Lots of PCs Are Poised To Fall Off the Windows 10 Update Cliff One Year From Today (arstechnica.com) 123
One year from today, on October 14, 2025, Microsoft will stop releasing security updates for PCs that are still running Windows 10. From a report: Organizations and individuals will still be able to pay for three more years of updates, with prices that go up steadily each year (Microsoft still hasn't provided pricing for end users, only saying that it will release pricing info "closer to the October 2025 date.") But for most PCs running Windows 10, the end of the line is in sight.
I'm going the (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to upgrade my old windows 10 PC to Linux i would never pay more to microsoft
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
Myself as well. Itâ(TM)s good to have a far off end date, as Iâ(TM)m taking to slow deliberate route, testing and learning on an older system.
Re: (Score:3)
If you really need access to Windows while in Linux, it's extremely easy to spin up a Win11 install on a vm. I do it with Virtual Box. I haven't needed it yet but it's nice to know if I run into a must need Windows, I have it.
Only draw back with Virtual Box is the free version doesn't allow you to take advantage of your video card, so you can't play games in it. No idea if this is true with the paid version.
I say, take the plunge! Immersion yourself in the Linux environment and you'll quickly find y
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
I use an older version of VirtualBox (free version) and it plays OpenGL Windows games just fine, if little slowly. Some Direct3D games work too.
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
Oops, I was talking about Wine, sorry. I know for sure than VirtualBox can play some 3D games, though.
Never comment on Slashdot when sleepy.
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Me too. I have been hoping Microsoft would force me to switch to Linux, as it has always seemed a bit too much trouble as long as Windows (kinda) worked.
Re:I'm going the (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not planning on upgrading from Windows 7.
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It's a riot that you're getting modded "Funny". I'm still on 7. It's stable, no annoying updates, no interruptions, no problems. I do have a couple of machines still running XP, and of course some with Linux. One has Win 10, but I haven't booted it in over a year. No point.
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Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
No security updates...
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Yes, thanks, that's well known. My first frustration: why should I need them? It irritates me, maybe even angers me, that a company like Microsoft gets away with selling such horribly broken products. Even with years and years of sometimes hundreds of patches, it's still broken. Which brings me to my second frustration: there should be some mechanism in place- markets, laws, something, to force Microsoft to completely finish a product before being allowed to introduce a new one. Every new version of Windows
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
I do most of my everyday work on Linux, and for the rest I use a Windows XP virtual machine.
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Been doing that with quite a few workstations at work. Most are connecting to Windows Server RDP servers, so Remmina is a perfectly good substitute. The workstations work just fine, and we can run them until they die. Testing out the Debian images right now.
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I wonder if upgrading a PC to Linux, running KVM, then running a VM under the hypervisor would allow for easy Windows 11 usage. Of course, you have an OS layer, but virtualization is easy, and there is swtpm to take care of that requirement. You mainly need a decent amount of RAM (I'd say 16 gigs), a recent SSD, even SATA, and 2-4 CPUs so you can have one CPU for the host OS and hand the VM the rest. Downside is game playing may suck, but upside is that updating to Windows 11 is doable, and as an added b
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You're still getting the same CPU (unless you want to fully emulate it, which makes running modern Windows comfortably out of the question).
If you're looking only to run W11 you can bypass the CPU (and TPM for that matter) restrictions with a simple officially documented tweak.
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
If you're looking only to run W11 you can bypass the CPU (and TPM for that matter) restrictions with a simple officially documented tweak.
Exactly.
But Linux advocates still think they pay a Microsoft sales tax, that the windows desktop is the tile interface from Win 8, and that Windows doesn't let end users control when patches are applied.
Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
Curious how old your Win 10 system is?
Any intel system with an 8000-series CPU or newer wit a Win 7, 8/8.1, or Win 10 license can be upgraded to Win 11 for free, how old is your system now? It will be a year older when this is an issue...
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Re: I'm going the (Score:2)
No, 2025 will not be the year Linux finally cracks 5% of desktop systems.
Canâ(TM)t upgrade (Score:5, Informative)
Canâ(TM)t upgrade even if i wanted to.
They put arbitrary cpu generation requirements in windows 11. 7th Intel is too old, but apparently the almost identical 8th gen is fine
Re:Canâ(TM)t upgrade (Score:5, Interesting)
Where are Lena Kahn and Elizabeth Warren in opposition to this planned obsolescence?
Re:Canâ(TM)t upgrade (Score:5, Insightful)
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Warren isn’t exactly friendly towards Microsoft. https://www.yahoo.com/tech/sen... [yahoo.com]
Re:Can't upgrade (Score:2)
Queue the apologists saying you can still easily upgrade if you jump through some hoops, use some hacks, and have good backups cause MS could brick you at any moment.
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Or just buy a TPM module ffs. It costs less than $10
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Or just buy a TPM module ffs. It costs less than $10
If your motherboard has a header for it, which many (most?) older ones don't. TPM isn't common on older systems, certainly not v2+ -- my Dell T110 only has TPM v1.2. In any case, you'd still be limited if you have an older CPU...
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Haha, no, a TPM module won't do it.
The Windows 11 requirements require more modern CPUs and 99% of the time that means a new motherboard and CPU which basically means you need a new PC.
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If I really wanted to I could put an 8700k in my motherboard and it would run just fine. That's how similar the 7th and 8th gens are. Most 7th gen motherboards only require a bios update to run 8th gen processors.
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My motherboard already has a compatible TPM.
All 7th gen and older Intel's aren't eligible for Windows 11.
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No thanks, I'd prefer a software-emulated one, so that I might correct any misbehavior on its part.
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Queue
Cue.
Re:Can't upgrade (Score:3)
Download a Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... [microsoft.com]
Download Rufus
https://rufus.ie/en/ [rufus.ie]
Get a 16 GB or bigger USB stick. Use Rufus to make a bootable USB and you can remove the requirements for 4 GB RAM, Secure Boot, TPM 2.0 and a Microsoft account.
Using Rufus is even easier than using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool.
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Can you remote the CPU requirement?
I already have 16GB of RAM, Secure Boot and a TPM.
Re: Can't upgrade (Score:2)
Re: Canâ(TM)t upgrade (Score:2)
setup.exe /product server works fine going back to 1st gen Core i-xxx CPUs
Sadly, my Core 2 Quad is left out in the cold.
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Canâ(TM)t upgrade even if i wanted to.
They put arbitrary cpu generation requirements in windows 11. 7th Intel is too old, but apparently the almost identical 8th gen is fine
I've got an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X CPU and it also isn't supported for Windows 11. As best I can tell the CPU requirements are fairly arbitrary and I imagine my CPU can actually run it, but the real issue is that Windows 11 requires disk encryption and forcing this onto faster CPUs was a way to make it not suck as bad.
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Except the 7700k and 8700k have the same hardware accelerated crypto, pretty much the same Kaby Lake cores
The only difference is 4 cores vs 6 cores.
A 7700k is faster than most other 8th gen CPU's.
The 8th gen was when Intel started stumbling quite a bit, releasing the same cores as the previous gen. They just added more cores, upped the TDP, and lowered the base clock.
Re: Canâ(TM)t upgrade (Score:2)
You do know that Microsoft published approved workarounds to allow you to install and run Win 11 on your non-compliant desktop, right? They released the workarounds over a year ago...
Here's the workaround: https://www.starwindsoftware.c... [starwindsoftware.com]
Oh no... (Score:3)
Anyway.
Last version of Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
I have a vague memory from the time Windows 10 was going through its marketing hype phase before release that it was billed as the last version of Windows (on the grounds that it would basically rolling update forever).
Well that never happened (or I misremembered).
Rolling update of Windows 10 (Score:2)
They call it Windows 11. We got rolled.
Re: Last version of Windows? (Score:5, Informative)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:2)
Ah thanks!
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I really think MS' plan for Windows 10 was for it to be the last version of windows, and that they were going to make it a Linux distribution and roll it off. There just isn't much more growth available for Windows as a product, so it would have been better to sell services for it and let the development community work on maintenance. That would have allowed them to do things with OneDrive and other cloud services and app stores that they weren't able to do because of their 90's era US monopoly restrictions
Re: Last version of Windows? (Score:2)
MS releases updates to Win 11 2x a year, with suffixes like H1 or H2, kinda like Ubuntu's .04 and .10 releases (but Ubuntu changes the mayor number each year)
Smug penguins (Score:3, Interesting)
This is my cue to feel smug because I've been using Linux on the desktop for the last 5 years.
Upgrade (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.linuxmint.com/ [linuxmint.com]
Yeah yeah, you can't because your important software is not available. In that case pay up. What's so difficult?
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It's not that it's difficult. It's that in this age of trying to do good by the climate and reduce waste, literally millions of pretty large electronic devices are deemed 'unfit for use' and sent to the landfill because of an arbitrary date in a calendar.
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So install the upgrade I linked and keep using them. They're not getting free Windows updates anymore. If that means "unfit for use" to you, that's on you.
Re: Upgrade (Score:2)
Right, do you complain when Apple drops support for their hardware? Of course not.
You know most new Apple hardware is unrepairable (everything soldered to one PCB) and if you're not careful, you can brick a MacBook when you give it to a friend and don't properly wipe it.
But yeah, MS drops support for 8 year-old hardware and you curse them, Apple drops support for similar aged hardware (7 years for MacBooks, 10 for MacMinis) and no one cares...
Go figure.
Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:5, Interesting)
Since Win10 basically runs everything Win11 runs and essentially is the same system, many people will not downgrade to Win11. Hence it is quite possible that Microsoft will this time fail with their asshole-strategy to force people on new hardware.
Re: Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:2)
Re: Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. The whole hardware incompatibility of Win11 with Win10 hardware is artificial and serves no purpose that would benefit the user.
Re:Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it is kind of an unholy alliance with hardware makers. MS gets them business, they put MS crap on the machines per default. Essentially.
Re: Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:3)
Re: Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:2)
So bypass the TPM check and run Win 11, what's the problem?
https://www.starwindsoftware.c... [starwindsoftware.com]
Re: Will be interesting to see how that goes (Score:2)
So bypass the TPM check and run Win 11, what's the problem?
https://www.starwindsoftware.c... [starwindsoftware.com]
Important Software. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, unfortunately I'm running 20+ year old software that won't ever get another update, so I'm stuck with running Windows 7/10 on two computers. Not that I want to upgrade to 11, the laptop I got my wife six months ago runs Win 11, and I bloody hate it. Who the heck thought turning Windows into MacOS was a good idea?
Re:Important Software. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is computers on subscription (Score:4, Insightful)
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If we kept the 2G and 3G networks around forever, and presumably the 4G and 5G as they get superseded, how is radion spectrum going to be freed up for future technology? Who's going to be a customer of these decades old networks to pay for their upkeep? 3G is over 20 years old now. 2G is over 30.
Who's going to make new 2G towers, with their massive 64k peak bandwidth available to .... well you might be the only customer?
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Or come up with a replacement modem that looks old to the host, but actually talks via modern protocols. (Many of these laptops have the WAN modem as an expansion card.)
No one said anything about forcibly maintaining the towers.
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You're suggesting to keep an old Nokia phone running, create a completely new device to emulate an old cellphone network? One that won't radiate any of the licensed spectrum it will need to use. How do you use a phone sealed in a metal box?
You could need to replace the entire modem and RF components, including the antennas, which for the classic Nokia 3310, are internal. Half of the PCB is dedicated to the cellular chip and RF amplifier.
You can easily replace an m2 WAN card, but by the sounds of it, xack wo
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Debian 12 32bit version https://cdimage.debian.org/deb... [debian.org]
Looking forward to it (Score:5, Interesting)
It'll be nice to pick out a cheap unnecessary obsoleted second-hand laptop by that time to migrate my current Devuan installation to.
Not that I really need more performance than the current 2008 or 2009 Dell, but it's just nice and fun to gain a better toy sometimes.
Switching Gaming PC to SteamOS (Score:2)
My last Windows is my Gaming PC. Wanted to try Gaming on Linux anyway, so this is the necessary motivation.
Oh Windows is bloatware. (Score:3)
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Upgrade to Linux Mint 22 with Long Term Support.
My Windows 10 PC is a Dell XPS 420 and too "old" to officially support Windows 11, which I don't think I'd like anyway, though it runs Win10 very well.
Just bumped my, new and more capable, but still too "old" (i7 w/o TPM) for Win11, Linux PC from Mint 21.3 to 22 last weekend and migrated over my Thunderbird profile now that the versions match at 128.3.1esr (w/o using a PPA). Already migrated my Word/Excel and WordPro/123 (yes) files to LibreOffice and the only thing holding me up at the moment, other tha
I can't complain about Win11 (Score:3)
For the last year this has worked without a hitch.
The rest of the month I return to trusted Kubuntu.
BS Requirements (Score:2)
For a family member, I bought them a 8C-16T Xeon with 64GB ECC workstation. BUT, the CPU is "too old" to run Windows 11 officially.
Microsoft is artificially creating e-waste. Luckily the hacker scene has various methods of bypassing Microsoft's artificial hardware restrictions.
(yes, I know Linux/BSDs/etc exist, but this machine is specifically built to run the Adobe suite for multimedia production, of which the F/OSS alternatives are ass in comparison for actual real-world workloads)
Perhaps a lightweight vm for older hardware (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a server right now that's well over 10 years old with no TPM support whatsoever, 1.0 or 2.0. It's running AlmaLinux 9. I used kvm and libvirt to install a Windows 11 vm a while back and kvm provides a full emulated tpm 2.0 that Windows 11 is completely happy with. The VM runs fine and I access it primarily over rdesktop (rdpwrap to make it multi-user for the win).
Leads me to wonder if a lightweight vm or hypervisor could be devised that provides a virtual TPM and boots up windows 11 and passes all the hardware straight through to it, so it appears and feels like it's bare metal. Would save a lot of good hardware from the scrap heap for casual folks who aren't likely to switch to Linux or buy a mac.
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Anything that patched out the TPM would be considered malware. That said, it's a good idea. I'd go one deeper and say just patch the kernel, probably easier and more efficient than a virtualization layer. Unfortunately, you'd be highly dependent on Windows patch level, but there might be ways around that.
MSFT would eventually try to hose up either strategy, along the lines of "The software's not done until Lotus/Novell won't run".
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Not talking about patching out tpm. We're talking a vm layer that emulates the tpm. Like it said this already works on kvm and libvirt out of the box on Alma Linux 9.
Re: Perhaps a lightweight vm for older hardware (Score:3)
https://www.smoothnet.org/qemu... [smoothnet.org]
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Like I said it just works. I created the vm with virt manager and installed Windows 11.
Re: Perhaps a lightweight vm for older hardware (Score:3)
Point is the answer to your question is yes. You only need enough Linux to get qemu/kvm running with GPU passthrough. Not sure how to prevent Linux from attaching the GPU in a single GPU scenario though.
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Right. It would be interesting if there was a little custom distro that was essentially invisible. Boot off a USB stick which would install the custom distro and then set up the windows image and then on boot you'd only see Windows.
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How did you overcome the Windows 11 CPU requirements? I have a ten-year-old VMware cluster and Windows 11 refuses to honor its CPU.
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With AlmaLinux 9, kvm is able to emulate the TPM 2.0 out of the box. In the qemu xml file it is using the "tpm-crb" emulator module apparently.
No Win 11 PCs at my company (Score:4, Interesting)
My company, right now, does not have a single PC currently running Windows 11. I'm guessing we are not that unique.
The fact is for most office workers, a PC from 2015 is probably still working just fine. The only way MS can get people to buy new PCs today is to scare everyone with shortening service life cycles.
Not switching to W11 (Score:2)
Already dual-booting at home (Score:2)
No more forced unsolicited updates (Score:2)
I welcome it.
UpGrAdE tO lInUx (Score:2)
They will just continue to use Windows 10 until they get a new computer which will have Windows 11, or possibly macOS,.preinstalled.
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Microsoft is still pushing Win7 updates... (Score:2)
Thank goodness (Score:2)
I have a computer I have been unsuccessfully trying to not be updated for years because every time it does it causes grief. I was always quite annoyed that they force the updates. Good riddance to updates.
Next year is 2032?? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't care (Score:5, Interesting)
With Microsoft borking shit up so frequently with their updates, I simply turned them off. :|
Their updates are risky as the problems they portend to solve imo.
I'll continue to use Windows 10 as long as the software I utilize supports it.
( No, before you ask, the software in question is not available on Linux )
If necessary, I'll simply firewall the Win 10 box and use my other box ( Linux Mint ) to do
all things internet.
I will not be upgrading to Windows 11 ( or anything else Windows beyond today ).
The only reason (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the only reason people I know have to keep using Windows is Office 365. And no, Libreoffice does not cut it - Writer is good enough, but Calc is way to incompatible with Excel to be a quick change and Impress is simply horrible compared to Powerpoint.
When these people drop off Windows, they are going to buy Macs. Because the Mac minis and Macbook Airs are decently priced, more than sufficient performance for their needs, AND run Office 365.
My 640kB wasn't enough again ... (Score:2)
Microsoft is repeating this scam for the past 30 years now.
Dumped my PC 15 years ago.
Still using my 2019 iMac.
Hopefully it will last a few more years.
Normal humans don't have much choice (Score:2)
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This weekend I was running RSX-11 on a PDP-11/70.
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This weekend I was running RSX-11 on a PDP-11/70.
On a Raspberry Pi? Awesome PDP emulator.
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I own 2 Windows XP work stations with dual xeon cpus
Long overdue for a PC upgrade, not an issue (Score:2)
Yep, a non-issue.
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I still have a windows 7 system too. Absolutely no problems with it.
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Linux still sucks for AAA games, and that's a fact.
I don't play many games these days, but I have played a few on Linux. The most recent was Doom Eternal, and it played exactly the same on Linux as it does on Windows. My kids play a bunch of high quality Windows and Linux games through Steam, and the gameplay performance is indistinguishable on both.
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If you've been around since the era before Steam made everything a one click install experience, you'll have no problem dealing with getting your games running under most modern linux distros.
If not, well there's always Steam Deck.