What do we want? Windows 10 support! When do we want it? Until 2030! Campaigners staged a protest outside Microsoft's Brussels office yesterday over the company's decision to end support for Windows 10. Support ends today, October 14, for many versions of the operating system, and millions of devices are unable to upgrade to Windows 11 due to Microsoft's hardware requirements. If customers …
I wrote to the BBC informing them of the impending doom of vast e-waste, and i suggested that they run an article/news on alternatives such as Linux.
The BBC article on Windows 10 alternatives did not mention Linux at all.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0vzegkqweo
The Guardian had a feature, and it does mention Linux (well done The Guardian) :
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/14/what-does-the-end-of-free-support-for-windows-10-mean-for-its-users
The Daily Mail only mentions Linux as part of the text of people complaining about Microsoft behaviour :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15189945/Microsoft-users-mourn-Windows-10.html
Until the mainstream media present the possibility of Linux being an alternative, then people will just be forced by corporations such as Microsoft to purchase new PC's and generate vast e-waste.
The BBC et al should really do better here.
Kudos to the Grauniad but - "Make sure you back up all your files to an external drive or similar safe storage, as replacing Windows is likely to wipe them or make them hard to access."
Unless there isn't enough room on the drive to install Linux alongside the Windows partition that can be left in place and the user's Windows directory linked into the Linux home directory. It would help if this was a prominent option on any Linux desktop distro installer.
If there were a decent Linux OneDrive client, that would make it much easier to sync user files from Windows to Linux. Yes, I know that using the cloud is only done by the lowest of chuds and that Real Men have a dedicated 500 PB highly-available backup server running OpenBSD and a hardened version of NFS 4.2, but most of the rest of the world finds cloud sync immensely useful, as it would be for a case like this. And no, the kludgy CLI tool doesn't count.
Something like proton where using their calendar is just a matter of clear and very simple hand held steps to pull in Google/iCalendar etc.
Their password manager is also pretty simple also.
Mail client also makes pulling in your mail from elsewhere a doddle also and proton does all the hard work for you in the background.
The only problem is that so many people refuse to READ what's on the screen in front of them and just click buttons at random and then yell about it being overly complicated nonsense and why can't we just keep it the way it is
I agree - Linux distros should default to installing as dual-boot, with Windows still installed and with access to the Windows Users folder.
If you find you prefer Linux then ditch the Windows install/partition later.
I've always partitioned the drive of any new PC/laptop I acquire - C: has *only* the OS of whatever nature. D: is where all my data is stored and backed up from, regardless of the OS.
And "C:" can of course have multiple OS's on it.
Indeed...
Courtesy of Micro$haft and Apple's marketing machinery most people outside of IT have never heard of Linux.
And of course Apple OS is a flavour of Unix - a word that would equally cause glazed eyes.
It all comes down to money of course... Linus and the rest of the Linux community v M and A - knife to a gunfight situation.
Also a human interest story about one man driving forward a project used on everything from computers, mobile phones, your car to *surprising* things like microwave ovens and TVs.
Would also work for a *tailored to the audience* this morning type piece - where the stuck at home and recently retired (either skint or done with corporations fucking with them / looking for something to fill the hours between meals ) might have their interest piqued - "Now have you seen these messages on your computer screen recently? Would you rather not buy a new pc but you don't want to be left with an insecure computer? Well stay tuned for our next segment after the break and we have a solution for you "
Talk about distros like brands of tea or washing powder and people will get the meaning as it's in their frame of reference but ONLY mention distros that are a doddle to install (Ubuntu, mint etc)
Shove a YouTube video on the this morning channel or a downloadable /printable fact sheet or how to guide.....job done
The BBCs output of late is horrifically simplified and badly badly written with a standard of grammar that will have many secondary school English teachers of not many years prior virtually pulling their hair out at.
When you look at France24 or Deutsche Welt the difference is glaring, the BBC's output is written at a primary school level where as the other 2 have clear and professional writing (even after translation from the original German or french).
Though the rest of the UK media is as bad or worse frankly, speaks volumes about the low level of literacy in the UK and the dive to output aimed at the lowest denominator
I’m mostly a Mac guy these days but I have one Windows 10 box which I run iRacing on. It does that perfectly well (iRacing being surprisingly modest in its hardware requirements) but can’t be updated to Windows 11 because it doesn’t have the necessary TPM. I’m not about to replace the hardware until/unless I actually need to for any other reason so, unless I can enrol it on the ESU one way or another, (and no, I’m not signing it up to a Microsoft account just for that) I’ll simply firewall it off from the rest of my network as best I can, only boot it up when I want to use it, and keep running it as it is.
If that results in it somehow being co-opted to cause mayhem elsewhere then as far as I’m concerned the responsibility will lie with Microsoft, not me…
I bet I’m not going to be the only one doing that and I suspect a lot of people continuing to run unpatched Windows 10 aren’t going to be as careful with data hygiene as I am and will create a correspondingly greater risk. Again, the responsibility for any adverse consequences lands on Microsoft as far as I’m concerned.
MS decided my CPU is unsupported. Despite it being the top model of a range that Win 11 does support - and was still offered for sale by several suppliers for a year or so after Windows 11 launched.
It's an entirely arbitrary limitation, specifically chosen to force people to buy new computers when most really didn't need to.
I don't understand how requiring the purchase of a new computer benefits MS, unless there is actually some hardware feature on the new machine that helps MS with their grand scheme of data collection and control of your "computing experience"..
I don't spend too much time worrying about it, either, as all my machines run Linux.
Manufacturers of computers pay Microsoft for the Windows licenses they include with them. The typical theory is that Microsoft wants more licenses, and more hardware means more licenses. They may have had other reasons, for example that mandating newer machines means fewer low-end ones that can't run whatever they're going to add in next, or requiring certain hardware means they can stop bothering with the dev requirements. For example, they now require TPM 2.0 chips, meaning they could at some point (they haven't yet) drop the code that worked with previous versions of TPM, which aren't backward-compatible. Or it could be hardware OEMs who convinced Microsoft to do it.
Another common theory is that it was an attempt to get people renting cloud desktops from Microsoft. I don't believe that one. They definitely are trying to get people to do that, not so successfully from what I've seen, but they're aiming those at businesses and charging a lot for them. The kind of people who have old computers are unlikely to be eager customers for that, Microsoft hasn't done much to make it work with their old machines, and they haven't pushed cloud desktops at people with Windows 10 machines. I therefore conclude that these are two different things Microsoft is doing at the same time but they're not very linked. Everyone has different theories, mostly depending on their personal opinion of Microsoft with little information to back up any of it because most Microsoft employees on Windows probably don't know what the management decision was either.
Dell actually killed the TPM on my laptop because apparently there was some security problem with it. A BIOS update killed it in such a way that even rolling back wouldn't fix it. Not only that but an earlier BIOS update had added a warning I had to acknowledge on every start up if the TPM was missing; the one they later killed. They didn't think to remove the warning about their own vandalism. Of course I didn't know what had caused the problem at the time and assumed something had broken.
I wonder how many other manufacturers killed TPMs for the sake of our security with the unfortunate side effect that we'd need to buy new hardware now if we want to run Win 11...
After a lot of stress and research, I was able to get rid of the warning by rolling back to a very old BIOS with the happy side effect that my laptop, which at some point had gone from being speedy to sluggish, suddenly ran much faster. I'd assumed the problems were caused by Win updates but I discovered that earlier BIOS updates had crippled the CPU to mitigate the Spectre and Heartbleed vulnerabilities. The TPM is still dead though.
All's well that ends well though I suppose. This sorry debacle led me to make the long overdue switch to Linux and now it's faster than ever and a far better dev environment.
I learned several lessons from this
- Don't use Windows
- Don't let some auto installer upgrade your BIOS unless you know what it's going to do
- Don't buy Dell
Okay I already new that last one from years in the industry. In my defence the XPS 15 appeared with it's tiny bezel when I needed a new laptop and the competition suddenly all looked horribly dated. Ill try to be less shallow in future.
Reference: https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/xps/xps-15-9560-firmware-1192-alert-tpm-is-not-detected/647f89d1f4ccf8a8de97e1bc?page=1
Correction: With regard to the slow down I meant Spectre and Meltdown and the BIOS fix was just for Spectre (CVE-2017-5753 / CVE-2017-5715). Maybe it's a price worth paying for security, I'm unconvinced given the performance hit.
This is the update which did it https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=5xcdh&oscode=wt64a&productcode=xps-15-9560-laptop
One of my boxes - air-gapped - still runs Win7.
It's a dual-monitor flight simulator rig with FSX.
Modified with FTX high-res photo-realistic scenery.
And the full set of Saitek Flightpro manual controls and panels connected through a USB hub
Very doubtful that the drivers for that kit would run on 10 or 11 without some serious spadework or at all.
The Windows install is a custom build that has nothing not needed.
If it ain't broke don't try to fix it.
That applies to companies as well.
There are certain technical differences between these scenarios:
1a. A piece of hardware (such as a smart speaker) is no longer functional (or significantly reduced function, such as "dumb" speaker mode only) due to an online resource (server) being no longer available and/or a kill code activated.
1b. A piece of software (such as a game) is no longer functional (playable) due to an online resource (server) being no longer available and/or a kill code activated.
2. A piece of software (application or OS, in this case Windows 10) is no longer receiving updates -- basic functionality remains but vulnerabilities are no longer patched.
Yes, planned obsolescence is dastardly in all its forms and this kind of thing should not be part of any EULA. (Let's just scrap EULAs entirely? I shouldn't be worried someone else is going to revoke my license on a whim.) But El Reg mentions the Bose shutdown in the same article as the end of support for Windows 10 when they are not the same. The speaker issue is more like other software end-of-life issues from many articles past.
Before you all downvote, please note that I truly appreciate El Reg for covering all these things and bringing them to light, as well as their ongoing coverage of Linux, and the discussions allowed by these forums. All this has led me to (finally!) try Linux Mint by resurrecting some older Windows machines (wouldn't even run Windows 10, I reckon), giving me practice for when I commit to doing the same on our family Win10 box and, except for work, kissing Microsoft goodbye shoving Microsoft out the door with a heel to their rump. As someone else mentioned, it is a crying shame more mainstream media isn't covering this option. Kudos to the whole Linux community for letting our tech live in digital freedom (or at least with looser reins)!
I agree, there are at least two separate issues here. One is update support, the other is dependence on a vendor-provided server. However the quote from the campaigners: "The end of Windows 10 support is just one example of a systemic issue: software-driven obsolescence." does, in fact, cover both and the vendors have the same motivation as well: "We've got their money, lets not spend any more on supporting them.".
I don't expect Microsoft to provide free improvements and new features for all time, but I think there's an argument to be made that support is obligatory for security fixes, because Microsoft are simply fixing defects in the original product.
If a random black hat can break into the machine because of a bug in the operating system, it wasn't really fit for the purpose for which it was sold.
@My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
Though you could argue they are quite similar
With no security issue support, then Win 10 is functional but not necessarily safe (& a given persons Win 10 install may not remain functional)
Your average ransomware crew CBA about a domestic PC, so users likely safe from that if (when) nasty bugs are found & exploited.
However likely to get infested by those running bot farms et. (again still "functional" but likely to have performance impacted)
.. and then there are those who will use exploits to install software to grab data for financial exploits (might be little ransomware value in a home user PC, but if they do online banking, use their card on websites etc. then juicy data to be grabbed & used for financial fraud).
.. So really depends on whether you regard an "unsafe" Win 10 as functional (or not).
e.g. if someone runs their car, with tyres (not USian) below minimum tread depth, (i.e. not "safe") could well be OK driving for a while & so "functional", but come a January morning of snow & ice then maybe not so functional as the lack of grip* causes a crash.
* The UK does get some bad weather - ice & snow not unusual, but too infrequent to make most people bother to be prepared for it. Nor for councils to infest in enough snow ploughs & gritters to do any meaningful clearing (the odd "major" road if you are lucky) when snow strikes.
However not frequently enough that many people bother with specific snow tyres or chains as nowhere near enough bad "Winter" weather to justify it - indeed very few people even bother to run separate Summer & Winter tyres. So that is typical UK scenario of same tyres used all year round (worth a mebntion as plenty of non UK people, used to dealing with snow & ice driving get a bit confused when find out about UK lackadaisical approach to Winter car setup).
.. Which is one reason why a bit of bad Winter weather can cause UK to grind to a halt.
History tells us, MS are likely to announce W12 in a few months, saying it is even more secure etc. than W11, plus it will have “AI coprocessor” support (*) and hence will need new hardware.
(*) with so may OTT claims for AI - both in what it can do and market expectations, MS have to force the adoption pace. So would not be surprised if W11 25H2 is the last version of W11, getting just 3 years of support before dropping into extended support before going EoL in 2031.
As someone coming up to doing the switch over to Linux (Mint Cinammon), if anyone has some good resources with actual details of good prep for the change that would be greatly appreciated.
Good resources please! The number of sites that just say "back up everything" is kinda useless. For example, I have 4 different hard drives filled with photos, movies, game saves, books, documents, etc. Knowing that I can continue to use those hard drives once I've done the install (on a fresh hard drive, not one of those ones) would be useful information. Or what I need to do to ensure that I can continue using those resources without losing everything. Naturally, I need to download linux versions of whatever programs I'm using, that's clear. But there's a lot of assumptions in most of the internet guides, that are really not useful.
So any good sites you can recommend, would be appreciated (I'm sure by plenty of other Vultures finally deciding to take the plunge as well!)...
The disks that don't have Windows on them can be used the same way on the Linux install as on the Windows one. The only one you're likely to need to back up is the one with Windows on it in case repartitioning breaks something, and since you were talking about installing Linux on a new disk, you could even skip that step. If you want to be extra careful, disconnect the data disks until Linux is installed, then plug them back in. It's almost certain that the disks you were using with Windows will connect to Linux natively now because there is now native NTFS support. In previous years, that might have required reformatting and copying, but you're probably good now. That doesn't necessarily apply to Apple filesystems (APFS support is still kind of patchy as of the last time I tried it).
In general, any format that's understood by multiple pieces of software won't need any changes to be usable with Linux software. I think all the stuff you listed should be openable without changing things with the possible exception of the game saves. People do run games on Linux using Proton to emulate Windows, and that might work, but to be sure, you would either have to try each one to verify it or look them up and find reports from others who have done the same thing. If any of your media has DRM on it, that might also be a problem. Otherwise, I think you should be ready to run it and can sort out things by trial and error without the risk of damaging anything permanently.
Without knowing your exact PC specs, it's hard to point you anywhere.
However, the whole point of Linux is that it's easier than Windows these days. A lot easier.
Also, funny thing about Linux, it can easily see all you files after installation, but Windows cannot see any of your Linux files.
So the most basic steps are:
1. Back up your files, if you can
2. Check to see if all of your hardware has Linux support. PC, sound, GPU, printer, monitors, mouse, etc. Chance are over 90% they do. But check and make sure.
3. Follow instruction for making the install thumbdrive or disk. You will need to download something like Belana Etcher. There are others like it, and they are all dirt simple to use. This creates the install media and is required.
4. Run the Linux OS FROM the thumbdrive first as a final test. Yes, it automatically gives you this choice when running from the thumbdrive.
5. Everything works? Install.
6. *****WARNING! DO NOT FORMAT YOUR ENTIRE DRIVE IF YOU WANT TO SAVE FILES ALREADY ON IT.******* Linux will allow you to partition and format just enough of your drive to install the OS if that is what you want
7. As always, files safety is YOUR responsibility.
8. If you still have doubts, just do more research on Mint before final commit. There is no one single go-to website. You have to research and cross reference.
9. Best practice? Again, BACKUP ALL YOUR work files to another external source before install. Go slow and READ all the instructions each step of the way.
Seriously, if you are the least bit tech savvy, you will be surprised at how easy it all is in the end.
"However, the whole point of Linux is that it's easier than Windows these days. A lot easier."
You say this and then go on to say you have to "Check to see if all of your hardware has Linux support. PC, sound, GPU, printer, monitors, mouse, etc."
THIS IS NOT EASIER THAN WINDOWS!
It's bullshit like this that puts people off Linux.
THIS IS NOT EASIER THAN WINDOWS!
It's bullshit like this that puts people off Linux.
How do I check if my hardware is supported? The quick and dirty way:
1) Install live linux on a thumbdrive
2) Boot into thumbdrive
3) Play with hardware to see if something doesn't work
For those of us who actually do check, it's just as easy to look at hardware specs and see what hardware is windows only or requires windows drivers to be shimmed into linux. In that case, other hardware is preferred.
Same can be said for Macs...
SO got a new mac a while ago (old one ancient)
Lots of the ancient hardware peripherals (e.g. printer*) would not work with it.
* I was able to find a workaround, but she would not have been able to sort it out herself (she is clever but definitely non techy & likes Macs as they "just work"**)
** Though not this time obviously. Though most people who have had much to do with IT over the years eventually learn to loathe printer setup with a passion!
-- 4. Run the Linux OS FROM the thumbdrive first as a final test. Yes, it automatically gives you this choice when running from the thumbdrive. --
This is probably the best piece of advice you've been given.
I had a case recently where I was installing Linux Mint Cinnamon onto an old laptop and it wouldn't recognise the wifi driver. Ended up installing Linux Mint LMDE which did have the necessary driver.
How do i find the list of hardware that is supported? A quick internet search basically turns up statements like "you dont need to worry about this anymore, it works fine", "there is no hardware list anymore", etc...
If you have a site where there is an actual list, that would be highly appreciated...
I have 5x 1TB external HDDs which were originally used to back up my Windows work machine. 25 years of work backups plus personal files and thousands of photos.
They are a mixture of Verbatim, Sandisk and WD. They were all formatted under Windows and all work fine with Linux. All work plug & play.
Others have pointed out the steps - *except" I would also suggest, after taking all the safety precautions (including disconnecting extra data drives, just to avoid slips of the finger), seeing if you can shrink down your remaining Windows partition(s) on the boot drive, consolidating all the freed-up space just after the C: drive partition. Start with plain old Windows Disk Management.
After doing that, many (most?) desktop Linux distros will ask if you just want to install Linux into the (now) unused space; a good one will also automagically set up dual boot nicely.
That way, you aren't taking the leap off a cliff and can still get to your Windows setup in case there is something you forgot to do back there. After a suitable time, you can choose to delete that C: drive and subsume the space entirely into your Linux file system.
Honestly, I would grab a reasonably cheap 10 TB USB drive and use that to back up your files, then disconnect it during the Linux installation. That way, if the Linux installer somehow clobbers your local drives, you have a local full backup. If the local drives are formatted with NTFS, you can mount them under Mint with no problem. From there, the main considerations are finding software to replace your Windows programs and learning the ins and outs of Linux. Mint makes it pretty easy, but there's still a learning curve, and the best way I've found to get through the curve is to just use the product and experiment.
I don't have a guide but the installation will involve you running Mint from a USB drive in a trial mode first and clicking something to install it on your hard drive if you're happy with it.
If you don't mind spending a little money and would like another drive for your collection you could do what I did on two Win 10 laptops. For the sake of simplicity and being able to revert, my process was
1. Buy a new drive and put the old one in an external caddy to copy files from later. New drives are pretty cheap now.
2. Fit the new drive before installing.
3. Copy files off your old drive as and when needed. I think I had to run the file manager as admin (i.e. root) to access anything in Windows user directories owing to permissions, but it will prompt you to do this anyway.
On both occasions I've used this model https://amzn.eu/d/c7P7NNh of caddy which seems fine.
Suppose Microsoft gives in, as it well might. What then?
Do these people imagine that the behemoth will thereafter suddenly adopt an ethical mode of business?
Get your breathing space until 2030 and use the time to prepare to put Microsoft, and all its works, behind one.
bullshit.
Designing our devices for blah blah blah ... the problem is that you've designed your software not to install on computers capable of running it.
Cyber attacks increasing in complexity... yeah "Hello helpline... I've lost my password and can you reset it....." for a fair % of attacks, followed by bugs and exploits in a certain popular (god knows why) operating system and applications...
Windows 11 is our most secure ever with a 62% drop in attacks ... yeah good measurement since win 11 is only just struggling to get above win 10/all other OS's in terms of total installs thus will fall below the others even if its an even number of attacks per machine.
Updating our software........ you've been doing that almost every week now for the past 5 years, I'd be shocked if theres any original code left in win 10 from when it was launched and you STILL cannot secure your software.
Add on the bits you missed liked 'recall' 'ai co-pilot' , "one drive" and 1/2 a dozen other features forced on users whether theres a need for them to use them or not and the forced scrapping of millions of PCs , is it any surprise that people are starting to turn away?
Because the security fixes haven't been released back into Widows 10, despite the fact there is no major difference between them under the hood: we just keep running out of time to make that release, being so busy trying to make the Windows 11 Start button just that extra bit worse.
"Windows 11 is the most secure version of Windows ever with a reported 62 percent drop in security incidents, including a 3.0x reduction in firmware attacks in Windows 11 PCs as compared to Windows 10 devices."
So how much of that improvement is due to the TPM 2 or newer CPU requirements? What percentage of attacks make up a firmware attack? (I'll bet it's miniscule). The EU should ask MS to prove that statement. Windows 11 will happily install and run on Windows 10 PC's that don't meet the requirements if you modify the ISO a little bit with tools like Rufus to bypass the checks. I've upgrade a couple like that for testing and I don't see any noticeable performance degradation.
Just did my last ever update to Windows 10, my last Windows OS, shut it down, and air-gapped it from the Internet. I wish I could say I was glad to say goodbye to bad rubbish, but I came up on that rubbish. DOS 4.1, DOS 5.0, DOS 6.22 with Windows 3.1 -- then finally Windows 95 where I really hit my stride. Windows 2000 with it's incredibly spotty drivers. Windows XP-64, hot mess. But I stuck with it because, as my professor once told me, "You dance with what brought you." And it does still play Age of Empires, Rise of Legends, CIV 4,SIMS 3, and other older games. . .and it plays them quite well air-gapped from the Internet. I easily replaced *every* function my Windows 10 machine did with a 19$ Roku, my laptops running Fedora and Ubuntu, and a Sneakernet thumbdrive.
I learned database techniques on FoxPro and Access. I learned spreadsheets on Excel. I learned document/presentation/design on Word, PowerPoint, Visio. My first compilers were Borland back in the day, but I quickly shifted to Visual Studio when it got pretty good (v5).
Yes, my two laptops came with TPM and came with Windows 11 . . . and I quickly nuked them both from space to replace with not TPM and no Windows for Fedora and Ubuntu respectively.
Windows has become my new "Dreamcast" or "PS1" experience. It's nice to have around for nostalgia, but really, is it good for anything more?
Very much use at your own risk but there is a simple PowerShell script out there that lets you enrol for the extra year without jumping through any of Micro$haft's hoops. Think that you need to log in to the M$ account every 60 days to keep it active, then switch back to a local account - once you've navigated the dark patterns that now seem to be in place for that!
I'm tempted to post the script here but not sure if that's acceptable.
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