, or regulatory requirement that you or your company may have.

There you go. You are welcome.

PS1: If your processor is very old, you can install server 2016 (as an early test), upgrade in place to 2019 and finally upgrade in place to 2022. If server 2022 fails, stay on server 2019, it is based on Win10, but will be supported until ~2030. If 2019 fails, do not use 2016, it was only for sanity testing your old hardware.

Or, If your hardware is fairly recent, start Installing server 2022, and if that fails, try 2019, and if that fails, stop (server 2016 will be supported until ~ early 2027, so, too much hasle and cost for only 4 or five extra months, better pay the ESU or use your reward points)

PS2: Processors older than intel 4th gem or AMDs with no HVCI: It may work, but better not try. Processors with HVCI, but no MBEC (Intel 4th to 6th gen AMDs previous to Zen+) may work but expect performance regresions and/or instability. AMD Zen+ or intel 7th gen: Will most likely work no problem. Intel 8th gen and up, AMD Zen2 and up: ¡Use Win11 already! just update your firmware, and activate the firmware TPM and the secure boot, and put CSM as secundary or disables, making UEFI principal, or the only option.

PS3: An example site for license purchase:

https://bnh-software.com/product/microsoft-windows-server-2022-standard/

I do not endorse this site, nor I dis-endorse it. I know nothing about them, they simply were the first google search to give me a clear price without much SEO/AI fluff YMMV

[Dennis_the_performance_dork]

Re: Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

That seems like a lot of work to just be exactly where you were. So I gotta pay MacroHard 60$ just to keep running the MacroHard software they force on all PCs whether you want it or not. I wish I could turn all those Microsoft licences into cash -- cause I never use them. I have about 6 Win 8-11 licenses that I DON'T use.

[naive]

Re: Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

Thank you for the excellent reply, it will help many sitting with older high-end PC's.

[Roland6]

Re: Why not sell W11 without TPM for $ 60 with updates until 2030 ??

Easier to simply continue selling and supporting W10 which doesn’t mandate TPM 2.0 support, but can use it if present.

Probably, also very simple for MS to modify the CPU requirements for W10, so that it doesn’t support the most recent processors…

[ecofeco]

Quite whining

Switch to Linux and quite whining.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Quite whining

Linux Mint to be more precise.

Saying "Linux" is like saying there are animals on Earth. There are many kinds.

[C R Mudgeon]

Re: Quite whining

Why Mint in particular? What does it offer (especially to Windows emigrés) that other distros don't?

[williamyf]

Linux Mint

Linux Mint was specificaly designed to mimic Windows 10 as much as possible, to make it easy for windows refugees to switch. Other distros do this, like ZorinOS.

Also, Linux Mint is the only "Windows Refugee" distro to still have an edition that can boot in 32 bit only machines (LMDE - Linux Mint Debian Edition). Ideal for machines before the Core Duo, like Core("sans the word duo") machines, like the original intel MacBook (just to give an example).

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Re: Linux Mint

Linux Mint was specificaly designed to mimic Windows 10 as much as possible....

Er , Mint is just a wee bit older than W10. And just, no. Try again.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Quite whining

It's the easiest to use of all Linux distro and has a perfectly polished look. Something simple as fonts looked terrible in Linux two decades ago. These days we tend to take it for granted but it looked unacceptable to me for a long time.

Even simple things like the X-server displaying garbage (noise) for a fraction of a second on startup took a long time to correct.

[HenryCrun]

Re: Quite whining

Oh well if it's look-n-feel try Q4OS, I'm running it on a 2008 laptop Pentium T2330. But then it's not quite as stable as some mainstream builds even though it's Deb 12 (Bookworm). :-)

[drankinatty]

Re: Quite whining

Choose whichever distro you like, it's all Linux under the hood. The only difference between any of the ditros is how they choose to put the pieces together, subtle choices on how various configs are handled, what package manager is used and the package selection offered. Matters not whether you choose an RPM based distro, deb/apt, pacman, or good old install from tarball manage it yourself flavor. All depends on what you want. Whether a gui install/config tool to use, or whether you just want to spend the extra hour to really learn how Linux works and manually prepare the disks and setup the filesystems and then install and configure everything by hand.The result is the same.

There's nothing magic about mint. It's just another Ubuntu derivative. Works fine, as does Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, Slackware, Archlinux, etc... Try them all. Most provide live media you can simply boot and test drive before committing to your hard drive. It simply becomes a matter of taste at that point. Most have welcoming communities and mailing lists to help and many provide excellent online documentation. It can be a very enjoyable experience. The price is right. It costs less than a year of extended M$ security updates. (though you should make an effort to give back to the community -- that's what makes it all work -- quite well)

[williamyf]

Re: Quite whining

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is a CPA, and needs to be able to run Quickbooks to recieve info from his customers in a manner that complies with CPA certification requirements. IS not realistic to ask all your customers to change their filling SW because you decided to go to Linux, and running Quickbooks in a non-kosher manner will make him/her fail regulatory and certification requirements, let alone professional (cyber)Insurance requirements...

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is a gamer that likes to play games like Valorant and Fornite, or recent windows titles that do not run in Linux with Proton/Wine yet...

Maybe Mr/Ms Naive is an independent professional that needs to communicate and interact with customers that only/extensively use office...

That was my case, by the way, life is too short to change word and powerpoint formatting once I open in LibreOffice, and liability is to high if I rewrite excel macros in libreoffice and make a mistake.

Paraphrasing the gateway in the city at the edge of forever: These are only a few of many possible scenarios. ¿Would you like to explore more?

Do not get me wrong, Linux is a greta tool, but is not the perfect tool for all cases.

[Derezed]

Re: Quite whining

I just put Linux Ubuntu on my gaming rig and installed Helldivers 2. Those bots are dying Penguin style now.

I still have windows on a different drive but the reasons for keeping it aren’t clear. If I can get all my gaming, email and surfing needs from this Linux install I will permanently emigrate.

[Freddellmeister]

Re: Quite whining

RHEL 10 needs 4 gen or better, so Linux is not particularily great on backwards compatibility.

On windows 11 you can run older Nvidia drivers for now unsupported cards, with newer Linux kernels you can't either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Quite whining

Seems to me you chose a particular distro to make your claim. As a counterpoint, I installed Debian 12 on a Core 2 Duo laptop a couple of weeks ago. Not sure about "older Nvidia cards" because I haven't tried anything older than GTX750 in a few years.

[excperr]

Any alledged IT pro whos still using Windows (other than corporate dicta) at this stage is a Gamer or has Stockholm syndrome or both. I see no other options.

[MisterHappy]

Never had a 'real' job

I am an old git who has only ever worked in IT. From mainframe support to programming to network support... I still run Windows at home because I really can't be arsed with Linux. I play around with Raspberry Pi SBCs and have them doing various things, including a pi-hole but I don't want to dig into it.

"How the hell do I exit VI" is a common search because 'esc' :q! is such an intuitive way to exit without saving changes. I spent too many years pissing around with command lines, I like a GUI, being told "Oh you have to do xyz from terminal" means that someone didn't write a GUI that does what I want.

I get enough Linux at work, Ubuntu, Rocky, SUSE & even a CentOS7 box that isn't supported anymore but heaven forbid anyone criticise a Linux distro for ending support!

Rant & moan over... downvote away because I'm not "IT Pro" enough for you. Mine's the one with a stack of ICL 2900 punch cards in the pocket >

[HenryCrun]

Re: Never had a 'real' job

ICL 2900 punch cards make useful bookmarks. I still have some PC Paris CDs somewhere too.

[Stephen Wilkinson]

Currently as far as I'm aware, there is no software that can be used on Linux to remediate a PDF document so that it can pass the PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) 2024 check - PAC 2024 also will only currently work on Windows and cannot be run on WINE.

Everything else I use can be run on Linux but that is currently a deal breaker for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun fact: the study that came up with Stockholm syndrome has been found lacking *ages* ago. It's not a real thing.

[sarusa]

'stuck on'

At this point being on Windows 10 instead of the tottering pile of shite that is Windows 11 (and which gets taller and more tottering by the week as they add more feces) is not 'stuck on' Windows 10, but is 'mercifully on' Windows 10.

[Nematode]

Please stop trying to extend support on 10! I'm looking forward to not having updates every other day, taking hours.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Prediction

I predict that once the train starts rolling and large number of users start defecting toward Linux Mint Microsoft will do an about face and continue supporting Windows 10 for an indefinite period of time until they can find a way out of this mess.

Or if their interests are strongly aligned with Windows 11 they could suddenly start supporting hardware they previously said they couldn't. This will likely piss off their hardware conspirators, but they care less about them than their own skin.

[Ilgaz]

Everyone questions Wintel now.

M4 price/performance and constant w11 update scandals/ms not caring made me question why would any regular user buy a Wintel (or AMD).

If I wasn't bugged about Apple's restrictions, I would buy a M4 Mini and use it as my Desktop server right away.

[doublelayer]

Re: Everyone questions Wintel now.

Well, one reason that comes to mind is that Mac support lives appear to be about the same as Windows 10's unextended support life... if I specifically choose a machine that was released right before the supported CPU cutoff. If I intend to keep a machine around for a decade or more, I expect that Apple will cut off my Mac OS updates, which they did to my last Mac less than eight years from its release. Fortunately for me, the model in question is well supported by OCLP. Do I expect that that will continue working on ARM machines? Given that they mess around with the firmware, which used to be standard and now isn't, no, I'm not.

If you didn't care about Windows's support life, then the rest of your argument might make sense. Since you've chosen to compare them, you either don't know how comparable they are or you were hoping we wouldn't know so your attempt to praise Apple didn't fall as flat as it did.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Everyone questions Wintel now.

Mac is a dead end. Sales have been declining since they moved off Intel.

I predicted this very fact but fanbois kept parroting about the speed of Apple's own processors. They kept forgetting that many Macbook users NEED Intel and Windows compatibility for their daily work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Everyone questions Wintel now.

Windows 11 can run on ARM hardware. Natively.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Re: Everyone questions Wintel now.

But x86 Windows software can't.

[vekkq]

Microsoft in 2015: "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows"

Me in 2025: clinging to their stupid promise.

[Paul Hovnanian]

Limited Reprieve

Sounds like the governor just called and postponed the execution. But leave him strapped in the electric chair. Because it's only temporary.

[rndSheeple]

switched to linux a week ago on gaming pc - all good

endeavour OS.

run yay -Syuu every now and then.

Steam, battle.net, lutris, discord, brave browser, vlc media player. Not much else is needed. Joplin / evernote.

Anyway very minor pain couple of hours to get everything to work.

No AI in notepad, no screen scraping, no hassle.

Your requirements will vary ofc.