For anyone who still needs Windows, I recommend you try the Windows 10 LTSC IoT variant.
It has support until 2032 and has all the bloatware ripped out. It’s extremely good.
They even have a Windows 11 version. That’s also really good. But I’m guessing if you’ve avoided upgrading to Windows 11, you’d prefer to stay on 10 anyway.
Is there an easy way to buy this as an individual?
Lmao
Windows doesn’t sell enterprise shit to normal people
This is why you gotta totally avoid sites like this one https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
Microsoft is watching for you, don’t worry
They typically don’t sell licenses to individuals and even if you were able to buy one for a reseller, it would be like $500.
There are other ways of activating it, but they are a gray area, and I’d only be willing to describe them to you through DM
But will those methods even survive future updates?
The greater point is, the pattern is very clear with Microsoft and windows, and it will continue to get worse, and your options will continue to shrink. It would be better to just put any effort towards learning to use Linux and escaping the ecosystem rather than continually trying to find the ever-decreasing bits of freedom you can extract from Windows.
The activation mechanism I use on my personal PC has been active for six years without issue, so I can only assume so. And yeah, migrating to Linux works for some people, sure. But there’s no harm in letting new people know there’s options.
Essentially, no. If you don’t care about the cost, maybe with a MSDN subscription.
Thanks for this unqualified headline.
I keep seeing these " time to move to Linux" threads. For my work I have to use super proprietary software which I know for a fact is Windows only. Not only that it’s GPU intensive CPU intensive and niche. I’m sure there’s a way to run Windows within Linux but I can only imagine the pain in trying to get proprietary shite to work.
On top of that I need specific CAD software, Photoshop and Illustrator. I don’t think any of these daily used programs support Linux.
From the outside, Linux just seems like an absolute ball ache to get working with all of the things I currently do without even thinking about it.
I’d love to do it. Not sure it’s going to work. Am I wrong?
If your work requires Windows, then use Windows. Switch to Linux when everything you need is available on it. If alternatives don’t exist, then that’s it.
Me too, i even asked Autodesk about linux support and they pretty much said use IOS instead or come back when Linux has >5% market share.
Uh, yeah thanks for giving me an option just as shitty as the current system and practically saying “we charge you THOUSANDS per year for our product but we would rather do incremental updates on useless features because the core product is practically perfect instead of allowing competition to the MS/Apple monopoly”
As a gamer, I’m always going to have at least one Windows PC.
But I’m planning to upgrade next month, and turn my old PC into a non-gaming Linux rig for all non-gaming purposes.
I don’t play every game out there, but in the last couple of years, I’ve not had a reason to switch to Windows to play a game.
Most games these days seem to work fine on Linux, especially with all the work Valve has put in.
When I ran a dual-boot over June and July last summer only about 60% of my library functioned, so for me, it’s just not feasible to go entirely without Windows.
Same here. Its just a much better experience through windows. I made a new system for my daily driver which runs linux and I only turn on my gaming desktop when i want to game. I stream it through steam remote play and it works great
FWIW, Photoshop and Illustrator generally work very well through Wine, not sure about CAD so I can’t comment on that.
In general though, yeah, if you have to use some super proprietary Windows-only software, you very well may be out of luck for Linux. In which case, yeah, you have to put up with Windows and jump through whatever hoops Microsoft wants you to jump through.
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There’s Windows 10 LTSC, which gets security updates til 2027. And IoT Enterprise LTSC, which gets security updates until 2032.
“But should you even use those versions?!? They are not meant to be installed on a desktop PC/laptop” - idk, it’s either this or Win11.
For more info on how to install, check https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links
For what its worth: I’ve been running enterprise since 2015 (when it was called LTSB) then switched to LTSC IoT around 2021. Its fantastic and doesn’t have all the Candy Crush and other bullshit. I highly recommend.
My biggest concern for using the LTSB IoT is how long third-party application support will remain if Microsoft goes through with dropping support next year. I guess a lot of stuff still works under Windows 7 so maybe it will be fine?
I don’t expect but also won’t be surprised if it ends up being a Windows XP situation where they extend support for Windows 10 several times.
I don’t expect but also won’t be surprised if it ends up being a Windows XP situation where they extend support for Windows 10 several times.
They absolutely will, and they’re planning on this, they’re just not going to announce the true EOL date. The deadline will scare people into upgrading, then they’ll start extending it.
Guys there’s countless tools out there for removing bloat and telemetry and tweaking the UI. it takes like fifteen minutes to make windows 11 completely acceptable for daily usage
The problem is there are many things you can’t disable, remove, or alter, and that will continue to get worse over time.
Just because some bullshit is listed in Winaero Tweaker or whatever as an option to disable doesn’t mean all the bullshit in the system is listed there.
but don’t you lose gaming performance if you’re running newer hardware (I guess this might not matter to you)
What do you mean by that? You don’t lose gaming performance when you use win10 over win11. Why would you?
Man I could swear there was something. I thought it was DirectX12 that was exclusive to 11 but googling tells me im wrong. Maybe I’ve been on win 11 for no reason this whole time haha
Stop intimidating folks who just a computer that does work for them with “learn” linux as if linux is a programming language. Many linux distros are super user friendly and work exactly like windows UI.
Beside, why do you think iPhones, as dumb and as bloated and as restricted and limited and overpriced they are, still are the most selling phones worldwide year after year? It’s because my 80 yr old mom knows how to use it.
Most people and professionals in the world just want a machine to do their work and are not intrested in learning progamming or command lines to do it. Nurses, doctors and surgeons, non-computer engineers, artists, business managers, …etc, are too busy and occupied to even change the defaut settings or uninstall anything that comes with windows not because they love it but becuse not intrested and don’t care. Add to those groups most, actually all, girls I’ve ever met in my life. They have different hobbies and learning OSes is not of them. It’s like a girl saying “Soon Sephora will discontinue their HilightBrushExfoilioter and everyone who wants to wash their face needs to learn Mac’s DeepBeauty routines”. while dudes are like we know soaps but wtf is an exfoilating routine. Literally, they don’t know what linux is, and it’s not going to sell to tell them to learn.
So tl;dr: I’m saying the thing that sells would be Pop OS or Mint, or anything that requires the least or none learning curve.
While this is true, learning some kind of programming - shell scripting or BASIC in olden days - is a very useful endeavor.
It’s very convenient for everyone to be able to automate their work.
And it’s not particularly different from cooking something once in a while.
Not required at all to use Linux, of course.
Though for operating systems … People here for whatever reason downvote things they fear, but even OpenBSD is simple enough. It does require using shell, but as compared to any other desktop OS I touched that’s just really negligible and is usually a copy-paste from FAQ.
No, most people don’t need to learn shell scripting to browse the internet, play games, or send emails. Especially if they have jobs that don’t involve a lot of computer work. And it’s unfair to expect them to learn that just so they can use their computer as they were before.
Neither do I, but I do need shell scripting to automate tasks. I’m not against there being some visual user-friendly environment for doing that. That would be the right way to go, not saying people don’t need shell scripting. Something like Scratch.
Last month, for the first time, Windows 11 was a more popular OS than Windows 10 in the Steam Hardware Survey. Of course, this is an imprecise science as people have to opt in to having their machines measured but it’s a sign of wider adoption. Windows 8, on the other hand, never made it big enough to do the same in its lifespan. Windows 7 was a very popular OS and adoption even to Windows 10 was fairly slow initially, partially down to that skepticism.
You can’t cite the jump from 7 to 8 or 7 to 10 without also remarking on the fact users had far more.control over updates back then.
Yeah, Windows 11 adoption is up, because most people don’t have a choice, or they didn’t care enough to stop it happening automatically, and don’t know how to roll it back. That doesn’t translate to approval.
At a certain point, adoption rates just don’t matter anymore because increasingly the user doesn’t have a choice anymore.
Of course, this is an imprecise science as people have to opt in to having their machines measured but it’s a sign of wider adoption
They already account for that.
They don’t, that quote is talking about the steam survey, which allows steam to read what OS the user is using. The point OP is making is that the only reason W11 is more popular than W10 is because Microsoft is forcing the update
Right, and Valve accounts for people choosing to not take the survey. That’s just how polls are typically conducted.
You know valve isn’t Microsoft right? Those are two different companies with different agendas?
Steam asking for consent for a survey doesn’t make up for the lack of consent in updates pushed by an entirely different entity
Right, and I’m not talking about Microsoft here. That’s why I only quoted the part about Valve’s stats and pointed out that it’s not necessarily an issue that users can opt-out of that statistics collection.
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I made my move just recently. It was rocky, I ran into some issues and some of them were my fault.
I’m willing to put up with it currently not because Linux has gotten markedly better, but Windows has decided (yes, decided) to become significantly worse. Microsoft could have done nothing and I would have stayed a loyal, koolaid-drinking consumer of theirs.
I’m just starting out with Bazzite right now. Still awkward, but pretty painless, and all the gaming stuff like proton is already configured and baked in. I still need to figure out how to get stuff done though.
Serious question : My desktop is incompatible with Win11, I run Win10, and I use it for web browsing, Excel, and a little Word processing. Nothing else. Can’t i just continue on as is? Not a gamer, not a heavy user…
you’ll most likely be fine, there still exists people who use Windows 7 for that workflow. You have to be more aware of vulnerabilities that could be found on your operating system though; and over time more and more software might drop support for your OS (realistically, this will be more noticable when Windows 12-13 gets released) so you might not be able to use latest Office version’s features.
Thank you. I’m retired, and unlikely to upgrade Office. Ver 2016 still does exactly what I need to do.
I’ll keep my router secured, my firewall updated as long as it will, and anti virus /malware up to date.
Look into Rufus, it will help you create a bootable USB with windows 11 and you can use it to do a upgrade or clean install from your windows 10 installation (clean install preferred IMO), it will even help bypass the hardware requirements and you can even remove the email account and use a local account. Make sure to use or write down your windows 10 activation/license for a clean install.
That being said you could potentially still run the old wondows OS, but as time goes on new exploits could be found that can compromise the OS. If its behind a firewall such as your router its safer, but there is still the possibility of it being infected way off into the future.
Here is a video of windows XP running on a PC connected directly to the internet with no firewall. Its infected almost instantaneously. (Dont try this at home).
You’re not getting anymore security patches, but as long as you keep your browser up to date and generally be careful about what you download and run (as you should already be doing) you’ll likely be just fine.
I’d estimate sometime around 2029 or so the major browsers as well as security software will start dropping support for Windows 10 and at that point you may need to start thinking about moving to something else if you haven’t already done so.
I can probably see a new computer by then… (my car hits 20 next year…) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Use Mint and it will be less frustrating.
Dual-boot Linux Mint, and install Microsoft fonts from the package manager to make documents more cross compatible. Should be a fairly easy migration for your use case. It took me about a year of dual booting to completely switch over to Mint, but it was worthwhile.
I only use the computer for word processing, internet, and playing roguelikes.
Fine. I guess I’ll learn Linux 😒
As someone who understands windows fairly well, but until recently couldn’t use the command line to save my life, I started dual booting Ubuntu and it’s pretty easy to figure out once you understand what you’re looking for. Only things I’m still trying to get running are alternatives for the stream deck software, iCUE, and voicemeeter, but I havem’t really invested much time into them yet.
I don’t like change! 😣
Real talk.
I have been around long enough to know that this conversation has happened ever since Windows 7.
And each time and every time an OS EOL I spend time investigating a couple of Linux distros to try that switch.
This time is no different. From Redhat to Debian to Ubuntu to popOS to Mint. Each one is significantly better than the last.
But even 2024, I’m having to spend time inside the terminal to make the OS act more like Windows.
Tailscale has no native app. Gotta install it in the terminal. I want to use my touch screen in the browser to swipe the back button. Nope, I spent 2 hours on forums and ChatGPT and had to install something in the terminal. I was not successful. My Nvidia video card is not working properly. I gave up after.
Why am I spending hours trying to make my experience like Windows when Windows is right there. Sure sure, privacy and advertising yada yada. Install Adguard and disable services that you don’t agree with.
Maybe you’ve been sold a bit of a lie.
Linux is not like Windows. Linux will never be like Windows. It is first and foremost a general operating system, not necessarily a Desktop operating system.
IMO, that means you will never truly be able to completely avoid using the terminal here or there.
Telling people that it’s easy to switch from Windows to Linux is just not true. Linux just works differently and going in with the expectation that things will work the same way only serves to disappoint those brave enough to attempt the switch.
If you try again, go in with the mindset that you’ve never used a computer before, and without needing to depend on Linux for your day to day computer work. See it as a tinkering side project, and maybe it will stoke your curiosity enough that you’ll want to use it day to day.
Absolutely.
Don’t get me wrong. I am running headless Linux for my pfsense and home assistant. There is a place for Linux. But telling me I should ditch windows for Linux is basically asking me to stop using my PC how I normally want to and spend the next few weeks becoming a hacker only to give up and reinstall windows.
If you still have time & energy to troubleshoot you can create posts for your issues. ChatGPT may give incorrect advice.
I switched because my OS drive was HDD and Win10 was slow & unstable. The background tasks of Win put heavy load on the PC because I didn’t have an SSD. Linux was also slow but a bit more bearable, plus it was stable. Did an SSD upgrade years later.
You can achieve the same thing by installing Tiny11.
I just wanna be able to play Rocket League on Linux. Is that so much to ask?
I literally used this as an example to demonstrate gaming on Linux is easy now
Works perfectly out of the box, all you gotta do is install steam, download it and click play
When did PC Gamer start hijacking the back button to show more ads? Infuriating.
here we go again…
I just want a OS, that just install and work for all the things I want to do, without installing other stuff, because I need it to play some game or whatever.
Sounds like nobara or bazzite to me
Or basically any distro and steam tbh
whole ass countries like pakistan and vietnam are fucked basically
