>You can use Windows XP today, even though it's not very useful.
Will that be true for Win 10 or 11 though? Would they keep running forever without updates?
Will that be true for Win 10 or 11 though? Would they keep running forever without updates?
> > Yes they will work indefinitely. Why wouldn't they?
Because the computer clock advanced past a date which triggers bugs or limitations on some component, and it cannot be adjusted backwards without a full reinstall, or it's talking to networked services which expect the clock to be close enough to reality. It might be possible to fix with third-party updates, but that's no longer "without updates".
And if you need a reinstall, the online account requirement and/or activation servers being turned off might make it hard without third-party modifications. (It's been a long time since I last installed Windows anywhere, and that was before the online account requirement; how hard is it to install Windows on a completely offline computer nowadays?)
The second part isn't based in reality at all. Windows 10 can be installed entirely offline.
How does it get activated? Or do you mean forever being locked out of, e.g., Edge settings and being able to turn off broken transparency effects?
I'm not going to link to any of it here, but there's also loads of cracked slmgr.vbs scripts out there that will easily activate your Windows install offline.
This is possible with any piece of software. I don't know if Windows 95 will work after the year 9999, nor do I think it's a scenario we should really worry about.
>And if you need a reinstall, the online account requirement and/or activation servers being turned off might make it hard without third-party modifications.
The online account requirement can be bypassed with a command line option during setup. It does also have some fail safe processing that catches if the online account login fails, falling back to an offline account option.
In terms of activation, you can use Windows 10 or 11 without activating it, but you'll end up with a watermark on the desktop.
Windows XP was the first Windows version to use activation, and it's still possible to activate it via the telephone 22+ years later, so it's likely the activation process for Windows 10 and 11 will continue for some years.