Microsoft Tells Windows 10 Users To Buy New PCs (xda-developers.com) 160
Microsoft has begun urging Windows 10 users to upgrade their systems ahead of the October 14, 2025 support deadline, but with a solution many find impractical: just buy a new computer. According to StatCounter data, 58.7% of Windows users remain on Windows 10 despite the impending end of security updates and technical assistance.
In emails to Windows 10 users, Microsoft's primary recommendation is to trade in old devices for newer Windows 11-compatible hardware, rather than focusing on alternative solutions.
In emails to Windows 10 users, Microsoft's primary recommendation is to trade in old devices for newer Windows 11-compatible hardware, rather than focusing on alternative solutions.
And if you're homeless... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And if you're homeless... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is more of a Shapiro moment.
Ben Shapiro famously suggested that people with houses on the coast that ended up under water due to climate change would just sell up and move inline. Of course, since Aquaman isn't real, they may find it difficult to locate a buyer for a submerged dwelling.
People aren't going to get much when trading in a laptop too old to run Windows 11. The market for those machines is already falling fast. Good times if you want to run Linux or ChromeOS though.
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Blah, I misclicked on the rating.
I found this comment to be insightful, not redundant.
Re:And if you're homeless... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm looking forward to all the cheap perfectly good systems that will run Linux as you stated. Indeed, good times.
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Re:And if you're homeless... (Score:4, Informative)
Good times if you want to run Linux or ChromeOS though.
Don't limit yourself to desktop stuff. I actually ran Proxmox VE on an old Sandy Bridge laptop for a year. I didn't lean on it very hard, but it made a decent admin node, provided a quorum vote, and since the battery was still good, it had it's own UPS.
T
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My NAS is a sandy bridge Xeon workstation that I have used as my PC until about two years ago.
Re:And if you're homeless... (Score:4, Informative)
My NAS is a sandy bridge Xeon workstation that I have used as my PC until about two years ago.
Similar here, but Ivy Bridge, not that there's much difference. I think Ivy Bridge shaves a couple watts, and can sleep a bit deeper, but my NAS never sleeps. The nice thing about the Xeon workstation motherboards is they can use ECC RAM, which is always nice in a storage role.
For Proxmox VE nodes, the laptop died, and I've taken to the 1L USFF stuff you can buy on eBay. They come off lease and get dumped for almost nothing. Even the 8th gen stuff that's still marginally Win 11 capable is flirting with $100/node. The 6th gen stuff is slower, but $60/node, they can all be retrofitted for at least 2.5GbE for the SAN, and they idle around 8 watts...
T
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Don't limit yourself to desktop stuff. I actually ran Proxmox VE on an old Sandy Bridge laptop for a year. I didn't lean on it very hard, but it made a decent admin node, provided a quorum vote, and since the battery was still good, it had it's own UPS.
T
I still run Proxmox on an old I7 2600QM (I think) laptop. Does what I need it to do. The battery even works as a 10-15 min UPS.
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I still run Proxmox on an old I7 2600QM
The 26XXQM's all need two more digits, most are 45watt TDP. Nice laptop chip in its day! Make sure you rig the power management on that ala:
powertop --auto-tune
and:
echo "powersave" | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor
There's also a way to "echo '0'" into the screen brightness device in /dev, and get the backlight to turn all the way off. I did that on my old Sandy Bridge unit before it died via capacitor death, but I don't have an example handy.
T
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Of course, since Aquaman isn't real, they may find it difficult to locate a buyer for a submerged dwelling.
No but you can find plenty of cashed up stupid people and climate deniers. If you are concerned you almost definitely will be able to sell your coastal home as long as you're not so unconcerned that you wait until water is splashing through the front door.
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Shapiro living rent free in your head?
It's a non-issue, because just like Aquaman, global warming causing the seas to rise 100 feet isn't real.
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Interesting! I responded by getting a new computer and reimaging it to Linux ... I hadn't considered plain switching the old Windows computer to Linux.
I don't think it's practical. Anytime I change my home computer, I want the old and new one working at the same time for awhile while I iron out the workflow with the new one. Switching from Windows to Linux is a bigger-than-normal change in workflow.
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Not very innovative from Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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just buy a house.
What a hyperbolic analogy. If only homelessness was actually as easy to solve as downloading and installing a copy of Linux. Coming up next: "Spilled coffee in your car? Off to the scrap yard it goes!"
Re:And if you're homeless... (Score:5, Insightful)
The age of Windows 10 isn't really the defining factor. People didn't buy their computers on the day Windows 10 released.
The age of Windows 11 is what's important. When was it actually possible to buy a new computer that came with the newest version of Windows? Anyone who bought their current computer a day before that date (and quite possibly some months after) are being told to trash machines that are only about three and a half years old.
The amount of electronic waste being generated by this is obscene.
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I think it'd be more telling to look at the newest computer that can't run Windows 11.
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It's really the age of the oldest computer Windows 11 supports. That's apparently eighth generation Intel processors, which were released in 2017, and similar for Ryzen 2000. The unsupported seventh generation was discontinued in late 2020. So you could have a three to three and a half year old computer that's not supported. Maybe worse depending on how long it took those last seventh generation processors to wash through the pipeline.
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Windows 10 is nearly a decade old.
Windows 10 was released almost a decade ago. It has been continuously updated since then, originally 4 releases per year if you recall.
Indeed, it was going to be the last version of Windows. Then Windows 11 was announced, with steep hardware requirements that didn't actually do anything for users.
In another age, Best Buy sold a computer that would never be obsolete. Who knew companies lied?
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Windows 10 is nearly a decade old.
And so? That's entirely irrelevant.
Some people have high-spec quality PCs from 2018 which would give another 5 years or more of excellent service, but MS have arbitrarily decided to render them into e-waste by stopping them from upgrading to Windows 11.
You're lucky if you can get 10 years out of most major appliances these days
Devices much younger than that are affected. Powerful PCs in perfect working order.
Would you be happy to replace your perfectly working dishwasher b
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I can't agree more! My i7-4930k + 1070ti is more than serviceable when coding and running small local AIs
It might be over 10 years old, and not at all power efficient, but it sure as hell isn't junk
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Not exactly the same thing. This is more saying if you own a house in an area of California where you can't get fire insurance you should buy another house. You need to already have the thing to upgrade the thing.
I had a friend who is a struggling single mother way below the poverty line look at buying a replacement PC the other day. The second hand market shows Windows 10 machines for within $50 of a new Windows 11 laptop. Bottom of the line, but able to run Windows 11 none the less.
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It's very "let them eat cake"
The reason Landlords suck and renters suck is largely down to landlords wanting to do the least amount of work. Like if you rent a condo from a strata, or a home on a HOA. You, the renter have to deal with the HOA/Strata council thru the absentee landlord who doesn't do jack.
Likewise you might live on the west coast, but your true landlord is some dippity doo in Florida.
I'm not 100% against the idea of renting, but it needs to be a two-way conversation, and many landlords just a
Re: And if you're homeless... (Score:2)
Next? ITYM "more", he's already a sociopath.
Onlig. Bad Car Analogy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry. We no longer make tires in that size. Buy a new car.
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At least in that case, you can buy new wheels and fit them to your old car. I've had to do that when a tire size became unobtainium. Similarly, if you could just change your TPM module, this might be a somewhat reasonable request. But almost nobody can.
Re:Onlig. Bad Car Analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Similarly, if you could just change your TPM module, this might be a somewhat reasonable request. But almost nobody can.
It's not just TPM. One of my colleagues has a laptop with TPM 2.0, but the CPU isn't on the allowed list for Windows 11.
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Similarly, if you could just change your TPM module
Damned federally mandated tire pressure monitors.
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I like that one, got me thinking. How's this?
I'm sorry. We do make that size, but it has been arbitrarily decided that you cannot install MS brand tires on vehicles that have windshield wipers longer than 19".
LTSC (Score:5, Interesting)
Windows 11 LTSC exists and it needs neither EFI Secure Boot, nor TPM. Or, and it doesn't need a Microsoft account either. Just saying.
And Windows 10 LTSC will be supported until 2029 at the very least.
Today. (Score:2)
But they could change that tomorrow if that aligns with their pivot to... whatever comes after the collapse of the AI craze.
Re:Today. (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 11 LTSC is also meant for kiosks, payment terminals, etc., and businesses really love to save money, so no, those requirements are unlikely to return.
It also doesn't make sense to enable it for Windows updates - Microsoft wouldn't want its customers' PCs to become unbootable.
Re:LTSC (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't you need an underlying pro license to add enterprise ltsc? And isn't LTSC volume license only, minimum 5 copies, and subscription.
So if you've got a windows 10 home laptop... you'd need to upgrade to pro and get a 5 license volume license subscription...that'd be absurd.
Even if you've got 5 laptops around the house, it'd still be absurd. And anyone not already dealing with microsofts volume licensing department would be advised to continue to avoid that hassle. Buying new computers would probably end up cheaper over the long run, and they'd run better because its 5 years newer hardware too.
Or maybe there is a channel to get on to LTSC that I'm not aware of? I certainly don't pretend to know may way fully around the labyrinthine Deathtrap Dungeon that is Microsoft licensing.
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Let's be real here, chances are you know enough to have knowledge of LTSC and the wherewith all to wipe your machine and install it then that same person likely knows of where to obtain a copy of it and chances are they are not overly concerned with Microsoft's potential loss of a couple dozen bucks. I bet someone reading this thread is working on such a machine currently. Yar
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But why bother? If you are a home user and don't want to pay... just keep using windows 10 after its out of support. That's free too, and far less hassle.
Security vulnerability risks for home users are largely mitigated with a decent firewall/antivirus and good backups, good 2FA and password hygiene, and keeping your browser up to date.
"Let's be real here" - if you do that "upgrading" to Win11 LTSC isn't really buying you that much more real security anyway.
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Security vulnerability risks for home users are largely mitigated with a decent firewall/antivirus and good backups, good 2FA and password hygiene, and keeping your browser up to date.
I certainly was not making a claim to whether such a thing is worth it just that it is in fact possible for a user with sufficient experience and know-how.
My assumption is if you are knowledgeable enough of a user to know all this and also act on it then you also are in the position to know the pros and cons of upgrading from 10 to 11 and have the capability to do it.
I don't think we can ever rely upon the average home user making such a security risk calculus of upgrade/not upgrade and the steps to deal wi
Re:LTSC (Score:4, Informative)
If you get Windows 10 LTSC 2021 and install the version labeled with IoT you'll get support until 2032. Did that for a few friends that still wanted Windows but didn't want to go to version 11. I was able to purchase OEM LTSC keys online for about $11. I tried my best to get them to install Linux, but nope, games.
Modern business at its best (Score:3)
I could understand if Windows 10 had 5-10% of the installed base. But annoying >50% of your own customers... nothing like modern business to do what's best for their customer. Forcing them to buy a new computer or run an out of date OS is really, uh, courageous.
Market (Score:2)
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I'm not sure that's really true anymore. A friend's mother ended up with an Asus that wouldn't complete it's initial Windows setup. Amazon refunded it and said keep it, so she asked me to install Linux on it because she'd like to try it. If you're a typical personal user who doesn't play games the only thing you're likely to miss is Office, which now works pretty well in a browser if you're not happy with Open Office.
My mother was going to get a new laptop because she saw how nice someone else's chromebook
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You aren't really their "customer", you are their prisoner. Like a drug addict you are hooked. You have a tremendous need to have a usable computer in order to function.
You bought a computer with their insecure operating system and you can either leave yourself vulnerable to anyone who discovers those insecurities or buy a new computer with an insecure operating system where they will fix the vulnerabilities whenever someone finds one.
At least until they decide to stop fixing them and tell you to buy a ne
A new PC? In *this* economy? (Score:2)
Guess I'll just have to suffer with being a node on a botnet.
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Guess I'll just have to suffer with being a node on a botnet.
I bet there will be tons of those. Lots of folks won't bother to upgrade if it requires a new PC purchase. It'd be nice for them to switch to Linux, but unless a family member or a good friend holds their hand through the transition, I don't think enough will make the move.
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I'd like to see anyone explain with a straight face why it is that MS will actually push ahead with the "make half the world's PCs into a giant botnet" plan.
Because they can make money from it. The same reason people would create a giant botnet.
Not with THAT low a UID! (Score:2)
I seriously doubt anyone whose UID dates before Pangea split would be inconvenienced.
I will stop using Windows 10... (Score:5, Interesting)
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How is this a logical approach to purchasing computers of *any* brand? As resource availability increases, resource requirements do too. It's unavoidable, whether you're talking about iOS, OSX, Android, or Windows.
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...the day Windows 11 uses less system resources than Windows 10.
That's a very strange criteria. Resources are plentiful, and newer stuff always uses more resources than the older stuff. I suspect you're just looking for any pointless irrational argument to make you feel better about not giving us the real reason.
and as such are more than powerful enough to run Windows 11
Power has nothing to do with it. Not all system requirements are about power. Windows 11 doesn't run on any of the machines listed in the Top500 supercomputer list for example, and they are all more powerful than what you have.
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Some say that Windows 11 is faster than Windows 10 in some situations. Have you benchmarked the apps you use? Not to defend Win11, it's a steaming pile, and personally, I'm sticking with 10 for the foreseeable future.
Oh hey thanks Microsoft... (Score:2)
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Why wait?
I have something to say too (Score:4, Insightful)
and a brand new license for windows (Score:2)
Plenty of options to keep running SUPPORTED Win10 (Score:5, Informative)
Buy WinServer 2022, VERY similar codebase to Win10, and supported until ~2033
Pay MS 30$ to get ESU, which tiddies your Win10 "24H2"* up to Oct 2026. We normal users can not go for year two or three of ESU, only enterprises can.
If you already subscribe to Microsoft 365, you can move to Windows 365 (with a price hike). This includes a Win11 PC "in the cloud" with all the goodies, but crucially, it also has 3 years of ESU included for the (Win10 "24H2"*) machine you use to access your clouddy one, this gets you to Oct 2028.
These options are legal, and do not bend the license terms into a pretzel. Important for people in certain trades were certification, compliance and insurance in case of malpractice are important. Or, if you have a strong moral compass. If you are one of those people, seek profesional and legal advice from your guild or trade association.
Also, please notice that, while running Win11 on unssuported hardware is legal, and Microsoft will not directly block you from doing so (compatibility may suffer if MS decides to start using in earnest some of the features that Win11 require), is an unssuported configuration and not valid for people in certain trades were certification, compliance and insurance in case of malpractice are important.
Then we get to the murky ones (either because you sail the high seas or because you bend the license terms into a pretzel). Ask a lawyer if you are thinking of using them, doubly so if you work in regulated fields, areas:
Win10 LTSC Enterprise 2021 is supported until ~2027, but is out of phase with Win10 "24H2", so, in the future some of the software you actually want to run may balk (or not) at the discrepancies.
Win10 LTSC IoT 2021 is supported until ~2032. but again, is out of phase with Win10 "24H2", so, in the future some of the software you actually want to run may balk (or not) at the discrepancies. Also, it lacks some components that are present in both Win10 "24H2", Server 2022 and LTSC Enterprise, so you will be responsible to re-introduce them (if needed) AND keep them updated and secure.
Win10 LTSC Enterprise 2019 (if you can get it), is supported until ~2030, but is EVEN MORE out of phase with Win10 "24H2", so, again, future risk that the software you actually want to run may balk (or not) at the discrepancies.
Some notes:
Only Server 2022 will be able to run Microsoft 365 in a supported configuration until ~2029.
Stand Alone Office seems to be supported until ~2029.
MSHTML (trident) will be supported on Win10 until ~2029. You either need to find a new supported browser after that, or stay tunned for future MS guidance.
Edgium and Chrome support on Win10 deppends only on Google, as of this writing they have said nothing.
Steam and Epic Games, being Electron Apps, depend on Chromium, and therefore, Google.
FireFox has not said anything about the support matrix for Win10 at the time of writing.
* Please notice that while the 24H2 name DOES NOT EXIST, MS backported certain features from Win11 to Win 10 AFTER 22H2. Also, removed some too, therefore the state (feature wise) of Win10 22H2 in 2022 is very different to the state of Win10 22H2 in 2024 or 2025, that's why I use the name Win10 "24H2" in quotations.
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^ Excellent, thoughtful post for those who have legit reasons not to pir8.
Other options include making VM of your old W10 installs if the software needing it doesn't require bare metal.
I make a VM of any old install I might want to pick through at leisure since that's such a convenient form of backup (and yes, I back up VMs that matter since one is none and two is some)
Windows 11 (Score:5, Funny)
Is anyone really surprised? (Score:3)
PC sales leveled off post covid. Superficially cutting support for Win10 is just another way to move hardware and OS licenses.
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I did. (Score:5, Informative)
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I installed Linux Mint. It works great and don't miss the Windows OS bloatware that hanged my computer.
I did the same back when Microsoft was trying to ram win8 down everyone's throat. I started with dual-boot, but have since ditched the windows partition entirely. Very occasionally I need to use a windows VM for some old piece of software. Maybe I'll pick up a win10 laptop from the e-waste and put it in a cupboard for that one time a year when I need a windows box.
Okay... (Score:2)
Bill Gates and Paul Allen are buying, right?
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Paul Allen is pushing up daisies and Bill is too busy pushing in Daisies. So no help there.
The incompatibilities are a dumb choice MS made (Score:4, Insightful)
There are some people who benefit from a secure bootchain, but deciding for their sake that everyone must have it to run the OS is not an appropriate response.
The amount of disrespect is staggering (Score:3)
Most others would go out of business if they style themselves as complete assholes like that. Well, this may not be the hill Microsoft dies on, but every time they pull a crap move, that hill comes closer.
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Apple does pretty much the same thing, but their userbase seems to be so enamored with getting the latest shiny that they don't seem to mind it. Microsoft's problem is that nobody really jumps for joy over the latest beige box (yea, I realize most PC cases are black nowadays, but I digress) from Dell.
See, if the PC industry had people lining up to buy a new machine because "OMG, it's 0.2mm thinner!", we wouldn't be having this discussion.
well of course they are going to say (Score:2, Redundant)
Just buy new customers (Score:3)
Too old?? (Score:2)
I use my computer for my business, and when it died I bought a used gaming machine that purports to have been built early 2024. It was running Windows 10 but I didn't really care as all my stuff runs on Windows 10. I find that it won't run Windows 11 -- I'd have to buy a new computer.
Ain't gonna. Performance and compatibility are fine. I'll buy ESU if necessary.
Linux (Score:2)
Linux will happily take your Windows 10 PCs off of Microsoft's hands. And then you don't need to bother with a new PC for Windows 11 either because your Windows 10 PC will now be more productive than it ever was under bloated unstable spyware Windows. Need to run Windows? Run under a Linux VM and it will most likely work better than it did native.
Techies aren't seriously affected. (Score:2)
Non-techies will just run their machine until it ceases doing what they bought it to do while techies won't be seriously affected.
If you don't already know the usual workarounds this thoughtful reader already posted and more
"by Artem S. Tashkinov ( 764309 )
Windows 11 LTSC exists and it needs neither EFI Secure Boot, nor TPM. Or, and it doesn't need a Microsoft account either. Just saying.
And Windows 10 LTSC will be supported until 2029 at the very least."
then I'm not sure why you're on Slashdot.
Runn
Its actually more than just a new computer (Score:4, Insightful)
You have to reinstall software and there is no guarantee it will run on the newest version of windows. My income tax files from different years all require that year's version of H&R Block to open. Just to open the file, I had to boot one of my old computers with Linux installed in windows that had the five year old version of the program installed.
This is planned obsolescence and there are huge costs associated with it. Like a hurricane damage, those costs add to the GDP. But that doesn't mean they produce any real benefit to anyone except the folks collecting money to mitigate the damage. MIcrosoft is essentially blowing up a bunch of computers and there is nothing we can do about it.
I switched to Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Everybody's thinking it.. I'm saying it.. (Score:2)
FUCK MICROSOFT! There... That feels better now that I got that off my chest.
Dodged A Bullet. Sorta... (Score:2)
4 ancient Windows machines all the way back to 2007 taken to Best Buy for recycling. Hadn't used in years. One, a somewhat above-average gamer I built in 2016 had all sortsa goodies built in - 2 blue-ray burners, flash card reader-writer, multiple internal hard disks and so forth, which caused me to consider Linux, but decided I really didn't even like the machine much any more, seeing as how it weighed about 40 lbs and took up too much space as a rather tall tower.
Another machine was Win 10 and which I s
Happy days are ahead (Score:2)
Another vote for mint! (Score:3)
Install Linux Mint! and be AMAZED that your computer works so much faster without you spending money on it.
Yeah Macs are great .. (Score:3)
.. especially the ones I buy from ppl. having been told that their Mac is no longer supported by Apple.
I think this is great because I get very reasonable priced hardware to run Linux on, great Displays and perfect AIO PCs with a very nice Design.
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Or just keep using it! I have a MBP from 2007 and another from 2015. Great little machines, although the older one is beginning to feel a little geriatric. I've also played around with OpenCore Legacy Patcher/ [github.io] to run a newer version of macOS on an external SSD on my 2015 MBP.
Seriously, people are just going to ignore Microsoft on this. My experience with Windows 7 is that they still provide updates to the security software, even if there aren't any security patches.
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Instead you'll have to worry about Apple shenanigans instead.
Re:Get a mac (Score:4, Informative)
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I have a 2015 MacBook Pro - when it was my personal "daily driver" I used rEFInd to dual boot OS X and Linux Mint. It worked great.
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You'll never have to worry about Microsoft discontinuing hardware support ever again.
Which is like saying "Move to the arctic and you'll never have to worry about being eaten by an alligator." I see what you did there. [macrumors.com]
Re:Get a mac (Score:4, Funny)
You'll never have to worry about Microsoft discontinuing hardware support ever again.
Which is like saying "Move to the arctic and you'll never have to worry about being eaten by an alligator."
I tried that and an Inuit told me, "Move to the Everglades and you'll never have to worry about being eaten by a polar bear."
Just can't win ... :-)
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OK, so to avoid the $500 cost of buying a new Windows computer, pay hundreds more for an Apple? Most Windows 10 users will only need a bargain basement Windows 11 computer. They would have to upgrade several times, in some cases, to equal the amount of cost of that one Apple computer.
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MacBook Air is a nice model of computer, especially the 15": model. And Mac Mini M4 Pro is pretty amazing, aside from the ridiculous cost to add RAM and SSD storage.
Re:Get a mac (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Get a mac (Score:4, Interesting)
You still can keep your PC, just wipe out Windows and install Linux. Hundreds of free distos to choose from...
Speaking as someone who has used Linux pretty much exclusively for well over 15 years, I'd say that huge amount of choice is part of the reason for Linux not having seen much wider adoption.
I'm not saying the ecosystem could have gone any other way. Also, I realize that if it was closer to being consistent and homogeneous it would be in greater danger of becoming the next Windows. So I'm not criticizing; I'm just pointing out that all that variety and fragmentation make it much harder and scarier for non-techies to buy into.
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I agree - there are some not-so-little little things that I still miss from Windows. A few examples:
- File search that was truly integrated into Explorer, and allowed searching for text inside of files
- A 'Start' menu which was easy and painless to edit because it worked pretty much the same as the file manager
- Enforced consistency of things like file open and save dialogs, window decorations, scrollbars, etc
- Easy shortcuts to executables that didn't require any thought or research to add
I don't know if
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>"I'd say that huge amount of choice is part of the reason for Linux not having seen much wider adoption."
Maybe. But if the target person is non-technical, just don't give them a choice (yet). Suggest they install Linux Mint and done; or supply them a USB key with it already on there and ready to go. It is about as mainstream, easy to install, easy and use, and well-supported, as is possible for any OS.
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Manjaro if you want to escape snap-hell and have much better performance.
Re:Kubuntu 24.04 (Score:4, Insightful)
Friends don't let friends use a distro that forces snaps on them.
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Friends don't let friends use a distro that forces snaps on them.
This is (another reason) why I love Linux Mint.
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The new trackpads are the buttons.
Yes, and they are terrible.