On 2025-09-09 12:08, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
In the middle of next month, Windows 10 installations will stop being eligible for updates, including security updates.
Many machines are not eligible for updates to Win 11. In particular, AMD machines older than Ryzen and Intel machines older than the Core 8th generation.
I don't know about you, but I have a bunch of Windows 10 installations that I almost never use. What should we know?
- there are hacks to let some ineligible machines get updated to Win 11. Those hacks may well cease to work.
- if you do certain things, including doing back up some things to the MS Cloud, you can qualify for another year of support <https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/how-to-get-another-free-year-of-updates-for-your-windows-10-pc/>
Why do I keep Windows 10?
- only on machines which won't run Win 11
- too often necessary for firmware updates Firmware updates are rare on machines as old as the ones stuck on Win 10.
- I paid for it, dammit
- tax preparation software only runs on Windows. I've been running it on a Win 10 machine and I haven't tried to figure out how to move the history to a new machine. Lazy!
I'm currently thinking of letting the Win 10 installations fall our of support next month. I don't really want to bother with enabling the additional year of support.
It might be good to ensure that all those old machines have the latest firmware before Win 10 goes EoS. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/2AKSQI4...
My wife has the only Windows 10 box in the house. Its processor fails the Microsoft requirements and also can't be upgraded. ALL her apps (Thunderbird, Chromium, LibreOffice, Gimp) are available in Linux, so no problem there. The problem is games, of which we have copious quantities, most of which have problems running on Wine. My possible solutions to the problem include: 1) Most obvious, buy a new PC and upgrade to Win 12! 2) Follow lots of web advice for tricking Windows into installing Win 12 anyway, but I would have to image the disk and practice on the image. 3) Make the PC dual boot Windows and Linux, disable Win updates and remove all web facing applications from it. Boot into Win 10 only for games. 4) Convert the Win 10 into an image, install Linux and run Win 10 in a VM. 5) As stupid as it sounds, keep the Win 10 box isolated and boot it only when we want to play games, which is a migration step to 4) at a later date. I will consider any alternative that costs money, but no alternative that involves paying Microsoft, such as the extended Security Update program. -- Michael Galea