Posted on 10/31/2024 6:20:04 PM PDT by dayglored
Microsoft has thrown a lifeline to Windows 10 users ahead of the OS going end-of-life, by offering an extra year of patches for $30.
Support for Windows 10 ends in October 2025 and Redmond is pushing people to upgrade to Windows 11, with mixed success to date – as of last month, Windows 10 had 62.75 percent of Redmond's OS market share, compared to 33.42 percent for the newer version ago.
Perhaps that’s why the software behemoth has decided to offer Extended Security Updates - previously only available for business, education, and government users - to anyone who wants them.
"For the first time ever, we’re introducing an ESU program for personal use as well," wrote Yusuf Mehdi, consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft. "The ESU program for consumers will be a one-year option available for $30. Program enrollment will be available closer to the end of support in 2025."
This will be a boon to those who don't care to upgrade or who can't because their PCs aren’t capable of running Windows 11.
Enterprise users can pay $61 per device for an extra year of support, but that doubles the next year to $122, and again to $244 in year three. Users in the education sector have it much easier - they pay $1 per license for the first year, then $2, and then $4 per Windows 10 machine.
Windows 11 is one of Microsoft's most poorly performing operating systems, in part due to the powerful hardware it requires. Chipmakers and PC players expect the need for upgrades to bring a payday, but that hasn't happened yet.
Part of the problem, as The Register readers have noted on our forums, is that Windows 11 isn’t a significant improvement over its predecessor. While Redmond repeatedly touts the benefits of Copilot and AI, it doesn't seem to be an incentive for many people to rip and replace their hardware to take care of it.
Microsoft also risks driving users to non-Windows machines. With Apple's market share steadily growing in the US - and the iPhone's popularity - many may consider making the switch.
Or perhaps 2025 will be the year of Linux on the desktop. ®
===============
Note: My prior attempt to post this thread threw an error that caused there to be no initial "Comment" and no way to reply. Hopefully this one will work.
do you run 7 online? If so, what do you do about it’s supposed vulnerabilities because it can’t be updated?
I have dual boot with linux as main os, and windows 7 which i keep offline, and use for photoshop, and several older programs
I took my copy of Windows 98SE and peeled the MS-DOS 7.1 from it. Makes a dandy VM (virtual machine) under VMware or VirtualBox. Runs faster than you can imagine.
The advantage of 7.1 over 6.x is the support for the FAT32 filesystem so you can have more and bigger files, long filenames, larger disk volumes, and compatibility with Win95 and later if that's a factor in your use case.
The only tricky part is that since Microsoft didn't release MS-DOS 7 as a standalone product, you have to get Win98 and ignore the Windows part. Fortunately, I had copies of Win98 anyway, so no extra cost for DOS.
“””””other than the pointless change of moving of the start button to the center vs. it always having been in the left corner since Windows 95 is the only main difference I’ve seen. “””””
To change that click the Start menu icon, then go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar Behavior > click the drop-down menu on the Taskbar Alignment, and choose left.
You are correct that Win7 is not suitable for internet browsing or other online activities. It's wildly insecure. However, it runs some old software just fine, offline.
User beware though, if you plan on dual booting your PC like I will, newer versions of Linux (22 and newer) tend to wipe out the boot sector for Windows and as a result, it'll only boot to Linux. I should know, I found out the hard way. So when I reinstall Linux it'll be Mint v21.
Let me make a suggestion. If your computer has a decent multi-core CPU, and sufficient memory (RAM), rather than dual booting, consider getting VirtualBox (free) and running one of the operating systems as a virtual machine within the other.
You can do it either way (Windows on the metal and Linux in a VM, or Linux on the metal and Windows in a VM). I prefer the latter, because then backing up the Windows OS is trivial, just copy the VM file to some other drive.
The main advantage of VM'ing over dual booting is that both operating systems are running simultaneously, so programs in each OS can run side-by-side, and you can transfer files and clipboard content between them seamlessly. The main disadvantage is that the CPU and RAM are shared, so if your computer is resource-poor, you're better off with the dual boot so that each OS gets all the resources, just one OS at a time.
I can’t stand Windows 11.
Windows 11 is not that much different from windows 10. They shift things to the center and reformat some choices but it isn’t really very different. I don’t think it’s a big deal to upgrade but they keep telling me my computer is not good enough. If they want people to upgrade they should make it compatible with existing hardware.
I feel your pain. :-)
I have a longstanding love/hate relationship with Windows. I run Windows, Linux, and MacOS side-by-side every day, seamlessly, for the work I do. But Windows is in one respect a special case.
I really like the classic Windows desktop, as developed in Win2000 and perfected in Win7. (After that the Windows desktop turned into a pile of poo.) I like the Win7 desktop better than the MacOS or Linux desktops by far.
But the rest of Windows drives me batty at times, whereas I'm more productive in MacOS and MUCH more productive in Linux.
So my ideal computer would be Linux with the Win7 desktop. Alas, it is not to be -- the Linux folks seem to want to copy the Mac desktop instead. So on my Linux machines I use the "FlashBack/MetaCity" Gnome extensions to give me a close-enough approximation of a Win7 desktop.
As for Win11, it's a travesty. I will retire within a few years, and I hope to never have to deal with it directly, other than to help my users who are forced to use it once Win10 goes EOL.
I agree. Granted, there comes a point where very old hardware simply cannot do the things required by a new OS release. That's true of all operating systems, and all hardware, eventually.
But with the Win10->Win11 upgrade, Microsoft tilted the balance arbitrarily far and I think that was a mistake. A lot of former Windows users and businesses have switched to MacOS or Linux, or are planning to, rather than buy all new Win11-compatible hardware.
My 12 year old Dell PC upstairs is Windows 7 . Can’t kill that computer . Main PC downstairs is a Lenovo with Windows 10 . Has a couple of relatively minor Windows issues that someone who is even moderately tech savvy could rectify but I live with . NO way I’ll ever upgrade to 11 . If the Dell dies tomorrow I’ll have no choice , unfortunately .
A lot of people can’t afford to throw away a one to two thousand dollar computer just because Microsoft decided to not allow their computer to run windows 11. And it has absolutely nothing to do with processing power. Only if the CPU has some stupid new feature in it.
And the last GEN 7 CPU’s even have the feature they require and yet they won’t allow those to install windows 11 either. Since they arbitrarily set the minimum requirement to GEN 8.
I guess there are ways to force an install but those that do can not get any security updates.
Yup. Windows 3.11
Better than windows 11 with absolutely no privacy .
It reports back keystrokes and all to MS
I wonder if exFAT would work with it..
I DO own legit Win 10 & Win 11 (which I only use either if I have to, otherwise Linux).
(BTW, I bought both for about $30 each through Kinguin; also bought MS Office 2021 (the last one that you can keep without having to “rent” it) for $29 at Kinguin. Totally legal.)
But, I use some tools to get all of the bad stuff out of the installation ‘disk’ and remake the install ISO.
Have even been able to eliminate Edge (which is not recommended), and the telemetry (call home).
So, the install ends up being bare bones with whatever drivers and dlls I need for whatever application/program/game I have to run in WinBlows. (90% of everything DOES work on Linux though. I’ve even been able to install Photoshop (which I prefer over GiMP) & MS Office, which I prefer over LibreOffice or OpenOffice.)
dayglored, I remember messing with windows 1 -> 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 3.11...
I would last a week, or so, then go back to DOS, lol.
After 3 or 4 months, would try Windows again, then go back to DOS.
The only thing I really didn’t like about DOS, at the time, was having to figure out which MEM floppy to boot with (depending on what I was going to use it for).
Hmm, this also reminded me of my third computer..
Epson 80286 (clone).. my first one with an actual HDD. A MASSIVE 12 MB, and an MS 2 button mouse that was $80.
If I remember right, it had both a 3 1/2 and a 5 1/2 floppy drive, lol. That was when 3 1/4 was new.
How do you keep W7 secure on the Internet? Which Internet Security and browsers do you use?
Windows 7 wasn’t bug free by a long shot.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.