Microsoft emails Windows 10 holdouts: Fine, keep your old PC another year

Microsoft has begun sending its email of shame to Windows 10 consumers, reminding them that Extended Security Updates will run for an extra year. Strangely, some email clients are treating this latest emission as mere spam. Microsoft last month extended consumer ESU coverage through October 12, 2027. The company is now notifying …

[Uncle Slacky]

Smug Win10 IoT LTSC user here

2032 or bust!

[Roland6]

Re: Smug Win10 IoT LTSC user here

So we potentially have 5 years of MS extending W10 consumer ESU, since MS are already incurring patch development costs.

a relevant question is whether MS are rolling back the platform requirements for W12, so that it can run on W10 compatible hardware, given we can expect the production of cheap consumer equipment to cease and business grade equipment to more than double in price compared to September 2025 prices.

[williamyf]

Re: Smug Win10 IoT LTSC user here

Please remember that the Windows under ESU is 22H2 (with some stuff backported from Win11 after that date).

Meanwhile, IoT LTSC is 21H2. which means that, while some of the userland stuff may be commonal, and therefore, patches developed for IoT may run on ESU too, Kernel stuff is potentially different between one and the other.

Even if Microsoft suddenly felt generous and allowed us to use 21H2, I am not sure if you could do an in-place reversion from normal 22H2 to IoT 21H2, instead of a re-install.

And let's not talk about what would ISVs (like game developers and Office suite and Image/video/sound manipulation SW vendors) say of such a change.

So yes, the existance of IoT LTSC 21H2 does help us on ESU, it is not a panacea, as it does not cover the Whole of the ESU/Normal OS.

[Flocke Kroes]

Wallet voting

A significant proportion of the population have refused to buy a new computer for Windows 11. Microsoft has the choice of keeping the door open to so people can stay with Windows 10 or finding out how many will experiment with Linux. Looks like someone at Microsoft understands FAFO.

[simonlb]

Re: Wallet voting

And for non-corporate users, every week, the number of people who literally cannot afford to buy a new PC increases even more, with those who were going to 'hold-off' for a while no longer having that as an option.

[Steve Davies 3]

Re: Wallet voting

It might not be a question of refusing but being able to afford the IMHO totally unnecessary upgrade to W!1.

With the US Economy in a recession thanks to Donald 'No more wars' Trump, and his inflationary policies including tariffs, many people are living from paycheck to paycheck, if they have a job.

AI is throwing a huge spanner into the works. Many companies are laying off workers in order to be able to afford this nebulus thing called AI. I'm just waiting for a big Fortune 500 company to go TITSUP because AI fails to deliver for its bottom line.

Microslop can FSCK itself. Proudly MS free since 2016.

[Doctor Syntax]

Another way of looking at it is they're getting users accustomed to something that looks very much like paying subscriptions for Windows.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in EU !

[Alan Bourke]

They'll pry my 10 year old laptop with SSD upgrade that's perfectly fine for arsing around on

from my cold dead hands.

[Annihilator]

Family IT support...

So.. what should I be doing with my mother-in-law's old Win10 machine that can't upgrade? I've been ignoring the problem til now..

My technique to date has been "make sure the backup is pretty solid.."

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: Family IT support...

I upgraded my t460 to W11 recently as it has a nice 4tb SSD which is great for our OneDrive backups and a bit of resilio sync for public docs and music (which uses over half of its capacity)

Rufus came to the rescue

Only did it because it has not updated W10 for a while and as the disk is not nvme I could not move to another device

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: Family IT support...

Put Win10 IoT LTS on it.

https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

[X5-332960073452]

Re: Family IT support...

And have a look at - https://massgrave.dev/tsforge - for the ESU 3 year (no payment required! - monetary or privacy)

[Fluffy Cactus]

Re: Family IT support...

How do I know you are not a hacker?

[Roland6]

Re: Family IT support...

If in the UK/EU ensure it is enrolled on the customer ESU, and it is running a reputable security site with full browser protections, that buys you time.

If you want to do more, it might be worth investing in WS2022/25…

[williamyf]

Re: Family IT support...

While I agre with the recomendation of Windows Server 2022 (with desktop experience), WS2025, (with desktop experience), may be a bridge too far for (drivers wise) a machine that can not upgrade to Win11.

Remember, much of this "Install Windows Server with Desktop Experience to extend support" depends on WinServer being happy with the drivers for such old hardware.

And also with your SW being happy running there.

Also, may I point out that WinServer 2019DE, supported until Jan 2030 is also a cromulent option if WS2022DE does not support the drivers of your old hardware, or if your software is not happy running there..

Also, may I point out that Microsoft allows for a trial of WinServer (Example for 2022: https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-windows-server-2022.html ), 90 days if memory serves, so you could install both, and see which one works best in your old hardware...

Unlike Win10 LTSC IoT, which puts you in a gray area from a certification, regulatory, legal and EULA areas, individuals can buy WinServer DE witout impediment, so, if you care about such stuff, WinServer DE 2019/2022 is the way to go.

[Roland6]

Re: Family IT support...

Agree, whilst my preference was for WS2019 Std (*), getting hold of “affordable” licences seems (from my experience) to be much harder these last couple of years, whereas 22/25 have been more readily available and affordable.

Basically, with the uncertainty originating from Redmond, it does seem the best we can do is buy some time and seriously look at alternatives to Windows; with all the knock on effects that willl have on the family and the family support service.

(*) For most end user desktop uses, STD is sufficient. However, if you will be wanting to run up lots of concurrent Windows VM’s DE is a better buy.

My circa 2020 Lenovo laptop fully supports WS2019 and drivers can be downloaded from Lenovo.

[DJV]

Strangely, some email clients are treating this latest emission as mere spam

There's nothing "strange" about it!

[Nelbert Noggins]

Nice, plenty of time for the amd hdmi 2.1 code to be merged so I can finally switch my gaming pc from win 10 to linux

[BinkyTheMagicPaperclip]

There's an easy way around that

Add support for older, perfectly capable systems back to Windows 11, rather than praying people will have upgraded in a year.

Given that Microsoft are one of the people driving up the cost of systems with their support of 'AI', you reap what you sow.

Still, gives me another year to move to FreeBSD.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: There's an easy way around that

"Add support for older, perfectly capable systems back to Windows 11"

There's no money in that.

There's money in selling a new licence wrapped up in new hardware.

There's money in selling extended support.

There's money in using some hardware requirement to avoid a suit from people who would otherwise have to be forced to use one of the other money-making options by being denied an upgrade simply on the date of their licence.

Why do people fail to see that Microsoft isn't come kindly charitable organisation that would adopt the first two but not the third?

[Marty McFly]

Re: There's an easy way around that

>"There's money in selling a new licence wrapped up in new hardware."

Wrong.

The real money is in monetizing the user after the sale. What products can we market to them? Who would pay us money for that data?

[Fluffy Cactus]

Re: There's an easy way around that

Ever since MSDOS 6.22 was no longer a thing, I never thought that MSFT was a kindly charitable organization.

[DS999]

They are going to have no choice but to keep extending this

Getting people to buy a new PC when RAM/NAND prices keep going higher and higher is not going to work, especially less wealthy countries. If they try to squeeze them into buying a new PC to run Windows 11, they risk losing some of them to Linux - and once they've left Windows behind there is little chance of them coming back.

[williamyf]

Re: They are going to have no choice but to keep extending this

In less wealthy countries (and I know first hand, I live in venezuela and worked in colombia), when RAM and HDD prices were low, there was no way to make people move from XP to Vista/7. people hacked the OS to get ESU and POS-Ready (that era's IoT), and even server patches, even if that made the OS a vulnerable frankenmoster, instead of moving into the new OSs

But that was not only due to lack of funds, it was resistance to change.

Some people saw staying on an unsupported system as some sort of "badge of honour". I saw it with 98->2000, 98 -> XP, XP-> Vista, XP-> 7, 7 -> 10, and now we see it with 10 -> 11... If you do not believe me, do some paleontology in the wayback machine on forums of the era...

Nothing new under the sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: They are going to have no choice but to keep extending this

No sir, it is not a "badge of honor" to keep using something that still works fine, when there is no financial or technical reason to have something worse rammed down your throat.

Resistance to change can be a good thing. Especially when one resists to a change that makes everything worse!

Americans once resisted to the bad change coming from Mad King George. That was pretty good. Now some of them elected their own mad king, and some of them are resisting to that bad change!

Napoleon wanted to change France, then most of Europe, then even Russia. Resisting to that change was good.

Nutsis wanted to change France. The French Resistance thought that was not a good change, so (hence the name) they resisted. But enough about history and politics!

Windows 11 is a BAD CHANGE, because the so-called Microsoft Windows RECALL system would take a screen shot every 5 seconds and send that info to the MS mothership. This is such a complete

SURVEILLANCE AND ANTI PRIVACY model, which cannot be accepted by anyone who is BY LAW REQUIRED to keep client data safe, such as Tax Accountants, Doctors, Lawyers, Scientists, Patent

info, Banks, Financial Investment and Insurance companies, and on and on.

The fact that MSFT even thought that this was a good idea only tells me that they have sold out to each and every US, British, and who knows what other ruthless government agency (such as CIA, FBI,

MI6, GRU, China, NK, Saudis, as well as any and every hacker in the world, etc.) shows me that they already do not give a flying cluck about anyone's private data.

And given this obvious fact that MS does not care, they can no longer be trusted even when they "promise not to do something!" Windows RECALL IS A MAIN REASON THAT PEOPLE REFUSE TO

UPGRADE TO WINDOWS 11. I can say that without having any type crazy gambling, drug, dark web, porn or other compromising material on my computer. If you were to include those weird and

criminal computer users in the calculation, this would give you another reason why some people refuse Win 11 with the WIN RECALL machine.

The fact is also that any and all software companies on this absurd planet currently still enjoy something akin to ABSOLUTE LEGAL IMMUNITY. Even when they get sued, they deny, delay, appeal and

squeal, bribe and threaten, until the judgment is whittled down to a "bearable cost of doing business". This is an issue that could only be fixed and regulated by a world-wide agreement of all

governments to give all software companies a red line in the sand, which they are not supposed to cross. Yes, I am dreaming, but it's not a bad dream, and it would be a good change.

The only thing I don't understand is: "Why do most people not understand this?" As long as software companies are attacking human rights, human dignity, human self determination, I will keep

on saying things of this nature. Thank You!

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: They are going to have no choice but to keep extending this

Microsoft are not being forced into this. It serves two purposes. Firstly, it screws more income from the Windows 10 licences it already sold. Secondly, it establishes the principle of paying annually for Windows.

My possible scenarios for W12 are:

1. You can have a choice of using the subscription only W12, starting to pay a subscription to keep the Windows 11 that you already bought or keeping paying the subscription for the Windows 10 you've already bought and have been subscribing for for a few years.

2. You can upgrade from your W10 or 11 (or even 7) to the new subscription only W12.

[DS999]

Re: They are going to have no choice but to keep extending this

But no one is paying for this, these are consumers getting the extension for free. Yes there are also corporations paying for the extensions, but they weren't the subject of this article.

[rlightbody]

From an impartial security viewpoint, is Windows 10 less secure than Windows 11 in real life scenarios in the real world?

i.e. is there evidence of more Win10 machines being hacked etc. than Win11?

[Cruachan]

Would be interesting to see as percentages, I suspect there will be more W10 machines getting pwn3d but whether that's just down to hackers going for the system that there's more of is the question.

[Roland6]

What is going to be interesting, is the extent to which MS is actively vulnerability scanning the W10 code base and releasing fixes.

As if properly managed, fully patched W10 in 1~2 years could be reasonably secure. Add on top an up to date browser with real-time web security and messaging clients (eg. Email, chat, social media, etc.) and you’ve probably got a system that, in part due to the lack of further updates is reasonably secure.

[DS999]

Depends on what you do with it

When both are fully patched I'm sure the security is basically equivalent. But even when 10 is not patched it may be nearly as secure if you don't really use the "OS" for anything.

My mom has a Windows 10 PC. I haven't even bothered to sign her up for this update thing since I don't think it is worth the hassle given her usage model. Basically she does three things with her PC. She reads email (using Thunderbird) browser the web (using Firefox) and plays Solitaire type games I installed for her years ago which don't use the internet at all.

Since Firefox and Thunderbird are automatically patched, she's getting 95% of what she needs to keep her PC secure despite being behind on Windows patches. She also does not trust computers at all for anything important so she doesn't even have logins set up with her bank, brokerage, insurance or anything health related and never buys anything via the internet so they can't even get her credit card number. So even if her PC is compromised the hackers will be disappointed that the only thing they can get their hands on is emails to members of her bridge club lol

[druck]

Re: Depends on what you do with it

If they gain access to her email account, they can compromise any accounts which use email for a password reset.

Even if she doesn't have on-line accounts, email allows miscreants to sign her up for some, order credit cards, and run up debts.

Also don't forget the scams they can perform on her relatives should they be able to send and receive email which seem to be form her.