Windows 10 begins one-year countdown to end of support | Hacker News Reader

Windows 10 begins one-year countdown to end of support

theregister.com

76 pointsLorenDB87 comments

Good bye old friend, you will be remembered for your start menu bloated with candy crush saga and the uninterruptible update whenever the computer felt like.

Still missing XP with the classic 98 theme

Win2k for life.

I'm a big fan of reinstalling all of the default Microsoft online services and resetting your user preferences every time they feel like updating your computer.

If you want to feel real madness try reinstalling Win10 from even the latest installation media, checking for updates, finding none, and then finding your computer restarted the next day with a new iteration of the Bing search box on your taskbar, and repeating this experience at least 4 times.

Here's a minimal -> maximal (choose your own adventure) windows 10 and|or 11 debloat | tweak | install | BYO install utility.

https://github.com/ChrisTitusTech/winutil

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UQZ5oQg8XA

The defaults are not at all extreme with the knife, it takes away all the advertorial ad-ons and shows how to disable more (including Edge and defaulting to Edge from system links).

Also includes the ability to mod your own ISO to make a lean clean fast install | boot disk for later on or friends.

It's "open" if you read powershell scripts, it's literally just a pipe from a readable GIT reposity to a powershell GUI that toggles scripts that can be read by clicking on [?]'s.

If nothing else you can select the default recommended updates setting which is no new features just security updates.

I literally just did this for my partner and while the defaults of everything are ungodly user hostile they haven't yet reset the preferences I set and I've been watching them like a hawk.

I don't love having to keep a loaded gun pointed at tower and constantly being on guard with supposedly above-board software but it seems to stay down.

Windows 7 with tighter handcuffs

The latter problem can be (partially) addressed by setting your network interface to metered mode. Then you get some control over updates.

My laptop (Win10 home) installed updates over metered connections (and actively combated my efforts to disable the update service, take ownership of the service, etc.). Ultimately the fix was to install Ubuntu.

Group policy editor allows you to select what type of updates you want (if any), if you want them to be downloaded/ installed automatically or just notify.

>Win10 Home

If you're running a version of windows that includes group policy editor, it does. Given the way windows 10+ disregards if not outright changes settings, I wouldn't exactly bet my life or my PC on it anyways.

My specific point, at any rate, was that Windows does not respect settings regarding metered connection.

You can enable GPE or even install it if not available in your Win home edition. I’m not trying to argue, just dropping the info so everybody knows.

Remember, just because it's no longer supported doesn't mean it no longer works. If it's within your risk tolerance, you can keep using it.

Too often, people everywhere, even on HN, talk as if end-of-support means you can't use it anywhere anymore.

That's what the corporate propaganda does to people.

IMHO if you're behind a NAT, not running random binaries, and not visiting untrustworthy pages with JS on, that already gets rid of 99.99% of the attack surface. Keep RDP and SMB off the Internet and shut off the other listening ports too.

> NAT

Firewall.

Bad ISP routers with/without NAT are no good.

We shouldn't encourage people to run old software. They will be part of a botnet sooner or later. It sucks yeah but people should rather switch to other operating systems instead of running one without security updates. AFAIK Win10 still gets paid updates though, that will extend the lifespan a bit.

> We shouldn't encourage people to run old software. They will be part of a botnet sooner or later.

We shouldn't encourage people to run new, untested software. They will be part of a botnet sooner or later.

Yes we should, because the new stuff isn't any better. "Security" is just an excuse at this point.

NAT and not running binaries I might give. But never going to random web site? I don't think that one is going to happen.

> and not visiting untrustworthy pages with JS on

Assuming your browser is up-to-date and there isn't a 0-day being exploited, can a malicious website even do anything?

I'm surprised MS didn't eventually back down on the TPM and CPU generation requirement.

"It's a big idea, a new world order. When we are successful, and we will be [..]" ~ George H.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing_Group

They actually started blocking updates if you tricked the install onto unsupported hardware.

Switching to Linux has been the best and most technical rewarding decision I have ever done. I miss almost nothing and gained so much.

MacOS seems like an obvious alternative to Windows, especially for non-gaming use cases. I can't even tell you which version I'm running on this machine without checking. That's how much the change-over-time doesn't bother me.

Windows on the other hand has me wrapped around a post about 50 times regarding all of its UX quirks. Even the slightest deviation in anything Microsoft always puts me on a ballistic trajectory.

Honestly, Visual Studio is way more upsetting to me than Windows is these days. They are clearly making that experience worse on purpose just to prove they can.

I wouldn't say obvious alternative.

PopOS is a wonderful, free, Ubuntu derivative that works really well with video games.

So millions of people with small budgets will get into considerable problems when that coutdown hits zero.

People will not buy new computers, while their old one is still technically good, because Microsoft wants them to run Windows 11 on "compatible hardware".

A local IT shop still has a poster up urging people to hire them to update their PCs from Windows 7 to 10 when its EOL was around the corner...

I am just looking forward to the end of the year when I finish one of my jobs... allowing me to remove Windows from my laptop. Currently I have to use it!

Does not matter if its Windows 11, Windows 10... or even if its Windows 98. I just want GNU/Linux on it!

All my other machines have Linux.

(to note -- it is Windows 11.. and I have mixed feelings about it)

If I can just hold out until some new local-maxima of Microsoft's wavering quality...

Between them removing administrative controls and the lowest-common-denominator tabletization of the UI, I need to look harder at putting it in a VM or doing plain old dual-boot. (For a gaming machine, so that imposes some minimal ties to the ecosystem.)

It really doesn’t, absent a few key games. I’ve just built a new gaming PC and I’ve gone straight with Arch. I was worried the compatibility I experienced with the steam deck may be isolated to the steam deck but it’s shocking how far it’s come.

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But my god it definitely is good enough to cut myself free of MS’s terrible decision-making the last 5ish years.

Just not if you’re interested in HDR and have an NVIDIA card :( (yep it’s improved heaps, I’m just impatiently waiting for the next new feature branch release past 560.35.02 that hopefully fixes colour desaturation in HDR).

Also, I’m really curious how Big Picture can be so broken on NVIDIA. It’s a webview driven by Chromium AFAIK, does general Chrome suffer the same?

In all seriousness though, everything else is pretty amazing. Proton is awesome.

Does this meaning gaming with the Radeon is feasible?

I don’t bleeding edge cards, but I’m also thinking about moving my gaming machine away from Windows.

Honestly gaming with either is feasible. HDR in general on the Linux desktop is just in an early phase. I think AMD is just better supported because it’s the hardware the Steam Deck runs on and the fact that AMD is way more open-source friendly.

I’ve seen people on Reddit report issues with both types of card, so it’s really just try it and see for your particular setup.

For some games it's perfect, others more dubious. If you look up what you're interested in on protondb it can give you a good idea of the odds things will work well on your setup.

Strong agree, I also used to double boot or just add wsl in windows but permanently moved to linux since microsoft is more and more insulting. I don’t get 100% the gaming I get on windows but it the difference is not worth installing malware on my computer at all

Just wait a few more years for Windows 11.1 and hope the pattern of every other release being good holds true

For a gaming desktop are there any realistic options I'm overlooking besides:

- acquiesce to everything Win11 entails

- be a weirdo and run a server SKU

- run insecure EOL OS on hardware

- run insecure EOL OS on some less-begrudged hypervisor

- fully migrate to preferred Linux distro and sacrifice some amount of game compatibility, though less than I'm conditioned to believe per https://www.protondb.com/

I have no Windows-specific software other than games.

I'll probably just move to Win11 because I don't have to worry too much about it. It's in virtual machine. And I can keep snapshots of the virtual disk in case I come back to an update I don't like.

Kinda sucks that the only fully correct way to play games is on an OS that continues to suck more and more, and that I have to wear a virtual condom to do so.

I just put Windows 11 on its own little VLAN/WiFi island called "RebootRift." It lives alone, endlessly restarting, hoping one day it will be trustworthy enough to join the others—but deep down, it knows it never will.

Build your own windows ISO to install and run in a boot partition or VM.

There are decent WinMod ISO communities out there that have open readable tools, changes, suggestions, and forums that keep things clean of cryptofarming process and all that BS.

See, for example:

Revision: (as used by Qubes folk for Win Qubes) https://revi.cc/docs/playbook/general

or WinUtil: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41843917

I gave up a few years ago and decided that I was willing to deal with any drawbacks of buying and playing games on consoles rather than dealing with Windows. I only have so much time to sit down and enjoy myself and I would rather not fiddle if I just want to play a game. It turns out that you can buy a PS5 and a Switch for less than the price of a decent midrange gaming rig.

Just dual-boot. Run whatever hellscape of windows is current when you want to game, and run Ubuntu (or whatever) the rest of the time.

Been doing that for 10 years.

You could also get 0patch to keep it secure. They're adopting Windows 10 for security updated from the EOL date. Pretty reasonable price as well, around 30 euros per year.

https://blog.0patch.com/2024/06/long-live-windows-10-with-0p...

Run win11 with debloat patches, behind a firewall that blocks everything, then use a socks proxy for Steam and everything else that you want to connect to the internet.

Edit: okay, the firewall might become annoying to maintain if multiplayer gaming is your thing

If you go weird, note that GamePass (xbox) and MS store installs tend not to work or can break. For steam and other launchers it works fine.

See https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

Same issue with most mini/slim scripts that mod your win 11 iso. Be sure to keep gaming services and Xbox from install.

Once it does its first update it will try and put back what you remove. And when you make a non-admin local account it will try again. Best to use a post-install script you can run often to keep settings off.

I feel like Microsoft doesn’t want me to run windows.

It's crazy how good Windows 7 was and how hostile were any subsequent releases. I bet most people would be fine with a Windows 7 Eternal Edition.

Its so disappointing to see Win 10 getting sunsetted. It's been hands down the best Windows OS experience for mem, and I've been onboard since 3.1. I've had the displeasure of having to interact with Windows 11, both pro and home, recently, and it feels half baked in so many ways.

Seriously?

Except having to revert right click context menu and worse task bar I don't see bigger differences except more beautiful UI

Microsoft expects a large number of Windows 10 users to abandon their computer and purchase a new one. "Having a PC" versus "not having a PC" is a pretty big difference.

They will force laptop refresh cycle

Well, you will always feel it with most software out there - we no longer track development cycles on specific large releases.

Windows 10 was a bit shit at launch too. They hadn't quite figured out how to orchestrate forced updates (e.g. no active hours or pausing updates for a week). The Start Menu was a bit of a mess for the first 5 years. Cortana was shoved down your throat. Dark mode wasn't even a thing. HDR support was basically non-existent and DPI support was ass. "Precision touchpad" support wasn't a thing, the Settings vs Control Panel split was way worse, things like WSL weren't a thing, notifications in Action Center were horrible to manage. The new Windows Terminal app hadn't been made yet... ssh/sftp wasn't built in.

What I 100% expect with every new release of Windows is that they'll have some genuinely good ideas, remove or break a ton of existing workflows trying to implement those changes but only getting them halfway to where they need to go, and then fix it over the coming years. E.g. with Windows 11 they rewrote the taskbar and it was missing drag and drop, positioning, clocks on multiple monitors, useful right click shortcuts on the taskbar, "Never Combine" to not group windows, the smaller taskbar, showing the text label next to things in the taskbar, and probably more I'm forgetting. At this point nearly all of those are fixed (small taskbar is about to be, position is still unthinkable for now apparently).

Typically I'll just move to the latest. Yeah, it'll suck to adjust at first, but quickly it'll improve and start to have features beyond the first. Some prefer to hang on to the previous one until it drops so the next one is already pretty fixed up. Either way, most folks end up liking the older versions even though most folks hate them at the start. Part of that is also rose colored glasses too though.

This is going to suck. Windows 11 refuses to install on my Vishera core AMD computer. I know there is a bypass, but I'm not happy about having to deal with that and possibly compromise my OS using unsupported software. I'm probably going to have to build a new computer soon if I want to keep using Windows.

Linux in my near future...

Why not byte the bullet and just go Linux now?

On THAT laptop -- I already have it in a couple of other ones, plus my home server, plus my cloud server, plus Termux, plus....

Dual boot today! Escape to Windows if/when you need, then reboot back into linux. Been doing that for 10 years and I only boot back into windows for gaming.

Looking forward to Linux for my gaming box

Steam OS can't come soon enough

You really don't need it tho. There are already many beginner friendly distros and steam and games works on them no problem.

Minecraft Bedrock is one of the main things holding me back from doing that.

Have you checked luanti (ex minetest)? It might be a good replacement.

Graduate to Modded Minecraft Java and never look back.

If you purchase it on Google Play you can use mcpe-launcher on Linux to play.

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1g0pjl9/is_th...

There are people that prefer bedrock?

But if you switch to Java, you can install Quark, the greatest Vanilla+ mod of all time. It's like getting four minecraft updates for free.

edit: Plus, Distant Horizons, which is unbelievable.

I have a friend who I recommended purchase Pro and I put them on a long-term, slower update cycle. I wonder if that will buy them some time.

No, that doesn't change the end of support date.

Unless it's the LTSC edition of Windows 10, which has support until 2029

Where can I get the Windows 10 ISO or whatever so that I can install it?? I'll pay!!

Also, what might I not like about Windows Server 2019????

This might be a joke I'm missing about the Windows 10 installation, but this page allows download of the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I think visiting it on Linux (I assume anything non-Windows) shows a download link for the ISO instead.

The Media Creation Tool (MCT) I downloaded from Microsoft but running it on Windows 7 gives an error message and won't run on W 7. But I have a computer with W 11 that might run that MCT.

Thanks!

The others have provided the link - I'll add it's the activation/licenses are the part you really pay to get but you can do that after install (or not at all, it's just nagware outside of some personalization settings).

Windows Server 2019 is going to have some wonky defaults and components out of the box. Some apps will report not being compatible but it's not usually a problem. That said, Windows Server 2019 is neither the oldest or newest version of Windows Server based on the Windows 10 codebase so I'm not sure why you'd bother with it in particular.

You can get ISOs from the following link for Home and Pro edition but you have to visit the site from a non-Windows device (a different user-agent might also work)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

Just hit F12 and turn on mobile view mode (toggle device toolbar).

You'd be surprised to know the actual answer: Microsoft

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...

Fine print: You need a non-windows user agent, otherwise you get redirected to a windows-specific page with no ISOs.

As an aside, you might want to install Ventoy to your flashdrive:

https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html

That way you just need to copy the ISO to the flashdrive.

Just hit F12 and turn on mobile view mode (toggle device toolbar).

You can also download the iso using powershell

https://github.com/pbatard/Fido

I get why they don’t, but I wish they’d support it longer. I just downgraded back to Windows 10 last week from 11.

I think that they will have to extend support. Sticking to this timeline will have consequences that they will be directly responsible for. Why upgrade if the system works well enough?

Has anyone done the numbers on what the costs wouild be?

There is still windows 2019 LTSC with 5 year support.

Why 2019?

There is Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 with 10 year support until 2032.

Hopefully we get SteamOS by then.

No idea why that should be a blocker. Just pick a distro you like and install steam on it, its been supported for a decade at this point.

What do you mean? Are they going to officially launch it or something? I'm running steam os on my desktop right now.

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