Win10 still clings to over 40% of devices weeks after Microsoft pulls support As the dust settles over the end of support for many versions of Windows 10, the operating system remains a significant presence in the Windows market. While Microsoft is hoping for a mass move to Windows 11 - its flagship OS - devices running the predecessor, Windows 10, are still everywhere. This is despite Microsoft making …
@may_i
"It has been replaced with Bazzite and runs very nicely."
I looked at Bazzite for mine too but in the end went with cachyOS, it runs pretty good too for games. How is yours? At some point I need to mess around with some multidisk installs (old games) but I got a good few steam ones going.
I am irritated I cant get Rainbow Six Siege to multiplayer on linux but it had serious problems on windows making it unplayable too.
What with Bazzite being an immutable system, it presents a few challenges. The fact that you can't just install anything like you would on a normal distro is preventing me from installing the client for my backup system. Maybe I can live with that and make backups of the system on a manual and more infrequent basis. The fact that all my games are either downloaded from Steam or GoG means that I can always re-download them. However, there may be a way for me to get this working via a container, but I haven't had time to fully dig into that yet.
The only thing that is going to present problems is multi-player games that do dodgy stuff at the Windows kernel level for anti-cheat functionality. I don't play online multi-player games, so this isn't an issue for me. I wouldn't have bought these games for Windows anyway.
@may_i
I cant say I have any experience with immutable distros. I hope it works well for you. I play a couple of online multiplayer games but thankfully they work out of the box. Fingers crossed windows 11 pushes game developers to better support linux
My aged parents laptop needed replacing - I had already persuaded them that they would do better with a desktop given they nver moved it from the desk and with failing eyesight a bigger screen was better.
They were going to buy a new machine once they got back off holiday, instead I managed to intercept an old desktop from work that was destined for recycling becasue it was out of wrrranty and also probably wouldn't meet the Window 11 requirements -stuck linux on it and made sure it worked with their printer and scanner. After a couple of weeks with it my Father is now as competent as he was with windows (which isn't saying much) and the learning curve for him was probably no worse than it would have been getting used to Windows 11.
The advantages - no microsoft tracking, it will be harder for him to mess up by clicking on things he doesn't understand and he has got a much better computer than the low cost box he would have got from Currys/PCWorld - not that he really needs anything too and my mother can now play her card games without adverts, even if the inteface isn't quite as refined.
All my Win10 capable PCs are signed up for the free ESU, so I'm doing nothing.
There is no way I'm going to junk perfectly good hardware I use at home just because they stop supporting Win10.
At worst after the end of the free ESU, I'll just run them with third party firewalls and anti-virus. Some I might convert to Linux over time, probably Debian.
I'm not planning to buy another PC, as they don't do anything I can't do with other hardware, like a Raspberry Pi, and I'd probably buy a Pi 500+.
The reign of Wintel is over.
No need or rush to upgrade
Neither of my Win10 capable PCs are signed up for the free ESU, so I'm doing nothing. Everything is fine. The machines are getting a bit elderly, so I do face the dilemma of either taming the Win11 machine that is sitting idle, or planning a complete switch to Linux Mint.
I do feel sorry for corporate IT managers who have no way to thumb their noses at MS.
To be fair to Windows (ugh. Sorry. I just threw up in my mouth a little) that sounds more like the typical corporate image bloat. I have a similar-specced machine from my employer and by the time the corporate stuff had been added on (VPN client, endpoint management, watchdogs, etc etc) it was brought to its knees - the fan whines constantly and the battery now lasts a comparable time to yours.
By comparison, I have a couple of slightly lesser-spec Thinkpads running plain unpolluted Windows 11, and they're as snappy as Windows 10 and get 8+ hours on battery.
Not only that, organisations like the NCSC and others offer pre-configured templates of GPOs in a suggested configuration, which disables most if not all of the consumer features and sets the suggested security levels. I still see loads of companies refusing to deploy anything like that to avoid upsetting their users though.
You can block telemetry, Copilot and all that, you know.
You think you can, but it's all stll sending everything to Redmond (unless you disconnect it entirely from t'web). It might tell you that its telemetry is off, but it really isn't.
It's slow, bloated crapware, anyway.
I have a similar laptop, similar issues. I believe I have narrowed the primary culprit down to Dell's SupportAssist software, which will hammer the drive and CPU periodically. If the machine is struggling, take a look in the Task Manager to see what process is blowing up.
Popular operating system much more sticky than Windows 7 was during its EOL
You could upgrade Win7 to Win8.1 after Win7 went EOL.
In many cases, you cannot upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 because only a 8 core/16 thread PC with 32GB of RAM not on the supported list is no longer enough to run a Windows OS.
All of this perfectly task adequate equipment therefore either needs to stay on Win10 unsupported, have somebody jump through an awful lot of hoops to make the installer install despite not meeting the nominal requirements, or switch to another OS.
"In many cases, you cannot upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 because only a 8 core/16 thread PC with 32GB of RAM not on the supported list is no longer enough to run a Windows OS."
Which means a company is going to need to replace everybody's box, give them all training and put up with the hit to efficiency until 80% are back up to speed (assuming 20% deadwood (execs)). What was the advantage again?
Nobody can answer this question: What benefits, other than "support", does Windows 11 bring to users compared to Windows 10?
The problem is that there aren't any, at least not obviously. Instead it's more enshittified and more bloated with spyware. It's a downgrade, not an upgrade. Windows 10 is pretty stable (so was 7), so not getting support doesn't mean much, at least if you take reasonable firewalling precautions and don't click on spam attachments.
So I'm sticking with 10
Yes and delighting in no regular interruption to service that win Updates always were, with the risk of bricking your machine at every update, hence needing to ensure you've backed up first.
I have put non-MS anti-malware on the machines, so they are a little slower to boot but hey.
The problem is that there aren't any, at least not obviously. Instead it's more enshittified and more bloated with spyware. It's a downgrade, not an upgrade.
From my point of view it's worse than that - they are actively removing features I use. Windows Mixed Reality (as used by my HP Reverb G2 VR set) has been forcibly removed from windows 11 after I think Q2 this year(?) so "upgrading" to W11 will render this useless. And while I have discovered there are a couple of Linux projects designed to support it, the main thing I use it with absolutely does not support Linux.
So W10 is staying.
I'd still run it save for the absence of patches.
.. and there is the real reason why people keep paying the tithe to run their own machines: security.
By now, I am 100% convinced that every MS Patch Tuesday contains new bugs so they can keep sending updates and users keep paying for subscriptions. I mean, after a year of patches and literally terabytes of patches you'd think they have closed some doors but no, that's when they start anew with a new OS. IMHO it's getting a tad too obvious now that they are really taking the piss.
Any other software environment gets away with a lot less hassle (with the exception of Adobe who seem to use the same strategy now)..
I have a laptop that works perfectly well with Win10 and Linux (dual-boot). It won't run Win11 and I don't see why I should ditch a perfectly good laptop because of some arbitrary MS requirement, so no Windows 11 there.
I did discover that my main desktop machine, which runs Linux but is also not good enough for Win11, will actually run it in a VirtualBox VM. No doubt MS will break that at some point, but I did take a snapshot of the Win10 image before upgrading it, and I did take a snapshot of the working Win11 image once it was done, so hopefully I'll be able to keep something running. It only exists because I have one Windows-only piece of software I have to run once or twice a year and it's insisting on Win11 now.
As many people will no doubt post, they've switched to Linux (or MacOS, or in a few cases, BSD). That's fine for individuals, but it doesn't help the larger problem.
I switched all of my machines except one almost two years ago, and the one remaining machine is not connected to the internet.
While we may not have to worry about our insecure machines being attacked, unpatched Windows 10 machines are botnet nodes waiting to be exploited, which is still going to be a pain. DDoS attacks are already a pain; this is going to make them a lot worse.
I'd like to think some enterprising people will offer third party security updates (like 0code) to Win10 holdouts, but even if it's free, I doubt most users will take advantage of it.
> unpatched Windows 10 machines are botnet nodes waiting to be exploited
But are they? Is the risk overstated? Especially when you read *how* these things get into systems : most of the time it is a compromised account or someone blindly clicking on a link.
They will still get AV updates is using the M$ service (hell, even on my win 7 machines Windows Defender still gets definition updates) and as long as you run at paranoid levels of trust for stuff on the internet the risk level is very low. It can never be zero even with a fully supported system.
Solution I see here is to use Linux for your web browsing and email , and wrap the rest up in cotton wool and keep them away from the internet!
We have two computers in the office at home for web browsing, homework, etc.
The newer one (2 years old) upgraded itself to Windows 11 last year. The older one (6 years old) Windows Update tells me is not compatible with Windows 11 because the CPU is too old. The only thing it can offer to do is refer me to places where I can buy a new computer.
Of course, we know I could do a fresh install of Windows 11 bypassing the CPU check, but I've been too lazy to figure out how to jump through the hoops to do the update.
My discussions with friends and previous customers (now retired) is that they won't buy a new PC, since they don't need it any more.
Local E-mail (not webmail), web browsing, web banking, writing an odd document here and there and printing sometihng out once in a while is all they want to do.
Some have old apps that are Windows only which need to be kept around for a bit - old CCTV clients and the like. There is virtually nothing that people NEED windows for any more, particularly as most spend all day on their phone for messaging and the like.
I've updated a number of machines to 11, where they were prevented deliberately in the BIOS to not have 11, no TPM here for example. Others were under the claimed minimum specs and helped along to overcome that. Several others have just gone Debian or Mint and dumped Windows alltogether.
It does seem a lot slower than Win10 on the same hardware with no gain in anything that people care about, even with some of the cruft turned off via WinAeroTweaker.
Its important to note that none of them decided to go and buy a new PC, none of them give a rats ass about AI.
In about 14 months I won't need Windoze at all. I currently only have MS Office as some of my customers are wedded to MS docx / xlsx / pptx file formats. Unfortunately the files are sufficiently complex that LibreOffice occasionally screws up some of the formatting. I'm currently running a HP Probook on W10 with 16GB of RAM and I've no intention to downgrading to W11. SWMBO's laptop has W11 and I hate it. My daily driver laptop is running Mint quite happily.
My machine is running Office 2010 which is perfectly adequate for what I need and I still have a spare license just in case. I also have some legacy software which I use fairly regularly which won't run under Linux or Win11.
One of my long standing customers has told me that if I wish to continue working for them I need to be cyber essentials certified, thus W11 plus Office 365 with all security updates installed plusreplacement CAD software (there's actually no direct replacement).
I have told the customer that if they want me to become cyber essentials certified it will cost them £3,500 for a new laptop plus software and getting it set up, and another £5,000 for the admin to sort out all the information needed to get certified and another £3 - £4,000 for getting someone in to certify my new system. As I only expect to do £10,000 worth of work for them in the future, I've declined to quote for the current work package.
Excuse my guys but you've mistaken me for someone who gives a sh!t.
CE only requires that the software is licensed and supported, and recommended (mandatory for highs and criticals) that all released updates are applied within 14 days of release.
Easily managed with most Linux Distros.
CE audit costs £320 + VAT for less than 10 employees, and comes with £25k cyber insurance, if your turnover is less than £20 mil.
CE+ is a bit more onerous, but usually about a day and a half of consultancy to get that cert
Win 11 is spyware incarnate. I spent months cleaning out all the hidden crap and every few months, I find new stuff I have to turn off, disable or delete. It's a very deep rabbit hole of spyware. Win 10 was bad enough, but Win 11 is a train wreck.
Every time I touch my Linux box, it's pure relief to not have to worry about any of that crap.
I only have Win 11 at home as I still do corporate support and it's my daily test bench. I can do testing things on it that corporate won't allow. I also still have one Win 10 box, but it's actually a dual boot Win/Linux, so when it finally becomes unable to defend itself, I'll just boot to Linux and be done with it.
My third box is Linux and has been for years.
I have Win11 in a VM on my MacBook as I occasionally have to soil my hands and soul using it.
The VM allows me to contain this pest, but it's entertaining to see just how long it needs to get ready when it hasn't been used for a few weeks (as I don' have to use it often). The amount of updates it has to grab before it's actually usable (in the loosest possible sense) is astonishing and makes me glad I don't have to use this on a daily basis.
Compared to the Mac and the Linux box driving my storage it is not very impressive. Both Mac and Linux cube (it's a Ryzen 7 mini) beat it in stability, and the Mac is so much more usable there is no comparison (I only access the Linux box via SSH :) ).
Win10 is going away? Who knew? Have you asked your bartender, insurance agent, dry cleaner? Do they even have a clue what Windows they are on? This has not made major headlines on Google News, AP News, BBC News, nor on the few TV channels I can stomach. The only widespread "Sky is falling!!!" seems to be the pop-ups that tried to install Win11 (and often failed).
And on my street, if the Windows machines punk-out, George and Jimmy will do it all on their phones.
This is big angst only in communities like elReg.
for state admin purposes. digital certs, electronic signing crap etc because the state software is so shit. Yesterday on one state website help page I read that their customer facing web stuff when you actually want to do something serious only works under Internet Explorer and I had to install that!
If it's a "modern" website it works on windows with edge or chrome.
So today I'm away to install Edge on Mint .Wish me luck.
Dear commentards above,
We don't give a fig about you, the interested, the educated and the engaged. You are almost too few to count. We have largely stitched up the education, retail and business sectors in most of the world to ensure that the vast majority of people are not even aware that an alternative desktop OS even exists. Apple is a brand, Google is a brand, Microsoft is a brand, that's what matters, people buy and trust brands thanks to modern marketing. We take orders from businesses by the thousand for each little winger like you on some obscure tech comments page. It's not that we don't like you, we just don't care.
Yours,
Microsoft.
Such low volume though, it doesn't touch the sides. Chrome books on the other hand... Now they've become a serious threat to Microsoft's historic dominance in education, and they have the unfortunate (for Microsoft) side-effect of demonstrating that for the average user, a web browser is largely sufficient these days.
From the last paragraph of the article: "Microsoft's next goal is the adoption of AI services, and the company has said it intends to add assistants and agents to Windows. It has not, however, said it will repeat the hardware compatibility stunt of Windows 11, where it attempted a forced upgrade." Not yet, they haven't. But if they're going to add all that AI junk, maybe the hardware to run Windows 12 will require an NPU.
I have free ESU on one PC and will probably do a couple more. Then it's Linux time since the budget doesn't support new hardware. I've already installed Linux Mint on the machine we use to stream on and it was seamless, right down to detecting my printer and installing drivers.
I have tested FlyOOBE to install on unsupported hardware but I'd rather not have Windows 11 in my house. At work I've been on 11 for almost a year and the clients are almost entirely migrated or on ESU.
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