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Comment by Voliokis | Hacker News Reader

Unless you're on a device that can only be upgraded to 10.13, after which it won't get security updates anymore after 11 is released. Meanwhile, I can still put W10 on 10-12 year old PCs and it'll run fine (if the hardware wasn't particularly terrible even for back then). It might not support some of the latest features, but it works and you're not subject to some arbitrary decision by Microsoft as to whether you're allowed to use W10 or not.

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W10 is terrible on traditional hard drives which most PC's were using 10-12 years ago. We are also at the tail end of the core 2 duo era, those devices aren't really up to the job.

well, a cheap SSD costs 20€. And you know, with 95% of Windows-based PCs you can just replace the harddisk. whoaaaa

I use Windows at work occasionally and I can't get over how much clicking I have to do. Also some basic stuff is missing without convoluted work arounds (such as resetting the default app to open a file type to none). W10 is not in the same league as MacOS despite MacOs getting worse.

Windows 10 on a core 2 duo and an SSD is still pretty quick, it just doesn't run well on HDDs.

My early-2013 (7.5 years old now) will be getting Big Sur and 3-4 years support after that.

And it still works like new - something that I’ve never heard about a similarly aged Win19 device unless it was very recently reinstalled.

You’re likely to have problems finding drivers for your other hardware, though - especially 10-year old printers or scanners (even though they are likely to work out of the box on Modern Mac and Linux)

Currently working part-time as a PC technician. Recently had a 10 year old PC here that had to be upgraded to W10. Did Microsoft complain? Nope. I replaced the HDD with an SSD and it ran fine. I've done this with 10 year old laptops too. I simply prefer a platform that doesn't decide for me whether I'm allowed to install it or not. And any device that runs fine on W10 now will most likely run it fine in the future too. Microsoft isn't going to "drop support" for old devices just because they're tired of supporting it. It's like you Apple guys literally have Stockholm syndrome, rationalizing this crap to yourselves.

And you'd be surprised what kind of old hardware still works on W10.

I’m not an Apple person, I’m a Linux person although I do have one old Mac as well (that will be retired when it stops being useful - likely in 3-4 years).

I’ve tried to help family who were tricked into a win10 upgrade by the dark patterns of the “free upgrade to win 10” window. Some had to buy new printers/scanners because win 10 didn’t support their perfectly-working in XP and win7 ones. (My modern Linux Laptop had no such problems). Also a WinModem of some sort used as a built in fax machine.

As a Linux person, I find it funny that you refer to Windows as “platform that allows me to install or not”. It allows you to install but as of Win10, unless you are on Enterprise or LTSB, it doesn’t let you not install. It’s no longer your machine - you paid for it, but it’s Microsoft’s to manage/brick as they see fit.

Add some SSD for the OS, and a budget GPU, you don’t have to go crazy and 10 will be very usable.

Even a 2006 Mac Pro, with 3ghz processors, SSD and a GTX 1030 is still great for day to day.

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