[sonicanatidae]

Yes and No.

A lot of folks will go with newer hardware due to lacking TPM, etc. support, but those people were likely to upgrade at 1-3 year intervals anyway.

A majority of users will just keep running Windows 10, with or without sec updates until they can no longer buy a system with 10.

There are still Windows 7 and Vista installs out there, running every day, and I don't mean outliers. I know a clinic that runs Windows 8.1 on everything. Not because it's a great OS, but the Doctor handles his own IT, has the media handy and knows how to install it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As another example, in the microlab of the 3rd hospital I was Director of IT for, I found....a Windows 3.11 machine. Literally, Windows 3.11, with a CRT touchscreen monitor. I reached out to the vendor and suggested that maybe...just maybe...it's time to replace this unit with one a bit more modern.

[ashleyn]

If neither the Windows 8 machine nor the Windows 3.11 machine are networked with any path to the internet, they can limp along for quite some time without replacement. The bigger worry is this ancient hardware blowing a cap and leaving you unable to complete some vital function for the week.

[sonicanatidae]

If they were isolated, I wouldn't care much. Luckily the 3.11 machine was NOT public facing.

[speed_spread]

In all fairness, Windows 3.11 is so ancient that it is probably immune to (or overlooked by) most modern threats.

[asveikau]

You're also pretty limited in what you can do and who you can communicate with on an older OS.

For example, Windows XP doesn't support modern and commonly implemented TLS.

[vetinari]

Windows 3.11 didn't come with TCP/IP stack, just IPX/SPX and NetBEUI. You had to install TCP/IP separately.

[asveikau]

Yeah I remember. There were 3rd party winsocks and they had compatibility problems. I remember upgrading to 95 and trying to run 3.1 winsock apps. It worked. But it had lots of issues.

I was just pulling out the XP example (a decade newer than 3.1) to illustrate the scale of difficulty one would have. You could literally have the same SChannel binary run on Win11 and WinXP... And the XP one wouldn't be able to talk to the modern internet due to TLS. Obviously the further back in time you go, the more of this type of problem you would have.

[sonicanatidae]

Trumpet Winsock anyone?

[sonicanatidae]

EICAR incoming!