Microsoft opens a free tier for Windows 10 extended updates
theregister.com
theregister.com
Edit: I am also comfortable using Linux, and I may end up spending a lot of time searching for the best distro that will work for me as a daily driver. I'm certainly open to that, but for now I plan to just keep chugging along with what I've got until I build a new PC.
Good choice for a machine built for a particular purpose that doesn't need to run any new software.
> Any app that currently works should keep working, but new versions (especially new games, or new patches for games) may not. New versions of GPU drivers, DirectX and so on were a particular area of issue.
To be clear, you're looking to game on a VM?
ftr: Posting this from my Firefox remote app. Host VM is not LTSC however.
https://www.cdw.com/product/windows-10-iot-enterprise-2021-l...
If I'm running Windows 11 Professional, I don't need the Windows Store to tell me I should check out Avowed Premium Edition in a meeting.
Or is somebody going to tell me it's my fault for leaving notifications on?
I'm getting this on Windows 10 now :(
With the pace of modern hardware development, a lot of these computers are still perfectly serviceable.
People are unhappy at being told to buy new hardware when they have working hardware.
(Other things that have concerned people: Further attempts to force people to microsoft accounts, more invasive copilot promotion, recall, A/B tested ads in explorer, etc.)
Why do people love making false claims with confidence? As of today, 5 years ago was 2020, not 2015. TPM 2.0 requirement is fulfilled by CPUs since at least 2017, but that's not the main compatibility issue.
Windows 11 requires VBS (Virtualization Based Security) HW support, which only works on CPUs from Intel 8th gen or Ryzen 2000 series, which are of vintage 2017-2018 not 2020. VBS is quite the nice security feature to have so it makes sense to see Microsoft mandating it at some point in order to enhance security going forward.
Edit: damn, even posting facts on HN gets you downvoted
(That said, I agree that complaining about the TPM requirement specifically is ridiculous - MS has offered ways around the TPM requirement for upgraders. And more relevantly, any CPU that old is going have bigger problems when the UI is basically all React Native)
Source? Links?
Plus, what does this have to do with Microsoft and Intel, what do HW and SW vendors have to do with a retailer selling you dated products? ?
If you buy a new iPhone 6 today and realize you don't get any more SW updates do you blame Apple?
Okay, it seems like I misremembered, because the ones I'm thinking of have "(renewed)" slapped onto them, but literally the first result for "budget desktop" on Amazon (And the second for "Dell desktop", a brand that boomers trust) has a seven year old CPU:
https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Optiplex-3060-Computer-Professio...
And I don't expect an average consumer to know that "renewed" is code for "literally no parts are new and it's probably worse than the product you're replacing" - because why would they? No other product category this way. Obviously we know enough to not trust it, but they have no reason to believe that "reliable companies like Dell" are selling already-broken merchandise.
And no, it's technically not Microsoft's fault (in fact, the TPM requirement is probably good exactly because it prevent vendors selling these pieces of crap) but it is the reality we live in, so you have to account for it when you act like all computers bought today have processors manufactured in the last few years.
> If you buy a new iPhone 6 today and realize you don't get any more SW updates do you blame Apple?
Obviously yes? If I (or again, my Dad who know nothing about computers) can walk out of an Apple store with a device that is already unsupported, that's Apple's fault, not his.
Obviously no!
1) Apple Isn't the only one selling apple devices. Your Dad can buy a new old stock iPhone 6 form anywhere like Walmart or eBay.
2) SW support, legally speaking begins from the product launch date, not from the date you purchased it. If you buy an iPhone 1 off eBay in 2050 you can't hold apple on the hook for 10+ year of SW Updates.
3) Why is it Apple's fault your dad buys dated stuff without doing due diligence? Should consumers be protected against their own stupidity and lack of research? Where does the government nanny state begin?
It was rather amusing to hear the Ryzen 7 1700X (3.4GHz, 8c/16t) in my desktop was not good enough to run an OS.
There is a free tier but it only includes some patches. They have prices listed on the website for the paid tiers.
I have no experience with using them, but just sharing in case it's useful those who doesn't want to or can't throw away their old systems.
Genuine question: In which country do you live where working Windows 10 PCs are sent to the landfill?
I look on my country's used market online every day for my hobby, and every functioning PC/laptop all the way from the MS-DOS, Windows 95 era, XP, Vista, and 10, finds a buyer for the right price. Pentium 4s, Pentium 3s, Pentium 2s, Pentium MMXs, 486s, you name it. Nobody's throwing them away in the landfill when there's always a buyer/taker for them if you have patience.
I feel like people are making up imaginary ewaste on the Windows 10 topic just to cause a hubbub, but where I live there's literally no such thing going on, nor have I seen any proof of it happening anywhere else. Even PCs older than Windows 10 always find a buyer! Let that sink in.
If people in your country throw working windows 10 PCs in landfills, I feel like the issue is with the people in that country being needlessly wasteful and uncaring to sell/give away to those in need, not with Microsoft.
Edit1: would the downvoters care to explain themselves with some arguments? Or do people love overreacting to ideas they don't like via a button instead of formulating a though?
Edit2: @kstrauser below:
1) why would you throw away a working PC instead of giving it away for free? Who have you met who throws away working PCs in the trash when they no longer get the latest OS? There's old people still using Windows 7 PCs just because it works for them and it didn't break down. What makes you think they'll throw away working Windows 10 PCs in dumpsters now?
2) Why would you ship the PC in another country using fuel, when someone locally will pick it up for free to use it? Like I said, there's always a taker.
I see no arguments so far against my points just imaginary scenarios of super wasteful people who throw away good stuff randomly, but then not Microsoft nor anyone can stop them throwing Bugattis off cliffs if that's their jam.
Edit 3: @SECProto below:
I asked how many people you know who throw in dumpsters working Windows 10 PCs, and you went on a tangent answered something completely different, in bad faith I would say. Of course all computing tech eventually gets landfilled due to obsolescence, that's inevitable, but if you post an ad for a Windows 10 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it, if you post an ad for a Pentium 3 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it. There's no excuse to just throw working PCs in a landfill other than malice. If your society mass landfills PCs the moment $LATEST_SW doesn't run on them, instead of finding new owners, then your society is at fault.
I’m not claiming I’d throw out a Windows 10 PC. I’d personally install Linux on it instead. But I can certainly imagine someone seeing nothing worth salvaging from a 10 year old PC and tossing it, and I can’t say they’re objectively wrong for doing it. Should they personally ship it to another country at some cost in fuel?
I think people are downvoting at your feigned incredulity at something not bizarrely “wrong” to a lot of people.
> Edit: would the downvoters care to explain themselves with some arguments?
I'll bite. I know many many many people who had all the era's of PC you mentioned. None of them still have them. None of them sold them. They may have put them on the curb, or "recycled" them, or sent them to the landfill - I don't know and it doesn't impact the fact that I don't know anyone who has a single one of them still in use.
This is easy to confirm by doing some order of magnitude math on how many of these machines were made (many), and how many are still in use (very few).
Regarding the Windows 10 specific question: it is still supported and receives updates, so of course they aren't going to landfill yet. The question is what will happen in a year or so once they are no longer supported (most non-techy users wont be installing LTSC). Spoiler: the vast majority of them will be sent to landfill or "recycler", not sold and kept in use.
But anyway, technology is so dense where I leave that you can’t give away some stuff. A 10 year old PC? Maybe. 15-20 years? No way, unless someone needs a specific part from it. There is zero demand otherwise for such a thing. There’s so much new tech that slightly older is nearly valueless locally.
Regarding your comment here, no offense, but that sounds more of an issue with your country/society where you live being too wealthy, throw-away and consumerist, than anything else. So I don't see how this is Microsoft's fault if people landfill working stuff at the smallest inconvenience or passing of age just because they're bored of the working old stuff and always want the new shiny. Which is the point I was making initially: super-wealthy frivolous society problem.
For example, I live in a rich EU country, and even here every PC no matter how old or new it it, has a taker coming by to pick it up, if you put it up online as a gift. There's plenty of people into retro computing here or tinkering with older stuff who'll find a use in their garage or basement as a hobby project or whatever. Every PC gets sold, nothing gets landfilled.
Sure, eventually they'll all be landfilled like everything else, but that's inevitable given enough time and obsolescence, but definitely not the moment they don't run $LATEST_SW, that's just absurd. If some countries do that, then it's the problem of that country being frivolous, not Microsoft for not providing endless SW support on a 10 year OS. That's just not economically feasible given the $100 license fee, but you can still use that HW.
Many people don't have space to store an old computer. Many people don't have time to try to sell it on ebay or FB marketplace. So they will again follow the path of least resistance: throw it away.
Sure, some people will donate it. But even then there's so much old working computer stuff in the USA that my high school wouldn't even accept more.
The old working computer storage room was full.
The situation is unfortunate but it's not because people are needlessly wasteful or uncaring. They're just trying to survive and live their lives and Microsoft told them their working thing doesn't work anymore.
If you hit a "throttle limit" as you said in a sibling comment - I don't know what that is, but you should take it as a helpful suggestion to post less, not circumvent by editting responses into comments.
> I asked how many people you know who throw in dumpsters working Windows 10 PCs, and you went on a tangent answered something completely different, in bad faith I would say.
Regarding bad faith arguments, see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html - assume someone is responding in good faith. It's a boring and antagonistic discussion topic.
Anyway, I was responding in good faith to your comment in context, not in isolation. You asked about working windows 10 PCs going to landfill, yes - in a thread where the context is Microsoft discontinuing windows 10 security updates later this year. So no, I agree, working windows 10 PCs probably don't go to the landfill right now - but this situation will change in a year or two, and that is what the whole discussion is about. This was a good faith read on your whole comment, because you talked about all the different generations of PCs, from MS DOS to current, not just windows 10.
If you want only my comment about Windows 10 PCs, read the last paragraph of my other response.
> if you post an ad for a Pentium 3 PC now, someone will take it from you to use it
This is not accurate. Best case, someone might take it, pull the hard drive to try to find something valuable, and dump the rest in a dumpster.
I have a half dozen older PCs (MS-DOS, windows 95, ME, XP, XP) in various boxes. You're welcome to them if you'd like - I would have to pay someone to take them off my hands. This isn't a localized thing, either - I've lived in a number of developed countries (north america, east asia) and the same would apply in all of them. I would say your situation is the unusual one.
> There's no excuse to just throw working PCs in a landfill other than malice
If your PC isn't getting security updates, it is not working. I wouldn't use it for anything online, ever. And if I want to play an old game, emulation is lower energy cost than an old PC.
I wish user accounts were still local only and did not back up to OneDrive, but I can understand that this is actually probably a valuable feature for 99% of windows users.
With people talking about ads and such, I'm reluctant to get a new computer with Windows 11.
1. Windows 11, adverts everywhere, purposely difficult to turn off.
2. Windows 11 in work, it's slow, the menus are more annoying than in 10.
3. As a dotnet developer , pretty much everything I do is deployed on Linux. Also the developing tooling is now good enough on Linux.
4. Windows 11 won't stop badgering me for an online account.
5. My steam deck showed me that if I really want to play games on Linux it is really 100x easier than 15 years ago.
6. Windows front end is a mess of various different versions of the same menus.
After relying on windows for years due to amazing backwards compatibile hardware support, I've given up. It's a shit show.
Microsoft can't use the same plan they've always used on gamers, there's another option now. God bless Steam for being so reasonable, too. I regularly play Helldivers2 from Steam run from flatpak with a non-privileged user account, on Debian Unstable, without any anti-cheat problems. The world has changed for computer gamers and it's giving leverage with Microsoft.
I don’t game often and Windows ensured I didn’t want to by throwing roadblocks every time I booted the machine.
At least every Mac and Linux machine I’ve owned has happily booted into a working OS no matter how long it sat. Windows tried to upgrade my machine to Windows 11 without my consent, when it already knew my machine didn’t support it. That was fun.
My neighbor got permanently locked out of her laptop because Microsoft somehow attached her dead husband’s email account to her local account despite him having never logged in on that machine. I wasn’t able to figure out how to fix it.
All devs tools work natively no more wsl2 shenanigans.
Games just work now from Steam. No weirdness just like windows click install and play.
I have no reason to ever return to windows.
It's a 25 year long pattern. We're the ones that didn't get the message!
Win2K might break that, it and XP were back to back.
That said, Neptune was an unfinished Win2k home version. Getting it booted = buggy funtime.
In Windows 10 terms that would have been a feature update 6 months in.