MS Windows 10 End of Support
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.
Hmmn, could you do a "physical to virtual" and run the Poisonous Computer in a vm? --dave On 9/9/25 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...
-- David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest davecb@spamcop.net | -- Mark Twain
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
Michael There may be a 6th option: you could check out Steam OS or Bazzite and see if all your games run in them. I'm not a gamer but I've been following those who are that have jumped from Win to Linux and have been surprised at how well games run on either of these. best Sam
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.
Even the basic version of Steam runs most Steam and non-steam games reasonably well. Wine/proton has advanced quite a bit over the years … Rouben On Tue, Sep 9, 2025 at 17:38 Sam K via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
Michael There may be a 6th option: you could check out Steam OS or Bazzite and see if all your games run in them. I'm not a gamer but I've been following those who are that have jumped from Win to Linux and have been surprised at how well games run on either of these. best Sam
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.
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/WFD3K75...
On Tue, Sep 9, 2025 at 5:19 PM Michael Galea via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
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.
Many of them still do. One place to start is here: https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement Although... Even these workarounds still require at least TPM 1.2 (Win11 demands 2.0) so if your hardware doesn't have any TPM at all don't waste your time, Linux is really your only option. My wife has the only Windows 10 box in the house. Its processor fails the
Microsoft requirements and also can't be upgraded.
See above. If the system has a TPM module then the CPU requirements can be bypassed.
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.
You may be in for a pleasant surprise, emphasis on "may". Wine long ago stopped being the preeminent way to run Windows games on Linux, being generally superseded by Proton <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_(software)> -- a Wine fork created and actively developed by Steam. Since the SteamDeck runs Linux, Proton needs to run as many Steam games as possible, in the process making Linux more suited for gaming in 2025 than it's ever been. Indeed a number of top-tier games are reported to run faster under Linux+Proton than under Windows. Certainly games that were barely playable under Wine should be much better under Proton. A good place to start to see how well your games run on Linux+Proton can be found at the website ProtonDB <https://www.protondb.com/>. The games that are *least* likely to work under Proton are multi-player cloud-based games, mainly because the companies that do anti-cheat libraries refuse to support Linux. Work is ongoing (many blogs and videos have been made on the issue, just search "Linux Anti Cheat") but this is not a technical issue. Steam has even released its own Linux distribution, SteamOS <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SteamOS> -- based on what it shipped on the SteamDeck using Arch Linux and KDE -- but it's not fully cooked for public use. People who want a Linux system primarily for gaming (never thought you'd hear THAT did you?) are leaning toward Bazzite Linux, though there are instructions on how to install Steam for Fedora, Ubuntu, Arch and others. NOTE: Proton appears to be optimised for AMD graphics cards. This option gives money to nobody, though I'm sure that Steam would love for you to buy some games from them. Hope this helps. I have installed Steam and play a few of my PC games on it. Only one of my Steam library of about 10 games doesn't work. Cities Skylines 2 isn't supported (though the original is). I hope you found this useful. Good luck! -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56
I spoke too soon. Cities Skylines 2 isn't supported (though the original is).
I just checked. Recent Proton improvements have given CS:2 a Gold rating <https://www.protondb.com/app/949230>, requiring some tweaking.. This is very much a work still in progress, and the catalog of games that run well continues to grow, - Evan
From: Michael Galea via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I will consider any alternative that costs money, but no alternative that involves paying Microsoft, such as the extended Security Update program.
The first year is free, without commitment to pay after that. But it is only a year. And it requires yielding to Microsoft's cloud. Since computers get obsolescent fairly quickly, that year may be significant. After all, when the EoS announcement was first made, obsoleting Intel 7th gen and older boxes sounded really bad. By now, the current Intel gen is 14 (I think) and lots of ordinary folk think of 7th gen and older as ancient. As a Linux user, I think that Haswell (Intel 4th gen) and newer are pretty functional. Some post-Haswell evolution: - NVMe support came later and would be nice. - Performance has improved linearly but many tasks don't care. - Confusing improvements to USB have been made. - iGPUs finally got better. - most important: AMD's processors are now often better than Intel's
On Tue, Sep 09, 2025 at 12:08:48PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
- 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 have never used tax software running on my computer. I went from paper to online (using ufile.ca). So at least all I need is a browser. -- Len Sorensen
On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 09:36:49AM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
From: Lennart Sorensen via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I have never used tax software running on my computer. I went from paper to online (using ufile.ca). So at least all I need is a browser.
I don't want my intimate data on the cloud. Of course some of it is anyway.
It gets submitted to the CRA. Where are they storing it? -- Len Sorensen
On 2025-09-10 09:16, Lennart Sorensen via Talk wrote:
- 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 have never used tax software running on my computer. I went from
On Tue, Sep 09, 2025 at 12:08:48PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote: paper to online (using ufile.ca). So at least all I need is a browser.
I went from paper to simpletax.ca (now, wealthsimple.com). It's all browser, so I don't have to worry about Windows 10/11 issue. But, I keep T450 (Windows 10) around for firmware/utility updates, eg. Garmin GPS map updates, firmware upgrade for printers, etc.
participants (9)
-
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
David Collier-Brown -
Evan Leibovitch -
James Knott -
Lennart Sorensen -
Michael Galea -
Rouben -
Sam K -
William Park