this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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Why are people making a huge deal out of this? Win10 was released in 2015, and support ends in 2025. That's 10 years of support, I don't think this is unreasonable for a consumer product by any means.
As far as industry goes it's a bit short, but nothing catastrophic. There's plenty of xp machines still running just fine in many places. Lack of security updates is less crucial for most of these applications since they're often not required to be connected to internet.
I can't upgrade to Windows 11 (not that I'd want to considering all their enshittification), so they're leaving me with an unsecured OS. I survive on £160 a month so, no, I won't be paying for fucking security updates, instead I'll be switching to Linux and literally never considering using Windows again.
It's also not reasonable to expect updates forever. No matter what, support for software always stops at some point, and 10 years of support is pretty reasonable for consumer products. Not great, but also not terrible.
Normally sure, but maybe Microsoft shouldn't have tried saying windows 10 was the last windows version, to then release a new version that a lot of people can't even upgrade their current PCs to.
But consider that windows is a paid product, and its competition, linux, is both free and with much much longer support for old hardware, not to mention never having "sequels" in this way. I feel like windows doesn't have much excuse compared to this.
Windows 11, while you can work around it, specifically requests tpm, which definitively is not from 1999..
Also, windows has its own endless list of driver issues, hardware does not always "just work" on windows, on the other hand, it also often "just works" on linux. It depends, of course, but I never had to install a sketchy driver for my PS3 controller on linux (it's in the kernel), but I had to on windows. Not to mention printers.
A bunch of software is also only or primarily for Linux, though that depends of course on your field and what you need. I've seen plenty of software that I needed that did not have a proper (or as good) windows alternative.
I mean, TPM 2.0 is already 4 years old so were not really talking about MS requiring cutting-edge tech when they stop supporting Win10 in two years.
My computer parts were like 8+ years old when I replaced them. And I can afford to do so, not everyone can.
But getting a 6 year old used laptop by the time its necessary is fortunately pretty cheap. And for consumers there's honestly very few that need to use windows, so there's always Linux distros as an alternative.
I get that it's not a good move for consumers, I'm not disagreeing with that. But it's just also so very far from the catastrophe that so many seem to insist it is. It's honestly just a mild inconvenience, and the coverage it's getting is IMO completely out of proportion to the problem.
It's more that windows constantly has all of these little things that build up to something big. For some it's just the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's because of the huge changes in minimum requirements of Windows 11 and Windows 10 being known as last version of Windows.
Because windows 11 is ass
Good thing you don't even need to think about switching for another two years then.
Because you think they should pay more for a product they already bought or because privacy and security are not important?
I said they didn't have to think bout it for another two years...none of what you're saying makes sense in relation to that. Its good they don't need to worry about it (yet), because the issues it may cause them is still far away.
Two years isn't that long, and in 2 years Windows 11 will still be ass.
I'm on Linux, I'm not even relevant to this conversation.
Because it works perfectly fucking fine and people are using it and windows upgrades are more effort than not upgrading. That's really it.
Because it's forced obsolescence by a convicted monopolist. Microsoft is effectively withholding security updates from computers built before 2018 or so with the arbitrary TPM requirement to install Win11. While I don't expect them to support everything forever, this is another step along their journey to make PCs like cellphones. Fixed support periods for no reason other than they want you buying new ones every x years. Next up will be widespread locked down bootloaders so you can't install Linux if you wanted to. Throw away the old and buy new. Mamma needs more quarterly revenue.
It’s not really forced obsolescence.
Firstly, you can clean install 11 without TPM no problem, and you can upgrade in place with some tweaks. It’s annoying, but in no way “forced.”
Secondly, the EOL has been known since original release. We know the EOL of current versions of Windows 11 as well (they moved to supporting specific versions, for instance 21H2 recently went EOL, in October. 23H2 is slotted for EOL in 2026. https://endoflife.date/windows
Fixed support periods make sense. Otherwise you’re going to have to spring an EOL on people arbitrarily. 10 years of free support on Windows 10, a product most people got for free, seems sane to me. I realize it won’t make sense to everyone.
Slippery slope fallacy much?
You basically have to break the installer to get it to work, which supports my point that the limit is an arbitrary way to exclude PCs made before a certain date from the next version. There is no technical reason MS can't allow old hardware to work and no marginal cost to Microsoft to chose to do so. Like I said, while I don't expect them to support everything forever, Microsoft also made their bed with their illegal business practices that got us here and hordes of malware infested EOL'ed computers are everybody's problem now. They shouldn't be adding to that problem for arbitrary marketing reasons.
I'm not against to fixed support periods, but they really ought to be minimums and not halted based on arbitrary dates, especially in the consumer space where these machines will run whether they get patched or not.
This already happened during the last big Windows-on-ARM push w/ Win8. UEFI secure boot was required enabled on all new hardware but no requirement for user-added keys. It didn't overtly restrict Linux (on MS's part) but several manufacturers did lock down their devices. I don't see any reason why that won't happen again. It's the norm in the cell phone and tablet ecosystem (which is a damn shame, but there may be hope on the regulatory front w/ right to repair laws gaining steam.)
Break the installer? Two values get flipped. Hell you can have Rufus do it for you if you’re not tech savvy.
As for all the arbitrary and short dates… most distorts have similar. Look at Ubuntu, all having free support periods of less than 10 years, all having paid support beyond that point for a few years.
So how long is a reasonable time to support a version of software? 5 years, like Ubuntu? 10 like Windows? Are there even that many that support for longer periods of time?
I can understand the worry about older hardware, but they have a direction they are choosing to go to make things more secure. Even if there’s an ulterior motive, security isn’t a bad thing to strive for. And if not this version… which? The next? The one after that? Never?
I work on an OS whose oldest in-service major release will finally go deprecated in its TWENTY-SEVENTH year of life.
We're not getting upset at a mere decade. 10 years is kinda cute.
I think people are posse dat the boeing-like "safety is an add-on" mentality that sells security patches like a "don't nose in" feature on a max8.
What OS?
you really dont have to though
no? if theres no need to upgrade machine you just dont. most enterprise do because that shit is not supported anymore, so if they are internet enabled they dont have much choice.
“Don’t have to” and “don’t” are different things. I’ve never been in an enterprise environment that kept PCs much beyond their 2/3 year service window.
In fact, they messed up and got consumer hardware once. They EOLd the devices at 6 months when they realized they only got a month of support.
Really depends on the industry I guess...we meet a lot of old XP and Win7 machines when visiting sites. Engineering stations rarely get updated unless the hardwares breaks, and a lot of software used to service the machines/production line from the engineering station often don't run on a never OS.
Technologically, Window is great. There is no denying that, and if anything some the dated (+ insecure) things on it is the result of its own success, i.e. the app installation and management process, as it is hard to convince billions of people to do anything different.
On the other hand, the management of the company is the biggest problem with everything in and around Window. First, there is no single business model; MS sells you a 1 time licence for the OS itself, but then constantly try to harvest and sell your data (with ads everywhere in Windows 11), and if you want to do any office work then you have to pay a subscription for MS 365. Last but not least, they keep breaking things every few updates, i.e. I actually failed one of my university course because OneDrive decided that my report don’t need to exist after an update (in 2018).