[BitwiseFool]

As unsafe as it may be, I plan to just keep using Windows 10 past the EOL date this October. I practice reasonable discipline in regards to online security and I will just handle all of my sensitive accounts and login activity on my Mac. I just really don't want to use the mess that is Windows 11 unless absolutely necessary. The way I see it, that's probably a few years away.

Edit: I am also comfortable using Linux, and I may end up spending a lot of time searching for the best distro that will work for me as a daily driver. I'm certainly open to that, but for now I plan to just keep chugging along with what I've got until I build a new PC.

[neepi]

Windows 11 LTSC looks and works almost exactly the same as windows 10 did. I can’t complain and I’m an expert at complaining.

[Ao7bei3s]

Windows 11 recently pushed an update to discontinue Windows Mixed Reality (WMR), bricking my <5 years old, $500 Reverb G2 VR headset, which I bought after Meta bought out Oculus and started requiring a Meta account, essentially bricking my Rift S. No thanks.

[throwaway48476]

11 LTSC still has the awful new electron based start menu.

[neepi]

There hasn’t been a good start menu since windows XP.

[greenavocado]

I met a guy using Word on Windows 95 in 2008. Only found out because he put in a support ticket.

[sho_hn]

As a non-Windows user, can someone neatly summarize what the problem is? I recently used Windows 11 a bit to port an app, and while it's a horrible OS to dev on, the UX just seemed like any other Windows.

[doubled112]

I'm not a fan of advertisements from my OS. I paid for it.

If I'm running Windows 11 Professional, I don't need the Windows Store to tell me I should check out Avowed Premium Edition in a meeting.

Or is somebody going to tell me it's my fault for leaving notifications on?

[crtasm]

>check out Avowed Premium Edition

I'm getting this on Windows 10 now :(

[Macha]

The TPM requirements rule out a lot of computers older than 5 years old.

With the pace of modern hardware development, a lot of these computers are still perfectly serviceable.

People are unhappy at being told to buy new hardware when they have working hardware.

(Other things that have concerned people: Further attempts to force people to microsoft accounts, more invasive copilot promotion, recall, A/B tested ads in explorer, etc.)

[doubled112]

There were some high CPU requirements too.

It was rather amusing to hear the Ryzen 7 1700X (3.4GHz, 8c/16t) in my desktop was not good enough to run an OS.

[FirmwareBurner]

Your CPU is missing HW instructions for VBS, a new requirement now, that's why Windows 11 isn't officially supported. It's nothing to do with raw compute power of the CPU.

[throwaway48476]

What new ISA extension? I think the last one was iommu which has existed since early core iX.

[FirmwareBurner]

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/o9uynb/mbec_mode...

[FirmwareBurner]

>The TPM requirements rule out a lot of computers older than 5 years old.

Why do people love making false claims with confidence? As of today, 5 years ago was 2020, not 2015. TPM 2.0 requirement is fulfilled by CPUs since at least 2017, but that's not the main compatibility issue.

Windows 11 requires VBS (Virtualization Based Security) HW support, which only works on CPUs from Intel 8th gen or Ryzen 2000 series, which are of vintage 2017-2018 not 2020. VBS is quite the nice security feature to have so it makes sense to see Microsoft mandating it at some point in order to enhance security going forward.

Edit: damn, even posting facts on HN gets you downvoted

[LordDragonfang]

Lots of budget PCs sold as new today use chips from 3+ years ago, and several use ones from 5+ years ago. (This is especially common with old i7s, because your average consumer has been fooled by marketing to think that an i7 is automatically better than an i5). Anecdotally, this practice was even more common 5 years ago (the last time I shopped for prebuilts for my parents).

(That said, I agree that complaining about the TPM requirement specifically is ridiculous - MS has offered ways around the TPM requirement for upgraders. And more relevantly, any CPU that old is going have bigger problems when the UI is basically all React Native)

[FirmwareBurner]

>Lots of budget PCs sold as new today use chips [...] from 5+ years ago.

Source? Links?

Plus, what does this have to do with Microsoft and Intel, what do HW and SW vendors have to do with a retailer selling you dated products? ?

If you buy a new iPhone 6 today and realize you don't get any more SW updates do you blame Apple?

[LordDragonfang]

> Source? Links?

Okay, it seems like I misremembered, because the ones I'm thinking of have "(renewed)" slapped onto them, but literally the first result for "budget desktop" on Amazon (And the second for "Dell desktop", a brand that boomers trust) has a seven year old CPU:

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Optiplex-3060-Computer-Professio...

And I don't expect an average consumer to know that "renewed" is code for "literally no parts are new and it's probably worse than the product you're replacing" - because why would they? No other product category this way. Obviously we know enough to not trust it, but they have no reason to believe that "reliable companies like Dell" are selling already-broken merchandise.

And no, it's technically not Microsoft's fault (in fact, the TPM requirement is probably good exactly because it prevent vendors selling these pieces of crap) but it is the reality we live in, so you have to account for it when you act like all computers bought today have processors manufactured in the last few years.

> If you buy a new iPhone 6 today and realize you don't get any more SW updates do you blame Apple?

Obviously yes? If I (or again, my Dad who know nothing about computers) can walk out of an Apple store with a device that is already unsupported, that's Apple's fault, not his.

[sergiotapia]

One example: they will throttle your hardware with energy efficiency mode and you CANNOT turn it off. Enjoy using 20% of what you paid for. Insane!

[dayvid]

They moved the windows icon to the center

[Lammy]

And you can't drag the taskbar to the left or right side of the screen any more which is a deal-breaker for me. Leftsyde krew

[xeonmc]

You can in-place upgrade to the IoT LTSC edition using MAS, which is supported through 2031

[mhb]

Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC Value - license - 1 license $110

https://www.cdw.com/product/windows-10-iot-enterprise-2021-l...

[coldpie]

Arch Linux if you're comfortable using a terminal and doing your own admin work; Linux Mint if you'd rather not.

[amanaplanacanal]

I'm a long time Linux user. I think the first version I installed was 0.11 back in the early-mid 90s. I worked in IT for most of my career until I retired a few years ago. After all that, I still don't have the patience to migrate to Linux. Between the games I enjoy and the music production software I'm used to using, is not worth the amount of time it requires fiddling with stuff. I wish it were different.

[Wojtkie]

Gaming in Linux is massively easier nowadays due to Proton. I haven't ran into an issue yet playing any of my games. One caveat to that is most of the large online competitive multiplayer games (CoD, Fortnite, etc.) won't work due to how they implemented their anti-cheat softwares.

[Lammy]

For me it's all the good piracy software, especially the ones like DVDfab Passkey which operate as a Windows driver. My Windows box is a machine that turns DVDs and BDs into an ISO (for my own backup) and an x265 MKV (to share).

[justinrubek]

This is what drove me to Linux. Managing and fiddling with a windows machine is too time consuming, error prone, and not fun. It's the last thing I want to spend my time doing.

[nipperkinfeet]

There is nothing wrong with that, as long as you are aware of the risks and know what you are doing. I still use Windows 7 with R2 patches, and Firefox ESR. I don't plan on changing anytime soon.

[throwaway48476]

I'm just going to run LTSC in a VM.

[haiku2077]

I've been looking into this. Any app that currently works should keep working, but new versions (especially new games, or new patches for games) may not. New versions of GPU drivers, DirectX and so on were a particular area of issue.

Good choice for a machine built for a particular purpose that doesn't need to run any new software.

[WarOnPrivacy]

>> I'm just going to run LTSC in a VM.

> Any app that currently works should keep working, but new versions (especially new games, or new patches for games) may not. New versions of GPU drivers, DirectX and so on were a particular area of issue.

To be clear, you're looking to game on a VM?

ftr: Posting this from my Firefox remote app. Host VM is not LTSC however.

[haiku2077]

I was looking at it for a racing simulator rig specifically. I basically wanted to install some simulators on it and never have to do any maintenance. From my research it seemed like it would work for any legacy offline sims but not online stuff like iRacing. I might end up dual booting LTSC for offline simming and Win11 for iRacing.

[throwaway48476]

GPU pass-through is easy enough for a gaming VM. Whether you can still use LTSC is up to the game developer.