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Windows 10 support ends Tomorrow (October 14, 2025)

I got tired of the full screen ad for W11 like a year ago. They already put ads as notifications, they also try to put AI and now kill W10 so people move to W11 (That sucks).

So I decided to jump and install Arch on my machine, and ngl, even when I have problems with my PC I still wouldnt go back to Windows.

I hope this bad news have the positive outcome of people at least trying Linux (any distro), people have been saying for decades that the SO is complicated and it "costs your time" is not real. I decided to install Arch, one of the "not easy" ones (I hate myself), and it has been running fine. I barely use the terminal ("sudo pacman" my beloved).
 
R Reizo Ryuu you abuse the term "gaslighting" more than the combined effort of women-only subreddits, but I'm inclined to agree with your general point. There's no upgrade path from W10 to W11 that is more complicated than switching to Linux.

Find a way to upgrade, find a relative/friend/business to do it for you, or get a new machine.
The point is people are being forced out of their comfort zone. They won't necessarely switch to linux, but they'll see it as an alternative that exists. You won't see suddenly a jump from 3% userbase in steam hardware survey to 20%, but you'll see faster growth. Linux did grow twice as much in the last 5 years than it did on the 10 before that.
 
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you abuse the term "gaslighting" more than the combined effort of women-only subreddits
lol, that gave me a chuckle.
but nah he first said ESU is only free for europe, then doubling down that trying to convince me (gaslighting) ESU is only free if you have an active subscription, then saying enable tpm or enrolling ESU aren't official methods; all wrong 🤷‍♂️
There's no upgrade path from W10 to W11 that is more complicated than switching to Linux.

Find a way to upgrade, find a relative/friend/business to do it for you, or get a new machine.

Each of these are far less involved than switching to a new OS, because even if someone suggests and installs a Linux distro for you there's a whole new learning curve to tackle.
exactly.
 
The point is people are being forced out of their comfort zone. They won't necessarely switch to linux, but they'll see it as an alternative that exists. You won't see suddenly a jump from 3% userbase to 20%, but you'll see faster growth. Linux did grow twice as much in the last 5 years than it did on the 10 before that.
In some circles, definitely. But which circles are we talking about and how big are they? I'm thinking more of the wider consumer market.

This is a prime opportunity to try Linux for those that are so inclined, especially with user friendly gaming distros and the emergence of immutable distros to take away the fear. But even a lot of tech-savvy people plenty will be content to just use Rufus then CTT to streamline their way back into their comfort zone. Even those that switch could get jump back after a few months.

It really is a shame a wider desktop release for SteamOS didn't come to market in time, it could have had the impact you're talking about in gaming circles.
 
lol, that gave me a chuckle.
but nah he first said ESU is only free for europe, then doubling down that trying to convince me (gaslighting) ESU is only free if you have an active subscription, then saying enable tpm or enrolling ESU aren't official methods; all wrong 🤷‍♂️
Neither of these solutions you 'proposed' solve the main issue mate. One requires new hardware to begin with, the other at most gives you an extra year with added spying. Any longer term solutions requires money investment, the cheapest of which doesn't even involve actually upgrading to 11.

Unless average users get out of their comfort zone.

But sure, keep gaslighting me.
 
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Neither of these solutions you 'proposed' solve the main issue mate.
Sylvester Stallone Facepalm GIF

It's literally not relevant if you believe it has to be some kind of "permanent solution", the point was the information you tried to spread:
subscribe to some MS service for 60 to 250 dollars for a temporary solution
Was wrong
That's only for europe's EEA region
several
It is only ""free"" if you're subscribed to 365
times.

I really don't care if you want to disqualify it for personal feelings of impermanence, it simply isn't correct that enrolling in ESU costs money; nothing more, nothing less, you were wrong, move on.
 
In some circles, definitely. But which circles are we talking about and how big are they? I'm thinking more of the wider consumer market.

This is a prime opportunity to try Linux for those that are so inclined, especially with user friendly gaming distros and the emergence of immutable distros to take away the fear. But even a lot of tech-savvy people plenty will be content to just use Rufus then CTT to streamline their way back into their comfort zone. Even those that switch could get jump back after a few months.

It really is a shame a wider desktop release for SteamOS didn't come to market in time, it could have had the impact you're talking about in gaming circles.
I think gaming is one of the last frontiers, we already see a bigger shift in other markets. Among developers, it's as common as half the entire userbase or more if you include dual use. In enterprise enviroments its also becoming more common in similar percentages. The EU is also starting a shift towards replacing theirs structures with Linux.

But like i said, it's not like it'll be a sudden shift, i don't expect everyone to just start using linux. But that it is becoming more common, it definitely is. These very types of discussions are becoming more common, it used to be only a thing in developer-centric forums.
 
Sylvester Stallone Facepalm GIF

It's literally not relevant if you believe it has to be some kind of "permanent solution", the point was the information you tried to spread:

Was wrong

several

times.

I really don't care if you want to disqualify it for personal feelings of impermanence, it simply isn't correct that enrolling in ESU costs money; nothing more, nothing less, you were wrong, move on.
Mate, if i ask how i can fix my car and you answer with "it can run if you have a V8" or "put a tape over the oil indicator and it'll work for another year", you didn't answer my question
 
Mate, if i ask how i can fix my car and you answer with "it can run if you have a V8" or "put a tape over the oil indicator and it'll work for another year"
Spider Man Lol GIF

What a horrible analogy, the computer isn't broken, and with ESU it continues to be up to date, and as ms says themselves "your pc still works".

If you want a better car analogy:
You go to your mechanic and they say your car passed inspection(ESU), but probably won't pass inspection next year(no ESU).
Now you obviously would just throw the car in the trash, because apparently a year just means "now" to you.
I however would drive the car as long as I could, while I come up with a plan to replace it if I have to (which I won't have to because unlike the car that needs to pass inspection in order to be on the road, the "pc still works", so I'll just carry on doing nothing while I laugh at not having spent anything because enrolling in ESU was free).
 
Spider Man Lol GIF

What a horrible analogy, the computer isn't broken, and with ESU it continues to be up to date, and as ms says themselves "your pc still works".

If you want a better car analogy:
You go to your mechanic and they say your car passed inspection(ESU), but probably won't pass inspection next year(no ESU).
Now you obviously would just throw the car in the trash, because apparently a year just means "now" to you.
I however would drive the car as long as I could, while I come up with a plan to replace it if I have to (which I won't have to because unlike the car that needs to pass inspection in order to be on the road, the "pc still works", so I'll just carry on doing nothing while I laugh at not having spent anything because enrolling in ESU was free).

If your solution doesn't give my car perpetual motion, you have failed him, you have failed yourself and you have failed all of mankind.
 
On my second older laptop which can't run Win 11, I just installed Win 10 LTSC so that should be good - need it for a specific program that doesn't work on linux
 
I've seen this mentioned a few times - it looks pretty complicated as to what you need to or should do with it.

Is it just for new installs or existing ones?
Does it do anything that's genuinely worth doing on Windows?

Basically, it's for both new installs or existing ones. It bundles in the de-bloater stuff some other extra options that people may like, and includes a batch installer of basic programs lots of people tend to like that can speed up a new install too.

It looks complicated because it does give you all the options to adjust manually, but you can just select simple presets that pre-configure what amount you want to de-bloat. If someone is unsure, doing the minimum one is the best way to go, since it mainly kills the telemetry/data-gathering stuff. You can always boot it up, and add more things if you wanna read what they do, and remove other things like I got rid of onedrive entirely because I have a NAS for backing up files.
 
Serious question, not rhetorical, why does MS go out of their way to break these secret local only setups every update? Only super nerds are fresh installing their OS in the first place, and an even smaller subset up them are using secret console command bypasses. This is an infinitesimally small niche of a niche of windows users who will immediately remove the fake sock puppet MS account from the system MS's trying to force them to make. There's absolutely no monetary value or financial incentive for MS to do this, quite the opposite, they're paying teams of million dollar salary employees to break it and QA all the shit they change every update, as well as server and bandwidth costs for dormant sock puppet accounts. It's completely irrational and illogical.
MS wants complete control , thats the only reason i can think of
 
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The point is people are being forced out of their comfort zone. They won't necessarely switch to linux, but they'll see it as an alternative that exists. You won't see suddenly a jump from 3% userbase in steam hardware survey to 20%, but you'll see faster growth. Linux did grow twice as much in the last 5 years than it did on the 10 before that.
After I switched to Bazzite, I was dual booting because I needed the comfort of knowing I could go back if it didn't work out. Then I found I could still use familiar apps like Firefox, VLC, qbitorrent, Steam etc., and it was all stable and games were working smoothly. I have deleted my Windows partition now and I don't miss it.
 
Basically, it's for both new installs or existing ones. It bundles in the de-bloater stuff some other extra options that people may like, and includes a batch installer of basic programs lots of people tend to like that can speed up a new install too.

It looks complicated because it does give you all the options to adjust manually, but you can just select simple presets that pre-configure what amount you want to de-bloat. If someone is unsure, doing the minimum one is the best way to go, since it mainly kills the telemetry/data-gathering stuff. You can always boot it up, and add more things if you wanna read what they do, and remove other things like I got rid of onedrive entirely because I have a NAS for backing up files.
Interesting, thanks.

I ended up watching his guide video but I'm just worried I'll mess my machine up somehow....took me long enough to get it working!
 
Interesting, thanks.

I ended up watching his guide video but I'm just worried I'll mess my machine up somehow....took me long enough to get it working!
No problem, and I would say this program works pretty well...I've done it on a few computers as well. The chances of permanently screwing things up are low, and quite a few of those options you can even revert back to normal.

The minimal preset really does limit how much you're going to disable, and when you select a preset, it will show the features it's changing with checkboxes. You can hover over what they're doing, even disable some of them for things you might be worried about.

Only issue I had was when I used this to de-bloat OneDrive out of my system, because some apps on Win11 will default to putting my saved files under a folder within documents, which in Win11 is under OneDrive. Chris Titus's tool will instead re-map those system folders (photos, videos, documents, downloads) to stuff like C:/Users/<my username>/Documents, because that's the way they were in Win10 and older. Just had to change the folder path in those apps to their new location, and never had problems again. Very much think it's worth doing too, Onedrive wastes system resources in the background even when games are running.
 
If more steam, gog, and epic games work on iOS I would just jump over. Most of the stuff in my house is apple already other than pcs and that's just for gaming.
 
Just noticed this on my Win 10 PC, looks like they're offering a free extra year of security updates.

I thought this was only for EU, I'm getting this free update in the US.


teI3Q6O.png
 
Started the year using mostly windows 7 still on a dual boot then 10 for the last few months and for the last week, 11 after finally getting a new PC and so far I can't tell the difference, it's mostly the same, and no issues so far, but it's only been a week,

I take no notice of MS fear mongering, I've only used windows in built AV for over 10 years now and the only problems have come from windows updates not spyware
 
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Just noticed this on my Win 10 PC, looks like they're offering a free extra year of security updates.

I thought this was only for EU, I'm getting this free update in the US.


teI3Q6O.png
Yup, that's how I got it.
I'd heard that there was going to be some deal that you could spend MS points on, so in the ramp up to the end date I built up a batch of points doing their daily rewards thing (Well I got a python script to do it, cause I ain't clicking around on bing). Anyway, turns out that you didn't even need points in the end.
 
No it's not. Whether you like it, it will become a reality, sooner or later.
And let me guess, you didn'0t even saw the video and who made it?

It will be later, not sooner. Yes, I saw the video. The average consumer he's talking about that have no idea about esu and security stuff are in fact not using win10. It's only ppl who have knowledge that are still using win10 and will still be using it. I have no intention of ditching it.
 
It will be later, not sooner. Yes, I saw the video. The average consumer he's talking about that have no idea about esu and security stuff are in fact not using win10. It's only ppl who have knowledge that are still using win10 and will still be using it. I have no intention of ditching it.

But everything he said is accurate. Most people using Win10 don't know about ESU enrollment, so their PCs are already at risk.
People like you have half a year left and then no more security updates. Unless you switch to LTSC.
It will probably take a few years, but it will come a time, when programs and games will not even run on Windows 10.
This is not some random theory, it's just the same things that has happened to all OSes.
 
Strange, I have been using Windows 10 on my Surface Book 3 since 2021, and it is certainly not "gone".

In fact, I was using it just yesterday, and it was there, not gone. Will it vanish from the SSD on some day?
 
Most people using Win10 don't know about ESU enrollment, so their PCs are already at risk.
That is in fact not true, because people who have no idea about Windows in general have updated to Windows 11 by default since Microsoft pushed it really hard automatically.

It will probably take a few years

Exactly my point. I never said win10 support will stay forever, but for now and a few more years, everyone's fine unless the consumers make a massive push against it and support will continue even more.

atGJ7RSJXRgaQONE.png
 
That is in fact not true, because people who have no idea about Windows in general have updated to Windows 11 by default since Microsoft pushed it really hard automatically.

Let's start with the obvious. You have no data to corroborate that people "who have no idea about Windows in general have updated to Windows 11".
It's probably the opposite, as people who have less skills on PC, are less likely to do hardware upgrades and are stuck with Windows 10, due to lack of a TPM.

Exactly my point. I never said win10 support will stay forever, but for now and a few more years, everyone's fine unless the consumers make a massive push against it and support will continue even more.

atGJ7RSJXRgaQONE.png

That Steam chart is probably some statistical error, and it has happened a few times, of seeing some stat do some extreme jump from one month to another.
It also has the problem of only accounting for PC gamers. The rest of the market paints a much different picture with Windows 10 being much further back.

110293_2_windows-11-market-share-sees-dramatic-increase-in-2026_full.jpg
 
Let's start with the obvious. You have no data to corroborate that people "who have no idea about Windows in general have updated to Windows 11".
It's probably the opposite, as people who have less skills on PC, are less likely to do hardware upgrades and are stuck with Windows 10, due to lack of a TPM.

You have no data either. So let's agree to disagree.
That Steam chart is probably some statistical error

Ok, Microsoft, if you say so.
 

The extended support is till this October, right? And at least in EU that was free.

Either way, yeah, folks should not be running unsupported and internet connected OS.

Edit: Realistically Win11 LTSC or Enterprise isn't bad. But you do have to install a few things on top of it to make it run as an "entertainment" and every day box.
 
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But everything he said is accurate. Most people using Win10 don't know about ESU enrollment, so their PCs are already at risk.
People like you have half a year left and then no more security updates. Unless you switch to LTSC.
It will probably take a few years, but it will come a time, when programs and games will not even run on Windows 10.
This is not some random theory, it's just the same things that has happened to all OSes.
I am pretty sure some publishers already stated they can't guarantee Win10 being supported. Maybe Konami and Capcom. I could be misremembering and too lazy to double check 😅.
 
The extended support is till this October, right? And at least in EU that was free.

Either way, yeah, folks should not be running unsupported and internet connected OS.

Edit: Realistically Win11 LTSC or Enterprise isn't bad. But you do have to install a few things on top of it to make it run as an "entertainment" and every day box.

I'm using Win11 24H2 LTSC. It's really good, especially compared to the regular Windows11.
I didn't bother installing the MS Store, as not to bog it down. And I don't need it anyway.
I only needed the Windows HDR calibration tool. But that only required 2 or 3 PowerShell commands.
 
I'm using Win11 24H2 LTSC. It's really good, especially compared to the regular Windows11.
I didn't bother installing the MS Store, as not to bog it down. And I don't need it anyway.
I only needed the Windows HDR calibration tool. But that only required 2 or 3 PowerShell commands.
Would you recommend Win11 24H2 LTSC over a normal, debloated Win11 setup?

Does LTSC still need debloating? Does it still have all the online/telemetry/AI bullshit? If that's the case, if you are going to debloat anyway then maybe normal Windows 11 is better?

Also, is LTSC compatible with the Windows 10 Start and right click menu mods?
 
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Would you recommend Win11 24H2 LTSC over a normal, debloated Win 11 setup?

Does LTSC still need debloating? Does it still have all the online/telemetry bullshit? If that's the case, if you are going to debloat then maybe normal Windows 11 is better?

Do you need the MS Store or a bunch of apps from there? Then use the normal Windows 11, then debloat what you don't need.
If you don't need the MS Store, Windows 11 LTSC is amazing. Much more stable and much fewer broken updates.

LTSC still needs debloating a couple of things, but it's much cleaner than Windows 11. It's only minor things.
Also consider that there are differences between the EU version of Windows 11 and the rest of the World. The EU version has significantly less bloatware and spyware.
So if you are in Europe, you won't notice as much of a difference between Windows 11 Pro/Home and Windows 11 LTSC.
 
Do you need the MS Store or a bunch of apps from there? Then use the normal Windows 11, then debloat what you don't need.
If you don't need the MS Store, Windows 11 LTSC is amazing. Much more stable and much fewer broken updates.

LTSC still needs debloating a couple of things, but it's much cleaner than Windows 11. It's only minor things.
Also consider that there are differences between the EU version of Windows 11 and the rest of the World. The EU version has significantly less bloatware and spyware.
So if you are in Europe, you won't notice as much of a difference between Windows 11 Pro/Home and Windows 11 LTSC.
And you can install Windows Store on top of LTSC as well.
 
Do you need the MS Store or a bunch of apps from there? Then use the normal Windows 11, then debloat what you don't need.
If you don't need the MS Store, Windows 11 LTSC is amazing. Much more stable and much fewer broken updates.

LTSC still needs debloating a couple of things, but it's much cleaner than Windows 11. It's only minor things.
Also consider that there are differences between the EU version of Windows 11 and the rest of the World. The EU version has significantly less bloatware and spyware.
So if you are in Europe, you won't notice as much of a difference between Windows 11 Pro/Home and Windows 11 LTSC.
Great info, thanks.
 
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