End of Support for Windows 10

If only there were some free desktop OS that could be installed on those machines that didn’t care about making them obsolete.

Snarkiness (towards the Win10-should-be-eternal proponents) aside, it is a shame Linux hasn’t made more desktop inroads. Ubuntu was very easy to install and use the last time I played with it.

I realize there’s a host of barriers to entry and another host I wouldn’t think about being fairly computer savvy, but what would happen if, say, Walmart and Best Buy stopped carrying Windows. What would be the major pain points? Office? “Where’s my Outlook?” What do nontechies need that keeps Windows king?

I can say having seen it up close as a long time Windows admin, those listed complaints are essentially all correct. And what's more galling is that they are using security updates of all things to drive usage of, essentially, Microsoft accounts.

It's times like these it shows that regulators don't know/care what's going on here and how dangerous this is. This is the ultimate growth hacking. They are now literally putting people at risk in order to drive growth.

What's next, they just skip the middleman and start ransomwaring the drives themselves...oh wait Bitlocker enabled by default and the key stored in...a Microsoft account...(seen that happen too.)

Oh and @Ruffin don't get me started on Outlook. Which Outlook? Which one do you have a license for, if any? Web version? App? Which of the seven things called Outlook do you mean exactly? Outlook (New)? Or Outlook (Classic)? Or Outlook that's actually New but labeled Outlook?

At least Microsoft keeps thousands of people employed with busywork managing their mismanagement.

@Ruffin and to answer your last question, they need that one piece of software that was written for Windows and never re-written properly for anything else. It's called the "legacy" version now, but it's actually "the version that still works fine that doesn't cost five figures per year in per user licensing."

Also, Office and the managed desktop that integrates completely into Office. And the compliance checklists. As bad as Microsoft is, nobody else even really tries to do the breadth and depth of what they do.

The direction Windows 11 is moving in, is quite worrisome. Encroaching on user freedom and invasion of privacy (enabling copilot and autorecall, forcing online account creation and forcing the use of onedrive are all quite egregious) is a trend that shows no stopping.

Work-wise i've migrated from Win 11 to Debian on my main workstation. Linux has come a long, long way since I've first installed it back in '98 or so and I hope to be able to maintain the switch. @bart is right - office stands alone and has no real competition, which is my main point of concern.

The Macs are a more complex issue.

I too am disappointed about no longer having a system that can dual-boot macOS and Windows.

Also I have no intention of using Windows 11, even less so than macOS 26. It sounds awful and it's bad enough using Windows 10.

I miss my operating systems from 2010.

Here's a hot take. Microsoft should be required by law to keep Windows 10 running because of their stupid claims that "Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows ever". Anyone remember this from the mid-2010s? e.g., https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/7/8568473/windows-10-last-version-of-windows

If they're killing it, then they were false advertising and should be sued as such.

Sorry I'm sure someone will point out it's absurd to try to get the law involved with something like that and you're probably right. But man this is all so frustrating. I just set up a new Windows 11 PC (complete with no longer being allowed to set the computer up offline, and all my old workarounds had been patched!) and it was an absolutely miserable experience. I've never installed Ubuntu faster. I feel like every day we get more of a look at Microsoft's vision for the future of compute/interaction and I absolutely loathe it.

Fortunately, there's a straightforward solution to the Windows 11 problem: use a tool like Tiny11 Builder to create a decrapified Windows 11 installer. That's what I'm doing for my gaming PC.

For everything else, there is Linux + WinBoat.

@Plume How much is it possible to decrapify Windows 11? That's a serious question, not a rhetorical one. I had waited several years before installing Windows 10 because I was waiting for people to figure out how to mitigate its worst design flaws, and they did eventually get there. (And of course now my procedure for installing Windows 10 involves using a bunch of third party tools to turn off a lot of stuff.)

But from what I was hearing about Windows 11, I was starting to get worried that it wouldn't be possible to get rid of the heinous parts, from AI integration to constant privacy invasions to requiring TPM and such. At least one of the saving graces of Windows is, or at least was, that nearly everything about it can be tweaked if you know the right arcane registry incantation, which is one thing Windows has over modern macOS.

The problem switching to linux is running certain essential software that only runs on Windows. Where i work, things like CAD software or electric circuit simulation software.

Apple not working with Microsoft to get the Mac T1/T2 security chips working as a Windows 11-compliant TPM irks me. Mostly because even if Apple doesn't want to support those otherwise perfectly fine computing devices, many still would otherwise qualify as fine Windows machines. I get it, Apple isn't in the business of making Windows PCs… but they are in the business of making THEIR customers happy AND Apple constantly tells us how eco-friendly they are, to assuage us for paying that little bit extra Apple is forcing for said eco-friendliness. But go ahead and throw a 27-inch 5K Retina panel in the landfill, it's not 'cool' enough anymore. So I don't have a lot of sympathy for their hypocrisy on this.
But even beyond that, what irks me more is that super-rich Apple, driven by "success" of this Exec team, seems completely oblivious to what Boot Camp did for Apple in the 2010s. There are STILL just too many applications—for a LOT of users/companies/purchasers!—that require Windows. And I'm not going to apologize for NOT trying to get folks on Parallels (or VMware Fusion); running Windows in a VM just isn't a solution and isn't supported at all by most PC software vendors. Yet once again I have just gone through an entire cycle of PC purchasing where, given my experience, IMHO, Apple could have easily ROCKETED their Mac marketshare if the Mac mini could have run Windows 11 ARM. Hands down. Their loss. Like they even care. But also the community's loss. And we SHOULD care.

Ditto, count me among the disappointeds who can no longer run a supported dual-boot configuration on perfectly fine Intel Mac hardware (2020 iMac), much less extend its useful service life, thanks to Windows. And I doubt Apple is shrewd enough to realise this, but it is an irony that Tahoe will be supported for longer than Windows 10, even with the free ESU, simply because of the TPM requirement. But the fact is that Windows was always more accommodating to longevity, of both hardware and software, as well as historically being more easily moulded to user requirements, and that's going out the window because the on-chip TPM isn't accessible to Windows today. Not to speak of the flat-panel display, which can't be separated from the computer. It really *is* a shame that Apple never saw the utility in allowing users to run other operating systems on their hardware as anything other than a stopgap, because it has clearly been a benefit to them and would make their hardware an instant success, even for people who dislike macOS.

Linux? Yeah, I do love it, on my servers. But, accessibility support just isn't there yet; the choice for me is macOS or Windows. And, at least until Windows 11 can be properly brought to heel, it's pretty obvious which I'd rather use. I'll keep my hopes up for movement on the Linux front, though, because it's clearly the only long-term sustainable option.

"How much is it possible to decrapify Windows 11?"

You're basically getting rid of all the extraneous apps that come with Windows and almost all the telemetry (unless you also want to turn off things like the update mechanism, in which case you can turn off all telemetry).

With Windows 10, honestly the best version was 2021 LTSC IOT. Brilliantly cut down and you can further disable remaining telemetry with a couple commands. It's supported until 2032(?). For those with older Macs who want to run Windows, or older non Apple PCS, also wanting to continue with Windows 10, just switch to that version and enjoy.

For Windows 11, probably still worth getting LTSC version. But remember, since Windows 11 is still being updated, the only way to get an update to the next major release of Windows 11, is to buy a new LTSC key when it drops (or use a not as kosher activation script). For me, it wouldn't matter, after two plus years, I don't mind buying another OEM key for $20 or less.

To reiterate, Windows 11 LTSC doesn't need TPM, so should work on Macs too. A boot tool like Ventoy also has the ability to ignore secure boot and TPM requirements. For what that's worth.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

I strongly encourage people to use Ventoy for their bootable/installer needs. You have one drive that is formatted exFAT and then you drag and drop the iso files directly onto it. When you boot the system, you get a nice little boot loader and then you select the actual system to boot into. Pretty sure it works on Intel Macs as long as you have a 64 bit boot loader. I no longer have to write the iso to the bootable drive every damn time I need a Windows or Linux installer. So much faster!