Windows 10 ends in 2025. Don’t buy a new PC — revive yours with Linux. It's fast, secure, and help is available to get you started.
If you bought your computer after 2010, there's most likely no reason to throw it out. By just installing an up-to-date Linux operating system you can keep using it for years to come.
Installing an operating system may sound difficult, but you don't have to do it alone. With any luck, there are people in your area ready to help!
- No New Hardware, No Licensing Costs
A new laptop costs a lot of money, but several Linux operating systems are available for free. Software updates are also free, forever. You can of course show your support with donations! - Enhanced Privacy
Windows comes with lots of ads and spyware. This slows down your computer, lets companies spy on you, and increases your energy bills. - Good For The Planet
Production of a computer accounts for 75+% of carbon emissions over its lifecycle. Keeping a functioning device longer is a hugely effective way to reduce emissions. With a Linux operating system you can use your device longer. - Community & Professional Support
There are local repair cafes and independent, professional services and computer shops available for providing you help. You can find support in online forums, too. - Better User Control
Linux grants you the four freedoms of software. You are free to use, study, share, and improve the program, for as long as you wish. You are in control of your device.
These organizations have joined us in support of the campaign.
Convinced?
Then find your closest repair cafe or independent computer shop and enjoy your brand-new, old computer!
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Comments
By pentagrama 2025-06-1916:2918 reply This is great, but one UX issue I’ve always seen when trying to get regular Windows users to switch to Linux is the whole USB flash drive process and needing external tools like Rufus.
Take Ubuntu, for example. It’s one of the most popular and recommended distros for non-techy users, but just look at the install process: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop#1-overvi...
Let’s be honest, I don’t think most people would actually go through with that.
One idea to fix this and get more people to switch would be for Ubuntu to offer a Windows app that handles everything. It could download the ISO in the background, format the flash drive, install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows by default, and clearly explain each step so users know how to start using Ubuntu or go back to Windows.
Idk why we need separate media anyways. Just resize the existing partition and create a new Linux recovery partition in place, reboot from that to install m. Or just run the whole installer in a VM on windows and then reboot to a completely working Linux system.
EDIT: Beyond skill, just getting the external media is a substantial friction. I haven't used a thumb drive besides for Linux install media in 15 years; I'm good at computers but just finding / buying one of those things is its own roadblock.
Wubi runs on Windows and installs Ubuntu into a file: https://github.com/hakuna-m/wubiuefi
This sort of thing used to be more common. My first exposure to Linux was before CD-Rs were ubiquitous so there was often no possibility of using external media if you downloaded Linux. Partitioning the drive and installing there was typical.
By jitl 2025-06-1917:53 It's the same model that both Apple and Microsoft use for their OS updates, especially when upgrading from "dark ages" version to the latest version. I just think that most Linux distro providers either don't have the resources or the passion for Windows programming to make & maintain the windows .exe part of the pathway. Wubi is neat, but living out of a file on an existing partition doesn't feel like a pathway to full-time Linux. But if it already exists and is maintained, why hasn't it become the standard approach for all distros?
You must have been in an interesting place if floppies was more limiting than bandwidth... Splitting the installer across multiple floppies would be more common for initial install I believe and you would only fill up to ∼2/h on great dialup.
By devilbunny 2025-06-2013:391 reply I, at least, did Linux installs by downloading the floppy images to my campus account overnight and walking to the computer labs on campus to write them to disks (they had some NeXTstations that had floppy drives).
By devilbunny 2025-06-2019:38 Can't edit so replying to myself. The campus itself used a 56k leased line for internet (1993-4) and their dialup pool of eight (!) modems for ~3000 students ran at 2400 bps. It was far faster to walk over to the labs with a stack of disks.
They were almost never all busy. Then in summer of '95 or so, they installed 100 Mbps Ethernet.
That was a big jump. And security was a huge afterthought at the time; many, many people shared their entire hard drive with no password. If only it had been a few years later with MP3's and affordable CD burners...
By throwaway314155 2025-06-203:511 reply > Idk why we need separate media anyways. Just resize the existing partition and create a new Linux recovery partition in place, reboot from that to install m. Or just run the whole installer in a VM on windows and then reboot to a completely working Linux system.
This is far from a simple solution (for the layman end-user) compared to the parent comment.
By jitl 2025-06-2019:54 I mean InstallFedora.exe should do these operations automatically under the hood while showing a progress bar, and the user continues using their Windows desktop as normal until prompted to rebot, just like how InstallWindows11.exe works.
By invalidptr 2025-06-1917:023 reply I never understood why it's so complicated. On Linux, you can make a liveusb as easily as `cat liveusb.iso > /dev/sdX`. I imagine there is a powershell equivalent. There is a risk of writing to the wrong drive, so some kind of utility is needed. But the actual write is trivial. Why not make a win32 executable with the iso embedded so users only need to download one thing and then run it to write the USB media?
By badsectoracula 2025-06-1917:21 IIRC Rufus can actually download the necessary ISOs so it isn't THAT complicated.
On the other hand, if someone finds that part too complicated to follow perhaps they may not be able to install Linux - or Windows for that matter - by themselves and come across other issues down the line. Ultimately replacing your OS with another one does require some minimum level of technical knowledge that you either need to have or be fine with learning during the process.
By kaicox 2025-06-201:27 Yeah, the actual write is easy. The human part is the hard part.
Most people don’t want “tools” — they want a magic button with no guesswork, no fear of nuking the wrong drive, and no tutorial rabbit holes.
A win32 installer that bundles the ISO, sets up the USB, and gently walks you through the transition? That’s the move.
We don’t need smarter users. We need smoother defaults.
By throwaway2087 2025-06-1919:28 Windows PowerShell does not have a direct, native equivalent to this specific operation. You have to use some combination of Clear-Disk,New-Partition,Format-Volume,Mount-DiskImage, and xcopy to do that
By heavyset_go 2025-06-1918:341 reply > One idea to fix this and get more people to switch would be for Ubuntu to offer a Windows app that handles everything. It could download the ISO in the background, format the flash drive, install Ubuntu in dual boot with Windows by default, and clearly explain each step so users know how to start using Ubuntu or go back to Windows.
I am almost certain something like this existed 15-20 years ago from Canonical.
By vermilingua 2025-06-206:071 reply Likewise, I vividly remember running this and wondering "wow why did I spend so many late nights waiting for live CDs to install"
By heavyset_go 2025-06-209:43 There were weird caveats compared to a live CD install. No clue what they were but I remember skipping over it for a reason like that.
By cosmic_cheese 2025-06-1919:511 reply I think it could also be worthwhile to figure out ways to:
- Avoid requiring the user to figure out how to get into BIOS/EFI and change boot order. Windows has APIs for manipulating EFI things, may be worth looking into that.
- Replace GRUB with something more modern like rEFInd or Clover with a nice looking theme.
For the latter point, while GRUB is technically functional, it looks scary and arcane to new users and has little resiliency to things like Windows updates mucking with boot entries. It makes for a bad first impression (“why is my computer showing hacker screens suddenly”) and when it breaks your average user doesn’t have a prayer of fixing it. Something that looks more modern and self-heals would be a big improvement.
> - Replace GRUB with something more modern like rEFInd or Clover with a nice looking theme.
Replace Grub with nothing. If you're not doing bootable snapshots like openSUSE, then there is virtually no benefit in a "boot loader". The linux kernel + cmdline (+other stuff like ucode or secure boot signing stuff) can easily be packed into a single bootable .efi file.
That efi file will then get an entry in your uefi boot device list just like windows already has/had. This way is better anyway, since windows will overwrite your uefi boot order with every significant update, meaning users will already need to know how to boot other os's.
By Propelloni 2025-06-206:53 And efistub is exactly what the GP wants. Reserve rEFInd and its ilk for Snapper setups.
How do you anticipate users choosing Windows or Linux at boot time without a bootloader?
If the idea is they go cold turkey full Linux, good luck with that.
if the idea is they use their UEFI firmware boot menu, you're forgetting how unintuitive that is for most users with most uefi interfaces (spam hotkey at boot, wait for slow loading uefi, navigate to subscreen with boot order, find right menu item, either reorder and save or press F-key combo to "boot once now")
I've not had a MB where you had to spam any key. Just hold it on boot and wait until you see the menu. Select the one you want to boot now with either mouse or keyboard. This doesn't usually change the default boot order.
If you managed to install linux then this really shouldn't be a thing to get hung up on.
By Macha 2025-06-2015:40 If you don't understand why GRUB's (or refind or systemd-boot) boot menu is preferable to your UEFI interface, then I'm glad your solution works for you.
By mindslight 2025-06-1917:062 reply Regular Windows users are also not going to reinstall Windows. I'd say this page does the right thing putting the "Find someone to help you" as the first option. Most people want something that just works, and it's a great value proposition to say "I'll take your old computer and turn it into a new device that works better".
The biggest sticking point is the fear of losing what they do have, but we're at the point where even their previous generation computer could be made to run Linux.
Re-installing Windows is trivial these days. You just click the item in the Start menu, it does some work, then reboots to the existing recover partition to finish up, restores your account, and you drop back to windows desktop after logging in again. If you have OneDrive enabled, you still see all your files.
By mindslight 2025-06-1918:101 reply Does that actually completely blow away and reformat the filesystem? Meaning if you only have local files, they're then gone? From clicking an item on the Start menu?
I guess I'm not surprised with how frequently "reinstall Windows" is offered as a solution, that there is now some lighter version of that. But really I was talking about obtaining/creating installation media and reinstalling from scratch.
By holowoodman 2025-06-1920:451 reply No, it doesn't really blow away anything. Just some copying around and over. Preserving all the malware, viruses, rootkits and stuff.
Except of course, licenses and copy protection. That stuff is gone and you have to buy it all again, since the install-id is regenerated.
By jitl 2025-06-2019:58 You can choose "keep my files" or "remove everything", the remove everything version + "clean files" does actually remove everything. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/reset-your-pc-0e...
By legacynl 2025-06-2015:28 Although I agree that it could be somewhat easier, I don't think it's possible to perform all necessary steps to create a working boot entry from within Windows, possibly any running OS.
I do think maybe it would be possible to improve the UX somewhat, what about having some app called "os changer" or some accessible user-friendly name, that shows a list of options with screenshots, short descriptions and perhaps some categorization/tagging/rating system (this one is good for gaming, this one has lots of support for old hardware, this one is user-friendly). Then if you select an option it starts to download the iso silently while it asks you to insert a usb-key, when you insert that key, it shows the contents if it's not empty along with a confirmation that it gets emptied. Hopefully after formatting the image has finished downloading, and it creates a bootable usb key from it. Possibly it could read system information to suggest a key to hold during boot, then reboot the system.
However you do it, I don't think there's any way around needing some intermediate to boot into. Come to think of it, maybe a live-distro where that intermediate basically is the eventual system seems very user friendly.
By dale_huevo 2025-06-1919:212 reply It's even more damning when you realize the Windows stage 1 installation process is essentially unchanged since Vista. The Linux people had nearly 20 years to straighten this out.
Installing Ubuntu bricked a Samsung laptop I had some years back. Never again.
By Macha 2025-06-208:58 Windows installation is only easier for non-technical users in that someone else (usually their laptop manufacturer) does it for them.
By const_cast 2025-06-1920:572 reply > Installing Ubuntu bricked a Samsung laptop I had some years back. Never again.
What? How? I've never seen an installation break the BIOS. I'm sure it's possible, but I wonder what went wrong here.
By bmicraft 2025-06-1921:51 Some buggy uefis can actually get bricked when clearing or writing to the wrong efivars. But blaming anything but the hardware manufacturer for is misguided to say the least.
By throwaway314155 2025-06-203:531 reply For me, at this point in my history of installing Linux, this is about as unsurprising as it gets. You've had an incredibly lucky history in this regard (or perhaps are younger than I am by 5-10 years).
I have never had such a problem. And I have been installing Linux (distros) since 2003.
By throwaway314155 2025-06-209:38 My point wasn't that you've had that specific issue but rather that similarly strange issues were/are incredibly common.
> and needing external tools like Rufus
Ubuntu and Linux Mint are now recommending balenaEtcher, which is easier to use than Rufus.
By doublerabbit 2025-06-1916:542 reply While so, you have to download a program from somewhere. If I gave this to my mother she would just totally click the wrong link, infect her windows machine and give up.
For the tech, sure but for common people not so.
Why cannot Ubuntu just offer a download media creation tool like Windows does. Surely it's not that hard to couple dd with a batch gui.
Fedora does, fwiw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_Media_Writer
looks like it’s not just for fedora either. though that is still a little more complicated than an all in one ubuntu/mint/whatever installer. maybe someone should fork it and/or add that to this.
By blahlabs 2025-06-202:32 Fedora media writer is fantastic. You're right, it can either automatically download a fedora iso, or you can just feed it any image. Its so simple and handy for me, to the point a recent foray back to Debian was cut short because there was no included equivalent and the alternatives were just a hassle.
Although, the `cat liveimage.iso > /dev/sdX` tip mentioned in this thread is very handy and is probably enough for me. Anything I can do without a distro specific tool is a win.
By heavyset_go 2025-06-1920:51 I wouldn't expect a casual user to install Windows, drivers and supporting software on their own, either.
A fresh install of Windows on consumer laptops requires users to locate drivers and supporting software from the OEM's website and not infect themselves with malicious software in the process.
By AllegedAlec 2025-06-2010:41 I use it but I'm very careful about it since it just puts hard drives and usb sticks into the same category. Most of the time that's fine but if you have hard drives smaller than the usb stick in your system it'll autoselect the hard drive instead and if you're not carefull you're fucking your live system.
And having to go through this insanity each time is even worse
Is this advice insane or am I missing something
> to fix your busted drive, just nuke the boot sector and send it
> bash
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/xxx bs=512 count=1 conv=notrunc
By p1mrx 2025-06-2014:30 I often do that (with a larger prefix, like 1MB) to reset flash drives with weird partitioning.
By dartharva 2025-06-203:29 I noticed no difference in ease of use
Maybe something like https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wubi again.
By geek_at 2025-06-1916:44 Oh wow memory lane. I loved wubi, it was a game changer back then
An easier alternative is Ventoy. https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
Install Ventoy on a USB flash drive. Copy the ISO - copy as in cp. That's it.
You can add as many ISOs and select which one to boot with.
By 7bit 2025-06-218:12 Ubuntu's Install medium supports secureboot. (As do many other Linux install mediums) I assume ventoy requires SB to be OFF, which does complicate things more, than just using Rufus.
By szszrk 2025-06-2013:46 In all honesty, how do you install windows? Aside from pre installed ones.
Most people I know does exactly the same. Takes Rufus or similar and downloads official image from Microsoft
By tmtvl 2025-06-1917:34 Once when I was at FOSDEM I was checking out the OpenSUSE stand and one of the people at the stand gave me an OpenSUSE Leap DVD. Was pretty neat, though nowadays unfortunately many computers no longer have a DVD drive.
By somat 2025-06-203:02 You are not wrong, however in a pot calling kettle black moment have you seen what it take to make a windows bootable usb drive.
if you are on windows it is possible but involves ether going the hard route and downloading special tools from microsoft (the media creation utility) or the easy route and getting rufus.
on linux it is bewildering, however there are tools you can find that do it.
on openbsd(that's me, the weirdo using openbsd on the desktop) you are out of luck, I mean partially it is my fault, who even used obsd on the desktop. but when every single linux distro is "just dump this dvd image to a usb drive" and openbsd itself is "here is a usb image to dump to a drive" you have to wonder why microsoft makes it so difficult.
I ended up getting it done but after 30 minutes chewing through the linux script trying to get it to work on obsd went "this is not worth it for a task I am only going to do once" so booted a linux usb and used the script from there.
By more_corn 2025-06-210:56 I don’t find the process of making install media that onerous.
By frollogaston 2025-06-1919:341 reply You're right, and I could've sworn Ubuntu had this at some point.
At one point they even had a thing that would install Ubuntu inside Windows.
By frollogaston 2025-06-1920:16 That's pretty awesome.
By akikoo 2025-06-1918:38 Here's one easy way to create the Windows USB stick installer in Linux:
https://atkdinosaurus.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/another-way-t...
By artemonster 2025-06-1916:333 reply Take a look at a default emacs and how long it has been this way and you can quickly generate 200 plausible theories why everything sucks do much around this ecosystem. Tried 5 times going to u ubuntu in last 15 years. Everytime switched back because it sucked. Spending godless amounts of times googling obsucure problems that apprear out of thin air. No thanks. And with wsl2 I never have to look back
By legacynl 2025-06-2013:38 I kind of had the same experience with all the ubuntu flavors, and other distros. Ubuntu kinda does too much. It tries to be a complete desktop replacement and as such comes with a lot of preconfigured software. If you have a non-standard wifi-chip or audio chip, or whatever component, it could be that any of those parts break, and you'll have a hell of a time finding out where it's coming from.
What worked for me was to try arch. With arch you basically start with nothing, and you build it up from there. It'll take a few hours reading the install process on the wiki, but it's otherwise very easy. In the end you'll have a full understanding of what is happening on your machine. When something happens you will know what program is causing it, because you installed and configured it yourself. Or at least it makes me feel like that, because nothing has ever actually broke or not worked on my current arch install that I'm using for over 8 years. My install seems to 'just work' and I can highly recommend it, even though the install process is a bit more involved.
The only problem with Arch is that it's not afraid to introduce breaking changes in their packages, so sometimes when updating, there could be some manual intervention involved. Best is to update at least once a week, and check the website once in a while.
> Take a look at a default emacs
Is that the default terminal editor on Ubuntu? I fully agree those text editors where typing doesn't enter text should never be the default. Something like nano should always be the default imo.
By skeledrew 2025-06-1919:28 I had a couple failed starts moving to Ubuntu as well, years ago. Then I came across Zorin OS and that turned out to be a great bridge, followed by Kubuntu which I use to this day.
...what does Emacs have to do with any of this? And how does running Linux in a Hyper-V virtual machine magically make it better?
By legacynl 2025-06-2014:31 I'm pretty sure that a VM gets abstrations of the underlying hardware. And these abstractions are fully documented and as such the generic drivers bundled with any linux distro will work perfectly with it. Running on actual hardware requires hardware specific drivers. Generic drivers exist for many types of devices, but they might not be able to fully use the hardware (or at all), which can lead to some features/the os to not work out of the box on linux distros.
And I assume that he refers to that emacs is the default $EDITOR var on ubuntu? I don't know if that's true, but i think emacs is one of these editors which is seen as having very bad usability. I can't imagine that emacs is the default $EDITOR on a recent ubuntu version, but I agree with the sentiment that those kind of editors should never be the defualt.
By artemonster 2025-06-1918:193 reply I thought it was a rather clear and obvious analogy how opinionated nerds hinder mass adoption of good FOSS products because user experience is dogshit.
„Running Linux in VM“ as you have put it, is miles better because it works all the time with 0 friction, driver issues, random freezes, reboots, etc.
By legacynl 2025-06-2014:20 Although I totally get where you're coming from, and certainly agree that user-experience could improve by not setting unintuitive defaults like emacs or vi or whatever. But 'opinionated nerds' is a strawman. FOSS and Linux ecosystem isn't a big mass of like-minded people all deciding that user-experience isn't worth spending time on.
Let's not forget that computer science and programming initially has been a field for and by expert and academics. A lot of tools are written by experts, people that were used to writing and reading long documents with instructions, are intimately familiar with their systems, and often write similar software themselves too. Nowadays that have changed of course, but the field still has a lot of these experts.
And experts in any field often forget how it feels to not be an expert, and as such assume a lot of things to be obvious and often forget to mention or explain crucial things. But you can't expect every expert in some field to also be an expert in educational psychology, that is a whole field in itself. And even then, you might not have the creativity or writing prowess to write clear and intuitive documentation and pick variable and function names.
On top of that people are free to do what they want. That they work on this stuff publicly and make it available in itself is something worth of praise. They don't suddenly have the responsibility to make stuff easy to use for people who aren't at the same level like that.
A distribution like Ubuntu is in part basically a specific collection of all these free tools and software and presets. And maybe there doesn't exist a super user-friendly alternative for every one, and there is basically no incentive for people to spend free time making these.
Even if Ubuntu specifically states to be user-friendly (i don't know if they do), there are numerous valid reasons might exist for that. It could be that the rather spend their time refining and improving a often used part of the system. Or that they see the terminal in itself as an expert tool, and they rather have non-experts use the configuration that's available through the UI.
Although it's beside the point I think it's also important to realize that it's basically inevitable that there's going to be at least some difference between the quality of software that's free and open source, versus a company that has the ability to spend, and stands to profit from it. In my opinion the free part means infinite value and trumps any gap in quality or functionality.
Still agree that nano or something similar should be the default and vi or emacs should be an option.
By fr4nkr 2025-06-1918:52 I understand the analogy, it's just ridiculous. You are conflating entirely unrelated things based on your personal feelings about them with no regard to historical or technical context.
Hardware support issues are certainly understandable, but blaming "opinionated nerds" for them is asinine. It cannot be understated how difficult it is to deal with certain OEMs.
By heavyset_go 2025-06-1920:52 No one was ever going to mass adopt emacs lol
This is awesome. I'd be interested in helping if I could find some extra time.
At the same time, we still have a major problem at work if Microsoft goes through with this. I work in a research lab with 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of Windows 10 workstations that cannot be upgraded. We use Windows remote desktop and plenty of other software that is Windows only. The hardware is still pretty new and capable. With NIH cuts the last thing we need now is to have to spend money and lots of time to replace all that for no good reason.
This isn't an "if". And this shouldn't be shocking to anyone as Microsoft has EOL'ed all of it's previous OSes with a deadline.
You can buy extended support for orgs like yours that require it - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended...
Has Microsoft ever EOLed an OS that was
1. in higher use than its successors
2. only had one possible successor
3. the successor did not support hardware in use at the time
?
I'm sure it won't stop them, as you say, but really Microsoft, as someone who used to be a (relatively rare at the time) defender of yours, get fucked. The Raymond Chen camp is truly dead (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...)
1. When has Microsoft cared (or have PCs been so abundant)?
2. ... I mean, that's every version of Windows. XP? Vista. Vista? 7, etc. The last time you had two choices of Windows was in the '90s.
3. It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
If you mean older hardware, 98 and NT4 were the last to support the 486, yet 486s were still in use by the time of release of Me/2000 (I sadly had to interact with said 486s in a school lab). XP -> Vista made the jump from a Pentium 233Mhz minimum to 800Mhz minimum, /and/ caused many issues due to the introduction of WDDM causing a lot of graphics hardware to become incompatible.
This is nothing new. Those pulling the shocked pikachu face perhaps just haven't been around the Windows block enough to realize... this is nothing new.
> I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
Good for you. There is plenty of hardware out there without TPM 2.0, that is not allowed to upgrade, even if they in every other aspect are more than capable enough.
And there are many windows insiders publishing ways to bypass secure boot checks in order to install (or create check free installers) Win 11 on Win 10 capable hardware that lacks secure boot or Trusted Platform Module 2.0
Starting with this in 2021 https://christitus.com/update-any-pc-to-windows11/ and likely (I'd have to check) integrated into Chris Titus's WinUtil by now.
Some combo of tweaking registry values or zero sizing a DLL has done the trick so far (but perhaps not into the future with upgrades and patches).
By anonymars 2025-06-2216:18 It also shows that these machines are going to be rendered obsolete for no particular technical reason, other than presumably to sell more machines. Line must go up.
Now let's have a long prattle about our environment stewardship: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/sus...
By anonymars 2025-06-2011:49 I think it's reasonable to say that for 99% of people this isn't a realistic solution. It's a time bomb that could go off at any patch. Related: https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/existing-worka...
I don't know what timeline you are looking at. Windows 98 went EOL in 2006. By then there were Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP. Windows 95 went EOL in 2002 so basically the same. Windows XP EOL: 2014. By then there were Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8. Windows 7 EOL: 2020. Obviously Windows 8 and 10 existed. And so on, up until 10 and 11.
> It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
Of course it supports some hardware in use right now. But core requirements were generally just speed, now even if you have a fast processor, you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models. Vista had more compatibility issues than usual with peripherals, but that's quite different from having to toss the whole machine. And even then: Vista was released in 2007. You had 7 more years to stay on XP.
Not only are we handwaving the obvious reality that hardware used to have a shorter effective life because it was advancing so rapidly, but the Pentium 233 came out in 1997. XP went EOL in 2014. That's almost 20 years of hardware support. My family has various machines from 2015, 2017, etc. that otherwise work perfectly fine but don't support W11. I have an older laptop with a 4 core (8 HT) 2.6 GHz CPU (3.6 Turbo) with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, amply powerful, but nope, no Windows 11.
> But core requirements were generally just speed
Not just speed but instructions.
> you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models
TPM support at this point in time is very old, roughly 7 years or so, along with processor model. Newer processors lack the appropriate features to support the security features of Windows 11, i.e. VBS.
New OSes have new features which require new hardware; new being highly relative here as it's quite old hardware at this point.
By anonymars 2025-06-2018:02 That's great, now when in the past did Microsoft render obsolete hundreds of millions of machines for...what, exactly? VBS? When was the last time a Windows issue was a notable security threat? Is VBS going to keep people from getting phished?
In fact, let's compare this pointless consumer-hostile debacle with XP, where MS went out of their way to actually improve security by heavily revamping XP and keeping it alive longer than it would have been. Meanwhile, the obvious reality that's going to happen this time around is people are not going to throw out their machines, those machines are just going to stop getting security updates. Great work, Microsoft.
So really then, what is it you're trying to advocate, that this is all...good? Or is it just argument for argument's sake?
That article is an interesting time capsule.
Microsoft (well, the Windows part) is looking more and more like the Apple and Sun in that article. It’s the #2 or #3 user-facing OS these days. The fancy new programming environment happened and most stuff moved there, but it’s JavaScript and the browser rather than C# and .NET. Running old software is becoming a niche and getting more so by the day.
Yeah. Satya Nadella spelled out the strategy: cloud first, mobile first. Which, good for him and investors. But it feels like I can actually accomplish less and less with technology with each passing year, which is insane. It takes so much more effort to get anything done because everything is set up for tiny touch screens. And as someone who develops on the MS stack I spend so much more time dealing with version and dependency hell.
I've given up on my hobby projects because it was to the point where each time I got a few hours to look at them I'd spend it all doing updates or adjusting to deprecations.
One thing that struck me rereading Joel's article: those shiny new APIs he rattled off, indeed almost none of them gained any traction. And he was spot on about the UI framework fragmentation too.
Recently Windows Phone popped up and a lot of the same themes popped up, for example changing the SDKs repeatedly, charging for the privilege of using the app store (so much for giving the tools away), etc. I think part of the issue is that Apple somehow gets away with doing this sort of thing but Microsoft doesn't have anything close to the marketing chops to brainwash people into getting screwed over and liking it. Maybe because they go out of their way to make it a positive experience to buy new Apple products, rather than a trip to a dealership for a new car
I wonder why they did so well with the Xbox but not Windows Phone. Clearly they're capable of launching a new platform and getting traction with it. Those are very different market segments but surely the general approaches needed aren't that far apart.
By anonymars 2025-06-2018:10 Well, I feel like they haven't been doing as well recently (pause for a shoutout to classic MS naming acumen: Xbox 360 -> Xbox One -> Xbox One X / Xbox One S -> Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S. Good luck, mom! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKZ6rqsXhjo)
But perhaps one difference is that with consoles there's a free Sisyphean "reset" with each generation, which never happened with the phone. That gives a spot to enter the race.
Plus the whole thing with the phone carriers...in the US at least I'd wager that if the carriers don't offer your phone, and the salespeople don't talk it up (which phones are going to give the salesperson the most lucrative commission, by the way? Don't forget accessories...), then that's the ball game
By anonymars 2025-06-2011:43 An additional fuck you to Microsoft for intending to brick Windows Mixed Reality headsets, also fairly unprecedented to do that in the middle of an OS lifecycle, such as they are now. More hardware to go into the trash while Microsoft pretends to care about the environment.
Fortunately there might be hope on that. Pathetic that it had to be someone presumably doing it on their own time, after all we know how resource-constrained a small business like Microsoft is
https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_a...
Thanks for the link, I had forgotten this existed. Well, the university's technology roadmap officially states there is no support for Windows 10 after 2025. Yet as far as I know there is no program in place to help individual labs cover the cost of upgrading equipment. Maybe we will still be able to purchase an ESU package for our computers on an individual basis, but I'm not sure it will be made available by our software licensing office.
By anticensor 2025-06-205:15 I'm sure they will not offer it to office computers, but only to research laboratories.
By nwellinghoff 2025-06-1918:161 reply You could always switch to the ltsc line. Been using ltsc iot and its pretty nice
By anticensor 2025-06-205:16 IoT LTSC technically doesn't support Win32, and Win32 components included in aren't guaranteed to work until the end of IoT support period.
> I work in a research lab with 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of Windows 10 workstations that cannot be upgraded.
It's the same situation as last time with Windows 7. You can get three years of extended support for the monthly cumulative update, which I assume is being done given it is fairly inexpensive. The US government gets favorable pricing from Microsoft.
The consumer price for Windows 10 ESU is $30/$60/$90 for the first/second/third year.
By cosmicgadget 2025-06-1918:011 reply Hopefully this will be popular enough that Steam and Mozilla and others won't drop Win10 support for several more years.
By bitbiter 2025-06-1919:50 Steam dropped support for Windows XP and Windows Vista at the same time, about 5 years after Microsoft ended support for Windows XP and 2 years after support ended for Windows Vista
compared to buying a new machine that's actually not that bad. i am not a windows user but spending $180 to extend the life of a fairly new machine by another three years may just be worth it.
By ponector 2025-06-1920:03 If person cannot buy a new machine I bet they will continue use old one without bothering of getting paid updates.
Some companies may be buying prolongation for specific equipment which run win10.
Computers are cheap!
By fuzzfactor 2025-06-205:481 reply >I work in a research lab with 10s of 1000s
I've been there.
I assume the research equipment is the usual uncommon specialized non-consumer (expensive) electronics, and the PCs involved are of course the exact opposite, cheap commodity office machines no matter what you do.
And Windows comes along for the ride.
Naturally IT has trouble just keeping up with the OS as it morphs, and their ratio of non-technical users over technical-minded is through the roof on the office machines, they're packed to the gills with boneheaded problems even if Windows never changed, so they're never going to have what a research place needs.
All the technology is there, you just have an IT gap.
Well not exactly, they are basically gaming machines that we bought and maintain independently of the IT department because we have specific computing needs. At least that is possible and fairly common I think.
By fuzzfactor 2025-06-2014:00 >I'd be interested in helping
I was too.
I've put Linux on PCs for the occasional everyday user, usually multi-booting. But for labs, mostly they need excess help with Windows that they can't expect from IT.
Now when I started building labs it was before there was DOS or Windows and that kind of stuff, and naturally no IT yet either :)
So when I got to a place where they had the modern shitshow already in progress (or lack of progress), I could cry foul as soon as any significant delay was introduced by IT. Anything really that would not have been even a speedbump if there were no IT, much less a roadblock or show-stopper. But I didn't try to say there was an answer right away, I would say eventually nature took its course and delays alone accumulated enough to allow for a site-specific correction. So I stepped up to fill the gap.
>they are basically gaming machines that we bought and maintain independently of the IT department because we have specific computing needs.
Often the only effective approach, and one that nobody else would dream of.
Looks like you are already about in position :)
It may be uncharted territory and you may need to keep on going until you reach unquestionably more effective performance. Otherwise some pressure could develop to turn back
If you're going to get the most out of your scientific equipment, you're going to need a scientist on your team who can navigate the installation & maintenance of the specialized software for various vintages of instruments across multiple versions of Windows and different generations of PC hardware. At the same time moving toward mastery of each instrument itself as a primary goal, so much of the time you need Windows and the PC component of the apparatus to "just work", get out of the way, and never change. Not exactly a good fit for any IT roadmap when you have a PC with needs very far outside their routine or comfort zone. Must be able to do things with Windows that IT can not, resulting in a much more trouble-free experience overall compared to the routine office machines.
IT can rarely do an ideal job even when they have only the office machines to worry about, and some labs have really been needing a lot more than that for a while. If you don't do it, who will?
>if I could find some extra time.
Only took a few short years, and it's really like getting two years experience for every year :\
After that you sure can get a lot more out of the electronics though :)
Oh yeah, this is just Windows, that was challenging enough but the mission-critical instruments depend on it.
You must also be able to demonstrate comprehensive backup and rapid full recovery way more effectively than any alternative if you're doing your best.
As for Linux, the next step at this site would be migration of the internet and office machines to a stable Linux or two, but their IT is not ready for that and I don't know exactly how I would substitute for everything they are doing with Windows either.
I'm glad it's not my turf anyway and took the time to develop a good bridge to IT by reducing their headaches rather than encroaching on their domain. That could not have happened overnight but it was worth it to get stuff accomplished in the labs.
By password4321 2025-06-1919:372 reply In case you are not aware, right now the Windows 11 upgrade can be forced to ignore the hardware requirements. At this time this does allow unsupported machines to receive Windows 11 updates, though this is not really a viable option for commercial users needing long-term official support.
Windows 10 ending in October blows my mind in contrast to the free as in beer near GUI-less Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 receiving extended support (security updates) until 2029. I'll probably assemble a patched-up/slipstreamed installer for recycling older equipment!
By anticensor 2025-06-205:18 Windows 11's CPU cutoff is to avoid Spectre/Meltdown software workarounds, and anything older than the cutoff are vulnerable to privilege escalation attacks by Spectre, Meltdown and derivatives.
While the TPM and RAM requirements can safely be bypassed, user apps (e.g. Adobe CC and certain anticheats) may assume those requirements are satisfied.
By SpecialistK 2025-06-206:59 Microsoft are maintaining a staggering amount of Windows branches to various levels, and this almost certainly affects the resources allocated to each one. The branches used for Server and LTSC (IoT) releases are probably the best to use, although they come with their own annoyances. But needing to do a fresh install every 3-4 years when software support falters is my preference over Candy Crush and OneDrive ads.
By carlosjobim 2025-06-1921:251 reply The answer is to simply not upgrade those machines. Computers that are important for work shouldn't be upgraded or experimented on.
By SpecialistK 2025-06-207:02 That's part of a risk calculation. Is the risk of an outage from upgrading the OS (officially or not) higher than the risk of leaving the machine unpatched?
And that calculation is affected by so many things, including the physical security and if it's internet-connected.
By karmakurtisaani 2025-06-1919:311 reply You'd think the sysadmins would think of upgrading the operating systems when setting the system up, no?
In fairness, Windows 10 was marketed as the Last OS. I could see how someone would take this into account when choosing an OS. Its not their fault the rug was pulled out from under them.
By karmakurtisaani 2025-06-1919:461 reply Ah ok, I wasn't aware of that. What a strange promise to make..
By vel0city 2025-06-2013:59 They didn't make that promise.
Microsoft never made the Windows 10 "last OS" statement, nor endorse Jerry Nixon, a developer evangelist, who said it.
By theandrewbailey 2025-06-1923:382 reply When he said that, he was a Microsoft employee working on Windows being paid to speak at a Microsoft sponsored event. That's about as official as one can get outside of a board meeting. The statement was well publicized, so almost everyone knew about it. Microsoft had several years and numerous opportunities to correct the record on the matter, but they didn't, so the statement is assumed to be true.
By vel0city 2025-06-2013:59 He said it as an aside when giving a talk about developing live tiles. Not exactly some big announcement.
By p_ing 2025-06-2016:15 Even so, does it matter? Do you think the fictional "Windows 10 Forever" edition wouldn't eventually incorporate required features that didn't function on some class of hardware?
They did a pretty poor job of managing the press around it though. The closest thing we ever got to a definitive statement was when they announced Windows 11.
By p_ing 2025-06-2016:04 I agree, they did a poor job at countering the statement and I don't think they countered the statement at all.
None the less, it was never a Microsoft official statement.
By lozf 2025-06-1917:33 You might consider Windows 10 LTSC IoT edition, it's supported until 2031 iirc.
By frollogaston 2025-06-1919:393 reply This website is great, but the first turnoff a normal user will hit is that they don't know what "Linux distribution" means, and even if they do, it doesn't recommend one.
Even if it said go install Ubuntu or something... Very few people think of a kernel and OS as separate things. Hardware and software separation is already sketchy enough. Instead of people interjecting for a moment, can there just be a penguin-branded "Linux" OS already?
By kattagarian 2025-06-1919:451 reply No?
Nobody in their right mind would claim that they are building the official Linux OS without turning the whole community against them.
And it's not as if the average user need to use linux. If developers move from windows 10 to linux, the impact would be huge.
By frollogaston 2025-06-1920:002 reply This website seems directed at average users. There aren't a whole lot of devs, but even then, many devs want things to just work cause time is money.
Nobody is upset that there's an official Linux kernel. Of course it takes Linus Torvalds to declare it, and he's understandably not interested in designating an official OS, but this is a consequence.
By kattagarian 2025-06-1922:091 reply > Nobody is upset that there's an official Linux kernel.
Because he was literally the creator of the whole thing. And the word "official" means little in the open source community. Yt-dlp took the crown out of youtube-dl hands when it comes to downloading videos. Is yt-dlp official? What official even means?
And that's fine that many devs want things that just work. Little by little, everyone is noticing that windows not only not improving but taking direct action to make the experience worse. The balance is tilting in favor of linux not only because linux is getting better but because windows is also getting worse
By frollogaston 2025-06-1922:21 It's not enough because there isn't something comparable in Linux. Microsoft will follow their MO of avoiding pissing off users just enough that they don't bother switching, been that way since Vista at least.
By prmoustache 2025-06-206:49 The website doesn't pretend it will catch all users.
But some people are more curious than others. And among them, chance is that a large fraction can understand what a distro is.
I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu, though.
One of the biggest faults of Linux is we don't have an easy, user friendly, idiot proof distro for normies, but Ubuntu is just broken corporate slop.
When I was wearing the various "save users from themselves" hats in my previous life, Ubuntu users were 100% the bane of my existence... since they were all server customers, the ones that took my advice and let me help them switch over to Debian suddenly stopped being frequent footgun fliers, no matter what their original issue was.
Ubuntu, to me, is simply Debian that has been aggressively turned into enterprise slop.
By frollogaston 2025-06-1920:211 reply Honestly I like Debian more than Ubuntu too, but the problem is that just as many people might say Debian sucks and you need to use LinuxMint or something. Even more confusing and frustrating is the "it depends on your use case" thing, as if 99.99% of PC users aren't all trying to do the same basic things (server is different, but even then, 90%?).
There has to be some acceptable default that doesn't change too much, even if it's not the best thing ever. Ubuntu changed DEs twice even though the original was fine. Windows UI is intentionally bad at this point, but at least it's stable.
By holowoodman 2025-06-1920:421 reply > Windows UI is intentionally bad at this point, but at least it's stable.
Windows 2000 to XP to Vista to 7 were big breaks in UI. 7 to 10 was a break. 10 to 11 was a break. When I now click the lower left corner, weather opens. When I'm pressing the Windows key, no applications menu to be seen, just some web search slop.
The only thing that's constant with windows are the lying percentages, where 99% and 100% take as long as 0-98%...
By frollogaston 2025-06-1920:461 reply They're not very different. Last time I used Windows often was 2000, and I was able to pick up and use any of the later ones. Random IT departments publishing screenshots don't need to go change everything between Windows versions. Meanwhile I logged into my Linux desktop at work for the first time in a while (normally I SSH), and literally every button and setting was in a different place than before.
Unless I'm misremembering, Windows key still opens the start menu with your apps. It's just that they added tons of adware and crap next to it.
By holowoodman 2025-06-205:581 reply The key still works. But there is no more "Programs" submenu there, which was the first and most prominent thing back then. Now: Just search. And, if you are lucky and on the right version, maybe a tiny "see more" button next to some random program icons. If you can distinguish them from weather, advertisements and stuff.
Windows updates are a support nightmare. It's just that everyone accepts those and forgets about the pain they cause. Whereas some tiny change in Linux desktop environments is always a catastrophe when people tell about it.
Microsoft gets a free pass beause of Stockholm Syndrome I guess...
By frollogaston 2025-06-2016:24 What I mean is, they changed the entire desktop environment, which was sorta the IT dept's choice but also a forced decision based on the Linux desktop landscape. I can see why other places prefer Windows. Ours doesn't of course because we're a software company that uh doesn't write Windows software, but even then, they're phasing out Linux laptops in favor of MacBooks because of driver issues.
I would totally use Linux on desktop if I didn't have a Mac. But it's only because I'm stubborn enough not to tolerate Windows treating me like dirt, not because it's actually a rational decision to use Linux.
By herbst 2025-06-208:26 Fedora is pretty much "ideot proof for normies" at this point.
By stefantalpalaru 2025-06-1920:37 [dead]
By k_bx 2025-06-217:31 Yeah, it says "go find linux suitable for beginners". I googled "linux for beginners" and Google currently gave me such a mix bag of articles with options including Kali Linux. Crazy.
Also, who googles now anyways? Ask your local ChatGPT haha.
Jokes aside, ideally would be to make a decision and recommend Ubuntu (or PopOS).
