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Didn't know what LTSC was about, so for people in the same boat:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/iot-enterprise...

The main issue I'd see is licensing. It seems to be a completely different bucket, so would it activate with a Home or Pro license ? (OEM or not)

I should have mentioned that, yeah Licensing is the key problem here but there is a github script that fixes this if you don't have any ethical issues with that.

But personally if I already have a legal copy of Win11 I have no moral problems with reinstalling LTSC and using a script to activate it.

It is always ethical to pirate Microsoft software. The unethical thing is giving them more money for this slop.

Thanks for the pointer.

The more I think of it, the more licensing looks like the best representation of Microsoft's strategy for Windows.

Stable, lean and long term focused versions are locked under the most hidden of the enterprise licenses. Decent versions without the garbage ads and spyware features only ship to enterprise. "Pro" users are only blessed with virtualization and a few candies, and share the worse edition with "Home" users.

It makes a lot more sense why the enterprise machines are near 30% more expensive than their customer counterpart.

It is interesting because a lot of people criticize Apple as basically you are paying for privacy.

And that is very true, they have turned it into a marketing feature.

But Microsoft is very brazen about it when it comes to Windows. The more you pay the less privacy invasive crap there is. I don't know for sure what the difference between home and pro is for analytics sent back to Microsoft, but LTSC is a drastic difference. (annoyingly still not zero though)

There is no github script that fixes this, there are scripts that redirect the activation mechanism to pirate activation servers that validate every incoming request. Not knowing this mechanism beforehand, I was very surprised by this, because this is what even many activator software do as well.

I consider it a major breach of trust from the authors. Maybe there can be an exploit that uses the activation mechanism as a vector, and then, many of such machines will be compromised. This is a risk, and it's something that a user needs to evaluate before going into it.

I personally solve this for myself by running the activation server emulator myself. It's open source software and really easy to set up as well.

https://github.com/Wind4/vlmcsd

This is untrue. The script being referred to by the original comment activates your IoT LTSC as perfectly genuine at Microsoft's own server, no third party comes into play.

https://massgrave.dev/

Right, I forgot about the digital license activation method. I even used it myself in the past, albeit manually. Thanks for the correction.

And how do you propose Regular Joe procure a license? Not trying to be snide, but LTSC is an enterprise product that is only available with volume licensing.

So unless you want to pirate it…

No need for a license. Just activate it with one of the many activation scripts around.

So pirate it

It's using a legit copy of windows and performing a legit activation, no exploits or anything. To call it piracy is the same as me telling you my pin and calling you a hacker when you login to my account, no? Microsoft could fix it, but they don't.

I genuinely wonder why they haven't. Those activation githubs have been around for what feels like forever at this point, and you just activate copies of Windows acquired from Microsoft for free, and they just... don't seem to care?

I have no direct knowledge, but my best guess is that they have significant legit customers using these as an alternative to Microsoft's own Key Management Services. Historically, some stuff like this has even turned out to be used by the company themselves (e.g. a few Steam/GOG releases have been found to use old warez scene cracks, official arcade emulators using bootleg sets from MAME, etc.).

I use my MSDN keys generated back in 2015 over and over. It works great 9 years later.

Was it piracy to install windows 95 on 100 computers with one cd and one product id and no outside licensing?

Of course it was. Just because it lets you do it, doesn't mean it's not piracy.

Well, that activation was entirely offline, wasn't it? With the tech at the time, would it really be possible to stop multiple activations? Windows 11 now requires you to log in using email and that you have internet, so they could easily pull the plug on the MAS scripts. Yet they don't.

IMHO, you have more of an obligation to pay for a license than they have an obligation to enforce payment through technical means.

> To call it piracy is the same as me telling you my pin and calling you a hacker when you login to my account, no?

Somewhat absurd linguistically and morally ambiguous, yet possibly legally accurate?

Some would say, if you already have a legal, paid-for license to run Windows on a given PC, and you merely want a slightly different version which is older and doesn't add any extra features, that's a lesser form of piracy.

"This one weird trick makes Windows not suck" - except that the weird trick is... piracy!

I get that people really like Windows, but all these contortions just to delay the inevitable... yeesh. At some point, people either need to get onboard with the MS vision for the product, or accept that it's time to switch to something different.

You can get LTSC through microsoft resellers. Last I heard, you have to buy at least 5 licenses to be in Volume Licensing, but if you only have one computer, you can buy one LTSC license ($270-$300) and then 4 low cost filler licenses (I think seats for something were $10-$30 each?)

And the LTSC license is an upgrade license, so the computer needs licensing for Windows already (maybe needs Pro and not Home, too).

But it ends up being a large amount of money to run wierd windows.

Serious question, why not just switch to linux? I installed W11 after building gaming / workstation this year, and I've grudgingly left it in place because I don't want 'anti-cheat' hassles that you sometimes run into playing games with steam / proton.

If WSL wasn't a thing I would have formatted it by now. Linux is just such a better experience for development. I also simply cannot shake the fear that windows is leaking every keystroke back to some MS service I haven't disabled.

For me my windows setups are dedicated gaming devices, nothing more. Any general computing I do (with some random exceptions due to convenience) is on my Mac.

So for me the number one priority is performance and compatibility. Which as far as proton has come, using the LTSC version on Windows easily wins on compatibility (especially once you leave Steam) and in some cases wins on performance.

LTSC also drastically reduces the metrics sent back to Microsoft.

macOS does offer a nicer overall UX than Windows, but the amount of telemetry Apple machines constantly stream to home base is disturbing. And unlike windows, I don't know of a way to turn it off.

If you run Wireshark on any Mac you will observe the high volume of requests to Apple-owned IPs. Even when the machine is otherwise idle. It's creepy.

On the other hand, Linux machines don't default to sending telemetry. P.s. Ubuntu is an exception to this rule which is one reason I'll never use Ubuntu again (they've included telemetry and embedded ads in the past). Debian and Pop_os both work remarkably well for desktop use these days.

> macOS does offer a nicer overall UX than Windows,

Eh, does it? I find it to be incredibly unintuitive, and so do many people I see try to use it with no prior PC experience.

It's hard to compete with what Win2k offered. That seems like it was the ultimate in intuitive, user-friendly, and stable.

Funnily enough, I ran 2003 and then 2008 server versions as my desktop for a long time. No cruft and great performance. Very easy to enable desktop stuff and disable server stuff also.

For me, online multiplayer gaming. So now I have my Linux daily driver, and a gaming OS basically dual-booted.

Yeah, I ostensibly haven't switched back so I don't have to deal with anti-cheat issues, but if I'm really honest with myself I don't game nearly as much as I used to and when I do it's usually single player.

Yes but I understand that you might not want to cut off the possibility. I personally dual-boot, but for similar convenience reasons I have some of the games installed on both systems. Even dual-booting is a bit of a pain, some of which I have solved by having a dedicated SSD for each OS. Windows sometimes misbehaves and it's easier to handle that if it has its own drive.

Gaming.

Even while Proton is incredible - the experience with nvidia GPUs is still less than stellar. So if you want high resolution/framerate gaming - especially if you add HDR to that - you’re still stuck with windows.

I’d love to switch to Linux if I could, I use it or MacOS for everything else.

Exactly this. I was having a silly argument recently with someone that was trying to say Proton was just as good as DirectX/Windows, and it's really not even close in terms of support and stability, not to mention it only works with Steam initially.

I have noticed that there seems to be a subset of gamers that want so badly for Linux gaming to be a thing that they ignore the problems.

For the record it is great, they have done a very good job with proton and I am not diminishing that work.

But try to bring up this conversation on YouTube, reddit, or similar places and it becomes toxic very quickly. Even when presented with raw numbers. It has even gotten that way here a couple times.

And the Steam thing is a big sore point right now, for the average user once you leave Steam it is not as user friendly as just running Windows.

Valve's marketing also isn't helping the situation in the slightest.

It's just zealotry and tribalism. It's been a thing with Linux since I started using it back in 97 or whenever.

I'd say it's an inate property of all communities based around a given platform. It's not necessarily "wrong" either as obviously if someone is willing to use a platform, then they will also naturally be willing to overlook it's deficiencies.

The discord arrives not because they do not acknowledge the deficiencies but due to a difference in priorities, what one person values another may not.

It makes sense to me that their would be tension between people who want full control of their system & privacy in exchange for occasional performance cuts and unsupported anti cheats vs those that are comfortable completely giving up their privacy & control in exchange for occasional performance boosts and invasive anti cheats.

It's wrong and always a problem when people start lying, either to themselves, others or both.

I agree there is nothing wrong and people advocating for their preferences, opinions, arguments, solutions, whatever.

However, when you get so attached that you need to start lying to say it's better or that the alternatives are worse, that's no longer rational and makes the people doing so no longer trustworthy.

This is true for all types of tribalism across all areas of society.

Interesting take, but what exactly are you talking about here? You are asserting that some people are lying but who? On what basis? Is this really as big a problem as you are making it out to be? (In the context of nerd platform wars?)

> You are asserting that some people are lying but who?

Anyone making clearly false claims, for example.

I had a recent discussion with a Linux devotee, for example, claiming gaming on Linux was basically as good as Windows and that Linux had full DirectX equivalents. Both things are false, the user knows they are false, but that user lied to themselves due to loyalty to their preferred platform.

Apple users do it so often, the term reality distortion field was invented to describe their behavior. Sony and Zboz fans do it as well. Not to mention people do it with everything, i.e. political parties.

For me it is because I dont care about most negatives that are usually brought up. I need my os to get out of the way and be robust and W11 does that way better than Linux for me. I do have an Ubuntu Laptop and occasionally also try Linux in a VM or dual installation on my main desktop but it is always far more hassle than windows.

you just answered your own question, at least for gaming. the paid userbase for proton-based gaming needs to grow large enough to be taken seriously before most people can migrate.

Work. Adobe is standard (monopoly) in audiovisual production, graphic design snd DTP. Adobe is not working on linux.

Yes, its frustrating. But there is no competition.

I just switched to Linux for gaming. So far most things have worked quite well FO4 and Horizon Dawn seem to have identical performance to windows.

Simcity 4 has issues. But i has issues on new PC's too.

Modded or vanilla FO4? I'm curious if modded works at all and how much of an additional hassle is it compared to windows (which, depending on how much you are adding, can be quite a bit of work anyway).

Current Steam vanilla version.

GOG games seem to be harder to get working.

There are some default mods bethesda recently gave away and some DLC i bought that haven't caused on issues.

No idea about third party stuff

Another indie game "Intergalactic fishing" doesn't run for me in windows, but does run on WINE .. which is hilarious.

The new Forza game was not supported by the previous LTSC version for a long time so I wouldn’t say that it’s the most compatible version for gaming.

Which Forza and which LTSC version?

I have not had issues with Horizon 5 or the new Forza on my steam deck under Windows 10 LTSC 2021. I believe I played both at or near launch.

That is the first I have heard of a game not working on LTSC.

Edit:

My timeline is off, I did not try Horizon 5 on my steam deck until about a year after it came out since Horizon 5 predated the steam deck.

However worth pointing out that it is one example of a game not working on LTSC vs many examples on proton so I would argue it still Wins out on compatibility.

Horizon 5 did not work for me and many others on Windows 10 LTSC Version 1809 when it was the de-facto latest LTSC available. I'm not sure what feature was missing but it was working just fine with the latest Windows 10 Pro version available at that time. Of course things might differ now but I still wouldn't say that compatibility is big on LTSC when there's a high chance that a new game might be missing essential features which only get added in the next LTSC version.

Wouldn't W10 be better? No online account needed and there is still Windows Mixed Reality many VR games rely on.

You don't need an online account for W11 either.

But WMR was removed from W11 so it's useless for many AR/VR games/apps.

I was responding to this part of the comment:

>No online account needed

Because it implies that you need an online account for W11, which you don't.

I'm on W10 for now for largely this reason, but it's not future-proof. Support ends on Oct 10, 2025, and they'll almost certainly stop supporting it with some gaming-critical libraries and functionalities sooner than that.

When that happens, I'm going to do my damnedest to transition to Linux. I can already play the vast majority of games really well on my Steam Deck, so ideally I can recreate the same technology stack on my desktop and just have better hardware there.

Bazzite, Chimera and Nobara are trying to do the same thing on top of different mainstream distros if you don't want to do it yourself. For better hardware Nvidia Graphics issues are largely fixed with the new beta driver so by that time, it should be a good place.

As someone else said, in Windows 11 LTSC you do not need an online account to set it up.

There is no WMR though.

That’s ultimately just playing the cat-and-mouse game with Microsoft. If LTSC becomes a commonly used trick to get local accounts, Microsoft will put even more barriers to get through. It’s not a game I’d want anyone to play.

I honestly would not be too worried about that happening.

LTSC is likely a small but critical part to Microsoft keeping Windows in control, being able to continue to deploy Windows in places that may have otherwise moved to Linux. Once an organization starts down that path than it opens the doors for other non windows systems. It also can't have too many restrictions put on how it runs and is activated or its value plummets.

The fact is the vast majority of users won't go down this path, it will always be the power users or those with power users to manage their computers.

But frankly, even if a significant portion (like say 10%) were to start using LTSC version. That still keeps Windows in a dominate position as far as the market and developer support goes. Which is a win for Microsoft.

> But frankly, even if a significant portion (like say 10%) were to start using LTSC version. That still keeps Windows in a dominate position [...]

You are talking about the 2012 version of Microsoft's vision for Windows. In 2024, they no longer go for these install bases. In this particular case, Linux has won any new entry in the embedded market, and they're mostly keeping their current clients happy with the LTSC version. I would be 0% surprised if Microsoft starts tightening the screws on those LTSC user to move them towards their cloud offerings.

Microsoft no longer wants an install base; what it wants in 2024 is logged-in Windows users. Then they can sell them subscriptions and hoover up all their data, mostly for ad purposes, and probably for LLM training sooner rather than later.

LTSC 24h2 is technically supposed to be out but it's still not available on msdn sadly.

Are there trade-offs with this?

The main trade-off is that you don't get to enjoy the benefits of upgrading to Linux instead :^)

I have yet to have any issues with it and I switched full time to LTSC on multiple devices for about 2 years now, the only minor trade off is if something you rely on is not installed automatically like the Microsoft store.

So when you first launch the Xbox app it will tell you that there are things that need to be installed, but it gives a button to do exactly that.

You also don't get new features that Microsoft roles out, but I don't consider that a trade off and is instead a positive. Bonus I was able to un-install copilot completely from control panel on Windows 11 LTSC.

> I even installed LTSC on my Steam Deck

For what purpose?

Full compatibility with games, I never need to think or worry about wether or not an update will break compatibility with Proton. Something that had happened a couple times with Halo Infinite and others.

Not needing to worry about getting on the bad side of a developer like with Destiny 2.

Easily use stores that are not just Steam to hopefully discourage a monopoly that is currently largely on PC gaming.

If I want to run things like Discord, OBS, or whatever other thing I want running I don't have to jump through hoops.

Finally the ability to use Game Pass games natively.

Windows has become my primary driver on my Steam Deck. Does what I need it to do, play games. Some games even run better under 10LTSC compared to SteamOS.

some games want kernel level rootkits ("anticheat"), some just block their DRM in proton, and if you want to use game pass PC, well, you need MS store.

Why not just use Win10 LTSC ?

The amount of people doing this was so vast that windows 10 ltsc stopped receiving updates when windows 11 was first announced and by happy coincidence is just ever so slightly too old now for the benefits versus just using linux with proton on steam.

I do not believe this is true.

Windows 10 LTSC will continue to get security improvements at least until next year depending on the LTSC version you have installed and up to 2032.

As far as it not getting a new cut version after the 2021 one, I feel like that is just normal practice? Does Microsoft normally cut a new version of their LTSC version on an older OS when they are working on the next version?

Was there even a need for a new 10 LTSC after 2021?

LTSC is a fantastic solution if Windows is a need, but there is no getting around it that the only way you can use it, or most people, is via piracy.

You're ethically fine with it, but it's still a problem for many, even if purely due to legal concerns and not ethical ones.

I want to game as well, but thankfully most of what I want to run will run on Linux. GTA6 likely won't, and then I'll have to look at streaming with moonlight or something, or playing on a VM with GPU passthrough.

Qemu is making advances at allowing VMs to hide that they are VMs, so that might end up being a great solution.

It is worth putting out a very big caveat here that "piracy" in this sense is not downloading an Iso through BitTorrent when Microsoft provides the ISO for LTSC to freely download through your browser.

The 'piracy' element is running an activation script off of GitHub.

However IMO that is Microsoft problem and not mine for not providing a legal way for a normal consumer to get LTSC. They could make it another tier and charge more if they were inclined. I hate the idea of paying for privacy, but ethically I would be compelled to do so if the option was available to me.

As said in other comments, personally ethically the way I justify it is I already have a Windows 11 License and I am just installing a different version of 11. Microsoft still got the money.

Given that there is no torrenting and it is just a script you are running, I am legitimately curious about any legal ramifications.

> but thankfully most of what I want to run will run on Linux.

For me once I hit "most" and not "all" I asked myself why I was bothering, I was dual booting SteamOS and Windows but using Windows the vast majority of the time. Been debating recently on re-imaging and continuing to dual boot but solely to have SteamOS for firmware updates.

> The 'piracy' element is running an activation script off of GitHub.

You're modifying software against the terms of service to have functionality only offered by an entirely different license that costs substantially more.

Yeah, you're not downloading ISOs or using cracks but it is absolutely no less piracy.

> However IMO that is Microsoft problem and not mine for not providing a legal way for a normal consumer to get LTSC.

Sure, but that's their business decision and right. If you want it you can pay for it, just like if you want an expensive sportscar you have to pony up for that as well.

> Given that there is no torrenting and it is just a script you are running, I am legitimately curious about any legal ramifications.

For you individually, I'm sure you know they won't care, just as they already don't care about all the gamers with all the watermarked pirated versions of Windows.

You're more than likely absolutely safe. But it's still just as much piracy as downloading an ISO and using a crack, and you would be just as legally culpable.

> For me once I hit "most" and not "all" I asked myself why I was bothering,

Honestly it's because Windows is still your enemy. You can tame it, but you have to fight with it. Sure, you can get it pretty good, and you eliminate a lot of problems using the ltsc version, but you still don't own the software and they could still fuck with it and by extension you and one day there might not be a script to fix it.

Personally, I think it makes significantly more sense to keep windows around only to run the few games that won't work on Linux, not as a main OS. At this point, even the LTSC versions, are basically untrusted, hostile software.

Everyone's has different views on this though, balancing conveience and other needs, so it's not like there's an objective answer.

I think 10LTSC is perfectly viable right now, I still run 10LTSC on my Steam Deck.

Right now on my desktop I have 10 LTSC, 11 LTSC, and 11 Pro installed and doing a bunch of benchmarks but still early on data (trying to be as thorough as possible).

I have had someone try to tell me that there is something in Windows 11 that makes it run better on newer processors, I have not been able to find any information on this.

Also theoretically at some point driver support or game support will diminish on 10.

Personally, I think if you are going to go for a new installation 11 likely may be the way to go for the best future compatibility. But 10 is still good.

>I have had someone try to tell me that there is something in Windows 11 that makes it run better on newer processors, I have not been able to find any information on this.

Possibly they were referring to this:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-...

That is it! I remember something about the scheduler.

Will need to do some more research and benchmarks on this personally and see if it is really much of an improvement or if the improvements are lost by any decrease in performance going from 10 to 11 (even on LTSC).

I'm not sure it would make a difference on a Steam Deck, as E and P cores are an Intel thing

Most likely not, however I run LTSC on 4 different gaming setups. Steam Deck, Legion GO, and 2 desktops of various power for TV and desktop gaming. So I have a decent range of hardware to test these claims on.

The other aspect in the background is win10 is putting up a full screen warning about hitting EOL in Oct'25 while not giving older (~pre-2018) systems an official route to upgrade to anything supported besides buying a whole new system. For those that are content with the performance for desktop the scheduler doesn't really offer them anything. I'd love to see some form of OS survey in 2026 narrowed down to pre-2018 systems still online.