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Comment by noxer | Hacker News Reader

This is bad advice that is being repeated over and over by the so called tech influencers. You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10. And for the foreseeable future you gain nothing at all. If one day the normal version acctually stops reviving security updates, it almost certainly will be possible to switch the update channel to LTSC and get the LTSC updates that way but for now this is not needed and the switch is unnecessary Also without some trickery, switching to LTSC requires a complete reinstallation, which for most people likely wasting sever hours.

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> so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10

Windows gets worse with each update, so this is actually a plus.

There are no update, windows 10 is EOL since months and even before that it did not receive any real updates in a long time. The current version is stable and gets only security updates just like LTSC. There is no point to switch, at best its a waste of time and worst you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.

> you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.

That's a laughably ignorant statement for how windows app development works. Raymond Chen weeps on reading your comment. Enterprise edition is a strict superset in functionality over Home/Pro, and LTSC just adds longer support.

Enterprise IoT just comes with Windows Store components sitting dormantly, which you can promptly activate with `wsreset -i` and it's then identical with consumer editions (other than TikTok and Candy Crush not being forcibly reinstalled after every "feature update") where you can install apps from the Windows Store as needed or just use winget instead.

Enterprise IoT LTSC is just Enterprise IoT with longer support.

There is literally and strictly no downside with using IoT LTSC, especially with the combination of official Rufus + MAS to install from official ISOs.

Actually, with MAS, you can also just download the IoT LTSC iso to perform an in-place upgrade that keeps all your existing Windows Store apps and program installs etc., just follow https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-...

If you would acctually read the comment(s) then you'd understand that SWITCHING has no upside, all your arguments are irrelevant there is no point in wasting time to switch the OS version especially not if you need a full reinstallation. And whether you like it or not there are bad coded software out in the real world that do not work on LTSC they will just error out saying this is not a supported version of windows. To fix this you have to regedit your LTSC installation to pretend to be a normal installation. A hassle no sane person would recommend for absolutely zero benefit.

If you would actually read the comment then you'd see the mention of in-place upgrades instead of complete reinstall. There is no drawback of hassle with in-place upgrades as everything on you system is kept as-is, and it takes about the same time as a typical windows cumulative update if not less due to pre-downloading the files.

And instead of unbased hypotheticals perhaps you can point to even a single example of normie software that check for editions of windows as a result of bad coding rather than user-hostile intent? To do so you'd need to go out of your way to hack together undocumented corners instead of the path of least resistance of calling GetVersion() as would be characteristic of lazy coding.

Very untrue for gaming in particular.

For example, if you have an OLED or mini-LED monitor, you really don’t want to be on Windows 10 and miss out on HDR.

And sure, you can say “well nobody has an OLED monitor,” but I’d remind everyone that OLED displays have been pretty much standard on every gaming laptop mid-range and higher for a decent amount of time now.

A lot of the focus for Windows 11 development has been gaming performance and feature improvements. Game developers are also less and less likely over time to bother testing with Windows 10.

Most people are in fact not gamers. Like.. at all. And even those that are probably don't own an OLED or mini-LED monitor.

Most people just want a computer that does the word, the chrome and that's about it.

There are over 900 million PC gamers in the world.

PCs have 43% marketshare in the total game console market. Yes, that includes marketshare against the Nintendo Switch.

There’s a bit of a bubble of non-gaming in this forum, but gaming is definitely a top use case for PCs.

Just walk into your local Best Buy in the laptop section and count up how many of the laptops are marketed as gaming systems. That should give you a rough idea of how many systems are purchased with gaming as the primary intent.

Sure, HDR is a niche at this point in time, but technologies like OLED and mini LED are increasingly common. If you buy a gaming laptop in 2026 at most reasonable price points it’s very likely to have an OLED monitor.

Example: Legion 5a Gen 11 AMD, price on Lenovo’s site is $1500, has an OLED monitor. You can buy OLED gaming monitors below $500 nowadays, so a lot of people upgrading have that as their next upgrade path…if not today, then tomorrow.

On that subject, most people just use the copy of Windows that comes with the computer, so the whole debate about Windows 10 is perhaps not worth having in the first place. Microsoft most likely just misjudged the pace of hardware replacement especially in the AI era where computer sales have slowed.

Yes and how many of those people have the cash for cutting edge tech?

And how much does that cutting edge tech truly matter for the core game experience. I think the steam hardware survey might have some answers there and can tell us for which level of hardware currently developed games are being optimized for.

And that's just the currently developed ones. Not the massive backlog that existed before OLED or microLED HDR screens.

Tiny group. Tiny.

___

Btw, super lame to try to improve your argument after the fact with edits, but, well. Anyway.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

Certainly, I agree that most gamers do not have cutting edge tech.

The cutting edge tech does improve the core experience. Quite a lot. You do have to have the money for it, though, and like anything else, diminishing returns on investment.

Steam hardware survey shows Windows 11 gained 2% this month over Windows 10. That’s a significant rate of change.

I recognize that you don’t like my use of edits, however, they are part of this platform and I’m not using them to diss anyone or engage in any kind of negative conversation. Just trying to make my point and support it.

Calling 1 in 7 people on Earth a gamer is a stretch, unless we're calling preloaded trivial game players, gamers.. and even then I'm not sure.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/420621/number-of-pc-game...

https://www.demandsage.com/most-played-games-right-now/

Some of it is unclear about multi-platform splits and mobile gaming but I don’t think I’m incredibly far off.

Gamers across all platform estimated at over 3 billion: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers

Half the world's population is easily too young or too old or too poor or too rich to be gamers. So that 3 billion stat alone shows me people love just counting any moments spent in a video game at all for who knows what reason on any super bad quality 'game' as gamers.

Anyone with a smartphone can be a gamer.

I think my mom playing Wordle on her smartphone does indeed make her a gamer.

Yes and the world has 6 billion researchers too because we Google things.

It's a lot more useful though when words have meaning and we take them seriously, otherwise nothing really makes sense.

I think you would agree that playing games and being a researcher are very different levels of depth. If you have decent public transit in your area, you'll definitely see at least one person on your commute playing some kind of candy crush-like phone game every single day. Yes, that's a "gamer."

Humans by their very nature use games to pass time and stimulate their mind and body, it's one of the most universal things about us.

That game of Wordle my mom plays once per day is probably what keeps her paying a subscription to NYT. That's real money. She'd probably drop the subscription otherwise.

NYT sells a games-only subscription for $50/year, $80/year per family. I think NYT executives would be happy to consider someone who plays games for 5 minutes per day or even 5 minutes per week a gamer.

I gotta be honest, I personally don't think someone playing wordle is a gamer by the common usage of the word.

I can see where you’re coming from. My side of the argument is basically “money doesn’t discriminate.”

The $50 I spent on Baldur’s Gate 3 is the same $50 as a year’s subscription to Wordle (and the other NYT games).

“Gamer” may refer to a stereotype but there is fundamentally no difference in concept.

What is this 7-paragraph OLED talk about?

I can plug an OLED display to a fricking Windows XP system with a Maxwell GPU and it'll work perfectly fine as long as it has a goddamn HDMI port. Has nothing to do with OS support.

I guess you missed the part where they’re talking about HDR?

Yes, the monitor will work but if you want to take full advantage of the panels you enable HDR.

No I didn't. I intentionally only wrote just OLED because it doesn't have anything to do with HDR not it requires any special support and it doesn't make any fucking sense why they included it along with HDR.

Probably because HDR on the vast majority of non-OLED monitors is useless. You really need a monitor with great contrast and a good HDR implementation for it to be of any benefit.

This is exactly why I mentioned it. In practice, mini-LED monitors or TVs are just not really making a whole lot of sense for HDR by comparison.

I also focused on OLED because I think it’s a very common way for consumers to have access to HDR, whether it be via a TV or gaming laptop.

Outside of Apple, Mini-LED monitors are a rarity in laptops. Usually manufacturers choose OLED for more mid to premium laptops. Apple is fussy about color accuracy, the other manufacturers want a display that pops on a showroom floor and/or they’re targeting a gaming market that appreciates the latency, motion performance, and contrast benefits OLED brings to gaming.

Non gamers who need a PC (most people are mobile only now) can probably use Linux at this point.

I am a gamer who uses Linux! Gaming on Linux is lovely.

I actually left Windows to fix driver stability, which worked and did the trick. I couldn’t play Indiana Jones without crashing.

I should have maybe been more clear (grandparent to your comment) that I didn’t mean to be out defending Windows or anything like that. I migrated away from Windows this year.

I just find that the arguments for sticking to Windows 10 are super weak and overstated. Windows 11 is a decent OS and a clear improvement over 10, in my opinion. It’s just that for me, Linux is now better.

So you're saying the cutting edge HDR features(?) in windows 11 are not all that important to you personally and thus do not warrant windows 11 usage?

Makes sense, yeah. Nice talking to you.

Not sure why you’re being so bitter toward me in particular.

I don’t personally own a monitor capable of HDR but if I had one I would prioritize it a little more, and in my case, I migrated to Linux to resolve specific graphics driver problems. Getting my games to work at all was more important than HDR.

I also recognize that laptops are generally more popular than desktops and OLED is far more common in that form factor. So when I talked about what gamers in general should prioritize regarding running windows 10 versus 11, I figure that many of them have laptops that therefore have OLED monitors capable of HDR.

Also, I was only using HDR as a single example of the gaming enhancements that Windows 11 has, we don’t have to dwell on that one in particular. We could talk about support for enhanced polling rate mice, or better windowed fullscreen, or better VRR.

I'm just greatly annoyed that a conversation that could've been about understanding and learning was (at least attempted to be) hijacked/derailed by some ego/identity stuff.

Letting people get away with that has led to the unpleasant state of the internet we have now and mild correction simply doesn't work.

Hence I've pointed at the exact holes/fault lines. Nothing personal. I wish you a lot of fun gaming on linux.

At the risk of me sounding obtuse, I don’t see where ego or identity came into this conversation. I’m merely pointing out reasons why someone would choose Windows 11 over 10 and that I think the number of people who do that and play games on Windows is significant.

It seems like you’ve been mostly focused on proving me wrong and that’s why the conversation didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. I actually even agreed with you about some stuff, like the fact that most gamers don’t have cutting edge hardware.

I suggest that there are ways in which you contributed to the negative aspects of this interaction. Conversations are a two way street!

FWIW HDR works fine in Linux. Steam Deck (which runs it) has HDR support, both for its interface and for games. Bit confused by your comment, honestly.

>you really don’t want to be on Windows 10 and miss out on HDR

My HDR monitor is connected to my Windows 10 machine and the HDR switch in settings is on and my monitor reports it is getting HDR

What am I supposedly missing?

Lemme guess...

A shinier notepad with builtin AI.

Ads, more ads.

A BSOD that's got 99% more black.

The "recall" spyware.

Mandatory Microslop account.

I could go on, but I use Linux

It has per-app HDR profiles, auto-HDR, content-only HDR (e.g. you want to watch an HDR video but don’t want your desktop to be HDR), and, on a related topic, better handling of VRR and windowed full screen.

Not that Windows 10 is wildly deficient in these areas, but it has a lot of improvements with display settings and capabilities in general. In my experience with the Windows 11 display settings, it’s an overall big improvement, and I do kind of miss it now that I’m on Linux (e.g., setting up virtual displays with Apollo streaming so that client game stream devices have their own separate display settings per-device was a breeze thanks to the excellent way Windows handles and configures unique sets of attached displays.)

Interesting.

Unlike high refresh rates, 1440p resolution, and variable refresh rates that all were so clearly steps above my previous, 60hz basic HD display that I regretted not being an early adopter, HDR has been an immense letdown.

I can't even tell if it's on or not, even while my monitor and GPU assure me it is. As far as I can tell, the most obvious feature was shabbier looking colors, because they are de-saturated for some reason.

I played with the settings tab shared here[0], but the stupid "Brightness" slider is not obvious at all. Is bright good? Is bright bad? WTF?

That post has some other things to look into though, maybe I need a calibrated color profile? Will that get me colors that actually look better than an SDR display? Who knows.... It doesn't make any sense to me that improved brightness space should somehow result in less saturated colors...

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED_Gaming/comments/1h30brf/finall...

I honest don’t even have HDR myself, I was really just picking out an example I know of for “why windows 11 better.”

I’d have upgraded to it just for the screenshot tool to be honest.

> You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10.

Good.

This is exactly why people recommend it.

Try read maybe? There is no benefit to switch to LTSC because normal windows 10 is EOL there are no updates/no features updates and thus all the benefits LTSC HAD are moot. Its a total waste of time to switch to LTSC. A clean switch needs a full reinstallation.

> you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10

Like improved animations, more wasted space and rounded windows corners ?

No, its 99% binary equal and there are no rounded corners in window 10 anyway.

I wouldn't suggest an old LTSC version, but in a relatively recent update MS stopped allowing non-LTSC versions to not populate the start menu with ms store ads when your search locally. For me, that was the final straw - I switched to the latest Win11 LTSC after that, and it's a decidedly better user experience without the cruft I didn't need or want.

> You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10.

That's some very confident sounding bullshit.

Latest LTSC is 21H2, which exactly the same build as the (non-LTSC) 22H2. The only difference is the feature enablement package. Which means you aren't lacking any optimizations.

I'm not even sure if it's missing any "features", but even if it does, I'm 101% sure it some BS "feature".

So you suggest switch over to LTSC for having the exact same OS because it's better? Make it make sense pls. I'm confident became I have tired it all and LTSC has zero benefit and only possible downsides. All the benefits it once had are irrelevant nowadays because windows 10 is EOL and there are no more annoying updates regardless of which version you use.

> which for most people likely wasting sever hours

Yea I don't think you understand who uses windows and for what..

I know that no one who uses it likes to reinstall it unless absolutely necessary. Its pointless in this case so what's your argument? That people should waste more time becase they already waste time? Genius /s

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