Microsoft's Windows 10 ban could prove costly for millions of PC owners from tomorrow

[THX-1139]

Just a heads up in case you have not heard:https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1728074/Microsoft-Windows-10-end-of-life-Windows-11-upgrade

[Mæstro]

An archived primary source is here. (Use an element zapper for the overlay.) It amazes me that the press can draw a full article like this from just one sentence of new information. The mediaeval rhetors should be proud.

[Sob__]

What a load of nonsense.

Someone who stuck with Windows 7 or 8 until now will certainly be heartbroken, because they won't be able to buy Windows 10 upgrade. They could have done it for last 7.5 years, but they probably weren't sure, and now when they were almost getting there, this path will be closed forever by evil Microsoft. Sounds believable. In reality, Windows 7 is for regular users out of support for three years already, so nothing really changes for them now. Windows 8 users are almost nonexistent. And btw, I haven't tried it lately myself, but the free upgrade from those systems to Windows 10 supposedly still works and there's no good reason why it should stop.

Now if someone wanted to buy new Windows 10, that might be annoying. But are there many people who would want to do it now? It's not anything against buying Windows, I do it myself. It's just that most regular users simply buy computer, it has some Windows and they are happy. Version 10 or 11, most can't both tell the difference and care about it enough to prefer one or another. So it leaves very few who do care and for some reason would be getting new computer. But will it be "millions facing a huge bill"? Nah.

[Pentium4User]

Always the same for very windows version. It also happened for XP because most older XP machines weren't able to run Win 7.
Win Win 10 this is just worse because machines that would be able are especially excluded by MS.

[Falna]

Win Win 10 this is just worse because machines that would be able are especially excluded by MS.

I think you mean Windows 11, but yes, blocking machines from upgrading by imposing artificial hardware restrictions - and then providing a registry hack to circumvent the restrictions (while warning that it might not be possible to install future upgrades if you use it) is disgraceful.

the free upgrade from those systems to Windows 10 supposedly still works

It does, I've just upgraded to it. I could have used the MS hack to install Windows 11, but would rather wait until 10 support ends to see if the hack is still working. And, before someone mentions it no, I can't use Linux (on this machine - I do use it elsewhere) as some essential software is Windows only.

most regular users simply buy computer, it has some Windows and they are happy. Version 10 or 11, most can't both tell the difference

Except for corporate users where maintaining multiple versions of Windows (or having to junk thousands of supposedly 'hardware incompatible' machines) is an issue.

[Moonchild]

I think there seems to be some confusion here. The only thing this news is about is the fact that for people who want to purchase an upgrade license, who are currently still on Win 7, 8 or 8.1, that that is no longer possible if they want to upgrade to Windows 10. As already pointed out... those users likely already decided that they don't want to upgrade anyway, so that is a whole bunch of upset over nothing.
Whether this also means the free upgrades will stop working (since they will stop upgrade licenses to Win 10), I don't know. That might potentially be a bigger issue for people still on the fence right now as in that case they won't be able to upgrade at all (legally, anyway) except to Win 11 (if their hardware supports it).

[Cassette]

Why not just downgrade your Windows 11 license to Windows 10?

[Moonchild]

Why not just downgrade your Windows 11 license to Windows 10?

You can't.

[Baloo]

Just another reason for why it's always a good time to switch to Linux desktop.

[Moonchild]

Just another reason for why it's always a good time to switch to Linux desktop.

In my experience having tried multiple flavours myself and helping countless people trying to switch, it became clear Linux Desktop is just not suited for quite a large portion of Windows users.
So while it may be a good time to switch if it agrees with you, it simply isn't when your PC use involves things Linux simply isn't designed well for or doesn't have the software available for.

[Mæstro]

Who comprises this large portion? I have heard many tales of men installing suitably themed Linux Mint for their uninformed relations, who would suspect nothing for years. The usual classes unable to switch to Linux I have heard are gamers (though I hear this has improved in late years), professionals who depend upon Adobe’s or other specialised software which Wine cannot handle and those whose hardware lacks the needed drivers. Beside these, I can imagine that a Mac user is bound up with Apple’s software already and would struggle, in tedium if not in principle, to convert; this does not apply to Windows users, but is another group I can conceive. Are there other groups I am missing?

[Moonchild]

You're missing the whole middle group who has ascended beyond being satisfied with what a chromebook offers, but isn't an actual power user. The big group that uses it for more than just office work and solitaire (my mom would probably fall into that category), that wants to just be able to get a new program or game to check out because friends have it, who are interested in learning a bit more in some lost hours, but don't have the capacity to wrestle with command lines (unfortunately still an integral part of daily linux use, especially when you want to step away from the store package manager and its approved applications). And speaking of graphics editing programs, please don't tell me GIMP is in any way sufficient for that group because it is not. And yet it's the default every distro and their uncle wants to push.

Linux Desktop could be a lot better than it is, if people would get off of their dev horses and approach it from a daily user perspective and make GUIs for everything (preferably in a way that isn't clunky or counterintuitive or looking like it was done in 5 minutes to shut someone up).

Sorry if you disagree with this opinion (undoubtedly a number of you keyboard warriors will be) but that is my experience with trying to help people transition to it. It just isn't there (yet). And improvements are really slow.

[Lucio Chiappetti]

In my experience ... it became clear Linux Desktop is just not suited for quite a large portion of Windows users.

I am afraid (as a Linux-only user with very little Windows experience back at the time of Windows NT more than 20 years ago) I should agree with such statement, and paradoxically based on the recent experience with an Italian Linux forum. The questions raised by most forum members there are quite below the standard I'm used to on interntional technical forums, including this one. There seems to be a lot of people unable to read a man page, writing a shell script or in general "live on the command line" (while for me is the other way round), and which however ask questions about never-heard-of software packages or attempt to do "smart" (?!) tricks with drivers, or the BIOS, or other things I never thought of in 33 years of Unix and Linux.

[Mæstro]

Linux Desktop could be a lot better than it is, if people would get off of their dev horses and approach it from a daily user perspective and make GUIs for everything

I agree with the feeling expressed here. The ordinary user ought to be free to manage his system fully through GUI if he so chooses (and I choose indeed, unless guided by a friend), without opening the terminal once. At least for Linux Mint, I believe as a point of fact from two years experience in it, that this goal has been met. I concede that this is largely through packages in the official repository, so your statement here is plausible:

especially when you want to step away from the store package manager

For a personal example which helps your case, Debian 10 repository has no GUI one-time password generator (as far as I know), so a friend had helped me set up a shell script which I can run through the GUI. I would not have been able to do this on my own, and I understand the problem has been solved in Debian 11 through a new application in this official repository. Grsync and other graphical frontends which I use for common CLI tools are likewise available through the official repository. Working purely graphically is possible with the right packages, unless I have missed something. Are there times or tasks you find the terminal still needful for ordinary management in a welcoming distro like Mint?

I doubt whether this method of solving is bad if the official offering is comprehensive enough. It fails, of course, where a relevant package does not exist for the CLI application. All my examples from personal usage—authenticators as above, or random password generators—have been ordinary applications, not core system management, for which distros meant for general usage, like Mint, seem robust enough. (To be sure, I would like GUI for these terminal applications also.)

It is also alas true that Linux help orients itself to terminal use: my friend, giving technical support, will give me terminal commands for me blindly to follow (I suffer panic attacks if I try to do anything in it myself), and I am guilty of this myself in parroting the recipe to install Clean Flash because it just works and is easy to describe in one step.

I doubt whether this objection holds for the kind of packages you have in mind:

the big group that uses it for more than just office work and solitaire…that wants to just be able to get a new program or game to check out because friends have it, who are interested in learning a bit more in some lost hours

Such software, on Windows, would be loose executables or compressed folders. On Linux, they are likewise self-contained, whether as official packages, or more to your point, found in the wild as tarballs, AppImages, Windows software run through Wine (which imperfections I know and own) or something like these. I feel the pains of Linux incompatibility worst with visual novels, but also with games like Genshin Impact. The friend who gives me terminal support keeps a Windows computer for such things, but dislikes switching between them.

Is the problem you describe that ongoing Windows software’s incompatibility means that it is harder for the spontaneous to try some random, new software on a whim, or am I missing something?

please don't tell me GIMP is in any way sufficient for that group because it is not.

I had had them in mind when thinking of Mac users.

[Moonchild]

On Linux, they are likewise self-contained, whether as official packages, or more to your point, found in the wild as tarballs, AppImages, Windows software run through Wine (which imperfections I know and own) or something like these.

self-contained? Hardly. It's often not easy to install packages standalone (without once again reverting to the CLI). Tarballs often run into "oh but you need these dependencies". AppImages/Flatpacks tend to meet the user half-way by offering something like a "portable" but that comes with its own drawbacks too; that too will need the user to know how to handle each format specifically. Running Windows software in wine is a jungle someone with basic knowledge will find hard to figure out. and... "something like these"... Well just look at the collection of vastly different ways you already have here to deal with software. Then compare that to a Windows installer (with uninstaller), a generally single way of dealing with adding and removing software. compressed folder extraction and running something is already "more advanced" and people generally have more issue if it becomes more complicated than that.
The problem is, aside from the lack of (consistent) GUIs for a lot of things, that people can't see the forest for the trees if they are overwhelmed with options, each of which may be at will chosen by a software distributor. There is such a thing as "too much choice"; even linux enthusiasts regularly moan about "too many steering wheels" and that's people intimately familiar with it. It creates a necessity for people to lean way too much on previous knowledge of the many different ways things can be done, and much less on being able to intuitively find their way around the OS.
Mind you I'm not saying it's all bad, far from it, and I'd absolutely love to see Linux Desktop succeed, but it's painfully slow because there's so much focus on "freedoms" that there is no convergence on a single workflow that in broad strokes works for everybody. And yes I have tried mint myself as well, both MATE and Cinnamon. They are fairly good in terms of providing a stable experience but still suffer from the same issues you yourself highlighted in your post.
That being said I don't want to be laser-focused on just the spontaneous installation of new software, but it is a major factor to compounds with other factors (graphics editing, games, etc. etc.) to just make Linux Desktop at the moment "not ready yet". I'm sad to say that this has been the state for many years now, and I'm just not sure if that will change any time soon.

[Mæstro]

self-contained? Hardly.

This is true when I reflect on it. Since reinstalling Mint in December, I have not bothered to replace any package beside Pale Moon, Flash and my VPN client unless available through the official repository, and all three programmes named had come in different ways, none of which I had yet named. Windows software is indeed much more uniform and easy to handle without a package manager: the problems with .NET libraries and compressed archives are trivial against this. (On another note, my system’s firewall had rotten away over its eight years running Windows 7, but Mint had needed a reinstall after two. Linux is mostly stable, but seems, from my limited anecdote, to spoil faster.)

I keep to Linux more for security in the ’twenties and to avoid flat design in the interface than anything else. If the aesthetic and privacy norms of twenty years ago revive, I would not mind reverting to Windows on another computer. Indeed, I hear that some Windows 10 users have already stripped all telemetry from the OS and bring the full Aero interface to it, meaning I should add laziness as a third ground for my OS choice.

the lack of (consistent) GUIs for a lot of things

Aye, this annoys me also: GNOME’s windows stand out and its thick bars and hamburger menus disturb my XP theming.

it's painfully slow because there's so much focus on "freedoms" that there is no convergence on a single workflow that in broad strokes works for everybody.

Agreed. I have always found the usual ideas of freedom in these discussions to root themselves in false premisses, which I could best describe as a faith in contemporary law and institutions which I do not share.

it is a major factor to compounds with other factors (graphics editing, games, etc. etc.)

I thank you for explaining. Marginal factors, the ‘etc. etc.’, interest me: I like hearing about reasons beside the ones always heard whenever the topic comes up.

[andyprough]

I'd absolutely love to see Linux Desktop succeed

It seems to succeed very well at being what it wants to be - the most popular self-installed non-Windows desktop OS while remaining the clear #1 choice for servers. I don't think you'll find any desktop distro devs that actually want to support billions of users and billions of desktop hardware combinations like Windows does. Got to respect Microsoft for doing what no one else is willing to do.

[Basilisk-Dev]

And speaking of graphics editing programs, please don't tell me GIMP is in any way sufficient for that group because it is not. And yet it's the default every distro and their uncle wants to push.

Agreed. Krita is a significantly more powerful open source image editing program that, at least for my personal use, has completely replaced PhotoShop. I have no idea why people still recommend GIMP and why Linux distros don't include Krita out of the box instead of GIMP.

[Night Wing]

Krita is a significantly more powerful open source image editing program that, at least for my personal use, has completely replaced PhotoShop. I have no idea why people still recommend GIMP and why Linux distros don't include Krita out of the box instead of GIMP.

I use a linux distro, Mint. I'm not a power user so I'm going to take a shot in the dark as to why linux distros install Gimp out of the box and not Krita.

When I looked at Krita from the link you provide, it seems to me Krita is a digital paint application program and Gimp is more aligned with a digital image manipulation program. If I'm halfway correct, then this is why I think Krita is not installed in linux out of the box.

[Falna]

it seems to me Krita is a digital paint application program and Gimp is more aligned with a digital image manipulation program.

I mostly use GIMP - I agree that it's good for quick image manipulations. On the rare occasions when I need to output CMYK separations for screen printing, then I generate them using Krita, normally from an image created in GIMP. Krita has a friendlier UI though, so had I not been using GIMP for years I might use Krita more.