Gentle reminder to everyone that support for #windows10 ends in about 90 weeks. Many computers can’t upgrade to Win 11 so here are your options:
- Continue on Win 10 but with higher security risks.
- Buy new and expensive hardware that supports Win11.
- Try a beginner friendly #Linux distro like #linuxmint. It only takes about two months to acclimate.
I understand you want people to switch to Linux but
- 90 weeks is far away. It drops in October 2025
- You’ll still get security updates for a few years
- After that there will be paid support which people will get around and find ways to install
- Windows 10 LTSC (best version of Windows IMO) still exists. The Enterprise LTSC version will have support till 2027 and the IoT version will have support till 2032. You can get them if you know how to look around
Plus, you can actually install Windows 11 on the same hardware as Windows 10 pretty easily. Microsoft just does not want you to.
All the more time for Valve to expand on Proton and push Linux compatibility, and for EA and the rest to get their thumbs out of their collective asses and support it at all
Its quite difficult to get legit LTSC licenses unless you’re a large org.
Last time I looked into it anyway. You can buy ltsc keys from third parties but AFAIK Microsoft will deactivate the license if they realize how you acquired it.
I’ll just leave this here for educational purposes https://massgrave.dev/ https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts
Yeah I wasn’t talking about getting it the legal way. They don’t care unless you’re a business.
I’ve seen non-tech users in Linux many times. It doesn’t take them 2 months to acclimatise, at most 2 weeks but typically just 2 days. If there’s a blocker, there’s a blocker (like “my shitty bank requires some shitty software installed and they don’t support Linux”) but if there are no blockers it’s really quick. 95% of normal users just need a browser. The next 4% need LibreOffice. It’s only the last 1% that have some need that doesn’t sit in an office package or the browser.
We, the gamers, the geeks, the golems, WE have needs that may not be satisfied with Linux. But we are not normal users. So about 3% of us can be bothered to try and accept the missing software (and learn to love the new - God there are some apps I miss when in Windows), the remaining 97% either try and can’t accept the new habits required or don’t try.
But normal users?! Stick them in Mint Linux and show them where the browser is and they’ll be fine.
IMHO.
Normal users don’t even need a PC. Most of what they do can be handled on a phone or tablet.
Further evidence for this is ChromeOS. It’s just a Linux distro, but worse. It does little more than run Chrome. Yet it’s popular. Anyone that tolerates ChromeOS would have an even better time on most of the standard distros if they had someone to set it up for them.
We, the gamers, the geeks, the golems
What does ‘golem’ mean in this context?
I’m old. I’m low-end overweight. I don’t shave for days. I’ve been in tech for decades. I was describing myself and my ilk as golems.
Also, it just happened to alliterate with gamers and geeks.
I am curios too!
Why is Libre Office always the goto? I’ve been trying every MS Office alternative and Libre is way down on this list. It doesn’t compare. In my searching, I even found video of the creators seeming more keen to (rightly) blame MS for compatibility issues. Meanwhile alternatives just work with the reality and reduce differences in exchanging files from the world’s most common option. Plus, and this is more personal, Libre Office is dog doo ugly. Ditto for Gimp.
As someone newer to Linux, people really don’t emphasize enough the need to find alternative software that fits into one’s life. It’s all fine to say it’s all just new setups and once you learn them your good, but most world interactions with tech that isn’t your own will be Windows. Why fight the stream when you Don’t have to? There are lot of alternate Office programs is what I am saying and some are almost as good as massively funded MS Office.
Dunno really. I hardly use any office app except for Excel on Windows. What are the best alternatives in your view?
Sorry I vented on you lol. WPS Office is one I liked a lot but I learned they are following local laws and so have had instances of invading privacy when using any cloud connecting aspect. It made me not trust them even outside of cloud use. It’s very very well out together though. I wish it weren’t something I felt insecure using because it is really nice.
I consider Only Office to be my goto at the moment. I still have more to try though, more obscure ones. It has only bugged on me once when I resized the window a lot, greeting me with an all white window with no UI.
Libre I tried a lot to make me love it. It just feels designed by someone who wants to make a point against MS. I did also try a complete overhaul to adjust the UI a lot but even the functionality of it just doesn’t seem to do as well when working closely with MS Office users.
I know people like to hate on windows here but come on: 90 weeks is another ~18 months. It’s near the end of 2025.
While absolutely true, what you’re saying, saying 90 weeks instead of any alternative (630 days!) Is just trying to make it sounds worse than it is to push an agenda.
I agree. This post seems like a half-assed attempt to get people to switch to Linux. 90 weeks. Jesus.
You have 5443200 seconds to make your choice.
90 weeks is more like 20 month and i could calculate that off of my head by knowing that a year has 52 weeks. I would have struggled more with days.
You could make this criticism about any date metric that it gets more or less easy to translate into a different metric.
Weeks are perfectly fine and most commonly used in the business context.
Your point about weeks is irrelevant, if OP wanted to be clear with the information they would have said the easiest term (about 2 years)
How is “about two years” more clear? about two years for me subjectively means everything between 20 and 28 month. Do you know how much time that is? about half a year. But for someone else it might mean 22 and 26 month. Or 18 and 30 month.
You’re leaving out the context that the time limit should be way longer given how long previous versions of Windows have been supported. Ending Windows 10 support when they are is a deliberate effort to force adoption of Windows 11 and avoid the embarrassment of Windows 8’s failure. They learned it’s better to scare users into compliance than to actually attract them with well developed, feature rich software. The hardware requirements just make it more egregious.
Stop giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, they have demonstrated more than enough times they don’t deserve it. This is them strong arming users into doing something they don’t want to do, and it should be rightfully called out for what it is: shitty.
the time limit should be way longer given how long previous versions of Windows have been supported.
The lifecycle of Win10 is actually pretty similar to that of the previous versions, which is about ~10 years. The only difference with Win10 is that it went without a successor for so long, that they’ve basically skipped one major release, leading to this relatively small timeframe between a new Windows and the EOL of the previous version.
I agree though. Given the circumstances they should’ve made an an exception and increased the lifespan for at least one or two years.
the time limit should be way longer given how long previous versions of Windows have been supported.
What version would that be?
- Windows XP: 2001-10-25 to 2014-04-08, ~12.5 years
- Windows Vista: 2007-01-30 to 2017-04-11, ~10 years
- Windows 7: 2009-10-22 to 2020-01-14, ~10 years
- Windows 8/8.1: 2012-10-26 to 2023-01-10, ~10 years
- Windows 10: 2015-07-29 to 2025-10-14, ~10 years
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions
A thing I wish more Linux enthusiasts were more up front about: And prepare for PAPER CUTS! Because they’re there. Most Linux folks ^1 probably do 5-6 things a day that new folks would find confusing or infuriating, just because they Get Used To It.
A perfect example: My Linux desktop is a System76 Thelio-r2 running Manjaro KDE latest, which I LOVE. Every time I boot it up, if I want to use my BT speakers or headphones ^2 I have to go into the BT settings panel, wonder why it says “Bluetooth Disabled - Enable Bluetooth”, click the button, and move on with my day.
Turns out this is because of a kernel bug in the latest kernel versions with Intel bluetooth hardware. The driver times out at system boot, and thus the system is disabled by default. By the time you’re fully booted, that time out never happens so if you just click Enable, you’re good to go.
And these things are additive. They pile up and increase frustration for end users who aren’t savvy enough to know which forums to search on or what search terms to pump into their search engines.
This does not mean you shouldn’t try Linux. Please do! It can be a life changer and a serious power up! But be aware that the path will have many small roadblocks that need to be traversed, so just set your expectations accordingly, explore and have fun!
^1: I use Windows, Linux and Mac as need dictates. Let “tool to task” be the whole of the law :)
^2: Perfect example: Many Linux users wouldn’t use Bluetooth speakers! They’d get wired ones or one of those RF thingies that has long time Linux driver support. But if you’re new, you don’t know that!
I gave Manjaro a shot recently and Bluetooth was 90% unusable for anything but my mouse. Keyboard? Nope. Headset? Nope. Other headset? Nope. Bluetooth speaker? Nope. Unfortunately, it is a brand new Intel motherboard, so I can’t even get WiFi as athk12 or whatever isn’t really done. I was shocked I could get bluetooth to work at all. Sound wasn’t that great through a USB headset either, but then I could at least hear people. For me, I can really only use trackballs now and the USB port on the mouse is for charging only. Bluetooth compatibility is very very important to me and it still being shitty on any system in 2024 blows my damn mind.
Only other potential issue would be something with how Proxmox is doing passthrough, but I had just as much trouble pairing with Debian underneath through the terminal as I did with the Manjaro VM. On another note, the GPU passthrough is amazing and I had a good time playing games for the first time on Linux. This machine was never intended for gaming, but I thought it would be fun to take a server to a LAN party. Sliger case for the win! Just a 3U.
Yeah, “brand new” hardware is rough in the Linux-verse :) I think Linux advocates need to be more up front with that as well. Quite a number of them are rocking 15 year old Thinkpads because that’s what they read will maximize compatibility.
Linux kernels are YEARS ahead of anything MS or Mac can handle.
It just takes a little learning and patience to deal with a system that belongs in the future.
Linux users complain about the kernel being so advanced and big covering industrial hw and hw not yet released in the market.
Partial list of things you haven’t tried or researched?
There is another list for realtek, you have to know the specific chip you need fw for.bcm20702a1–fw BCM20702A1
bcm20702b0–fw BCM20702B0
bcm20703a1–fw BCM20703A1
bcm43142a0–fw BCM43142A0
bcm4335c0–fw BCM4335C0
bcm4350c5–fw BCM4350C5
bcm4356a2–fw BCM4356A2
Friendly tutorial for those looking to swap to an easy-to-use modern distro!
I’m a certified Microsoft hater, but man, 90 weeks? I get it, we want Gnu-Linux to be more streamlined, but his is certainly not the way. This is tech fearmongering.
Honestly, this isn’t really fearmongering. It’s just fact in this post and nothing is exaggerated.
Yeah. Did you know that Andromeda Galaxy will collide with Milky Way in 4.5 billion years? Gotta watch out for that one as well.
That likely won’t cause any problems because of the sheer volume of empty space between stars.
But anyways, disingenuous argument much? 2 years in the grand scheme of things is not a long time away.
You may be pretty heavily discounting the influence of gravity.
I do not think that risk of collision based on current trajectory is the only thing to consider.
I’m not an astronomer so I might be wrong, but wouldn’t the gravitational influence of stars from Andromeda in the Milky Way still be negligible, again because of much empty space there is?
Gravity is not just attraction to the closest thing but also the heaviest thing.
As the galaxies “pass” each other, all stars will be attracted to the dense cores of each galaxy. That is going to change the trajectory of individual stars and, as an aggravate effect, the overall shape and distribution. Unless the galaxies are aligned on the same angle, this is going to drag stars off the primary plane.
As the galaxies approach, the arms will stretch out to each other. As they pass through each other, the planes will tug on each other, and after they “exit”, the arms will reach back.
All this new motion will disrupt the natural shape and trajectory of the galaxy as a whole. Depending on the momentum, it could get pulled back and the whole process could happen again ( and again ) with greater disorder each time.
How long until Steam drops support on W10?
That’s the important event, lol
Well they only just dropped support for Win7 and that came out in 2009.
I am using windows 10 on my tv pc so that’s all I cae about.
I missed the “90 weeks” bit - you made it sound like it was coming soon, you cheeky scamp.
Windows 10 will reach end of support on October 14, 2025. The current version, 22H2, will be the final version of Windows 10, and all editions will remain in support with monthly security update releases through that date.
Gives me these kinda vibes.
CLickbait bullshit and everyone that upvoted is responsible. This is stupid, you can do better.
1 it is.
But…but…I was told W10 was the last OS I’d ever have to install!!
Edit: context
While Microsoft Vice President for Operating Systems Terry Myerson didn’t exactly say that when he kicked off the Jan. 21 presentation of the company’s plans for Windows 10, that message was still clear.Extrapolation by the writer in order to generate clicks by having a catchy headline? Impossible!
Microsoft just mentioned that the update procedure would make it so users running out of date and unsafe machines on the internet would not be an issue anymore, not that they would support W10 forever.
Jerry Nixon definitely said Windows 10 would be the last big release of windows, and for years, sourced reporting parroted that there will be no Windows 11.
“Right now we’re releasing Windows 10, and because Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, we’re all still working on Windows 10,” said Jerry Nixon, Microsoft’s developer evangelist, at the Ignite tech conference.
There’s no shortage of the claim being made by MS staff during keynote speeches, and those same people being quoted saying as much in reporting by TechRadar, The Verge, PC Mag, Ars Technica, CNET, for example.
Given the break-neck pace of development, I am sure the ReactOS folks will be ready.
Last I checked windows 11 can be installed without TPM support. I think rufus even has a simple checkbox for it and Chris Titus’s winutil can modify an ISO to do the sams
I would assume this breaks some kind of license agreement.
AFAIK CTT’s tool literally uses Microsoft provided tooling.
Edit: it’s the same tooling used by companies to modify their own windows installs
I’ll wait until the 11th hour, start testing the kids out on Debian and steam see if proton can bridge the gap for them. Wife is Mac. My servers are already Linux One of my laptops is already Debian. Anything else I have from work that needs Windows is already new enough to run 11.
I do have a camera server running win 10 and blue iris. Not really sure what to do there. I have a lot of time wrapped up in Blue Iris on that box and I seriously doubt I’ll be able to run hardware acceleration in any type of compatibility layer. That box may just get cordoned off from the internet and network, or I’ll do a upgrade hack.
it’s gonna be “funny”: I won’t create a personal account to login to crap 11 (because why should I, if you can’t login to a desktop OS without a 3rd party account, that’s not an OS, but a gatekeeper shit), which is mandatory. So, my work machine will become unusable, therefore in fact Microsoft put my work therefore my livelihood in danger… [edit: typos]
Just this week I installed W11 on a laptop (temporarily, I just wanted to see how it ran on this hardware), and despite being connected to the it asked me, by default, for a username for the local account. I don’t know why, but it didn’t ask for a MS account first.
Was this a recent windows 11 version, from Microsoft directly? And what version of 11 (Home, Pro, etc) And what region?
The OOBE changes based on a lot of factors, but generally speaking, most users will encounter the forced account creation screen.
You can get around it by typing in “[email protected]” or some other bullshit. Or use the “Domain join instead” option, and then just…don’t join it to a domain.
Just an update because I just figured what happened: I booted the iso through Ventoy, and just saw today that by default Ventoy injects register entries to bypass the online account requirement (as well as the hardware checks). Good to know.
It’s not mandatory to have an account to run win11. Press shift+f10 during the install to open a command prompt. Enter OOBE\BYPASSNRO into the prompt, system will reboot, disconnect the internet, when it prompts you for internet click “I don’t have internet”.
