Posted on 06/27/2025 9:33:59 PM PDT by fireman15
No Copilot, no ads, no bloat, no AI — and seven extra years of official support. It sounds too good to be true, but there's a reason most haven't heard of it.
Microsoft won't advertise it, and you're highly unlikely to stumble across it by accident, but there's a version of Windows 10 that drops the ads, the AI, and will be officially supported for years to come — long after most are forced to upgrade to Windows 11.
For those unaware, Windows 10 is due to be retired by Microsoft on October 14, 2025. Beyond this date, the operating system will lose access to any technical support, future feature drops, and vital security updates.
While your computer will run as normal, and you don't actually need to leave Windows 10 behind, any potential system vulnerabilities discovered after the end-of-support date will remain exploitable forevermore. It'll be open season on your data, hardware, and privacy, and your copy of Windows will be about as secure as a piñata at a party packed with sugar-lusting Little Leaguers.
Microsoft's ideal solution is for Windows 10 users to upgrade to Windows 11. Those whose devices don't meet the operating system's minimum specs can alternatively opt into the company's Extended Security Updates (ESU) program, which offers regular consumers an extra year of security updates for $30.
((Paragraphs cut to make the body of thread short enough.))
It's the version of Windows 10 Microsoft never wanted you to use, and, even though it's entirely capable, it was never designed to run your laptop or desktop machine. Still, that doesn't mean you can't do it anyway.
(Excerpt) Read more at laptopmag.com ...
Noted & thanks! Now just have to find time to dive in to it!
I didn’t mention that Windows 10 Pro or Windows 11 Pro Licenses are very inexpensive. The “OEM” versions are typically around $5 and the “Retail” versions which I almost always buy are usually less than $10. I am now pleased that I did this because several of the 7 “upgrades” that I have now completed had Retail licenses which means that I can now transfer them to new hardware or virtual machines.
I am constantly rejiggering things in my home network so for me being able to transfer licenses to different machines is a good thing. Windows 10 Pro licenses can be used to upgrade Windows 11 machines. In this way they more versatile which you might expect would make them more valuable, but they are typically a few dollars cheaper.
After now completing 7 installations I have a couple more suggestions if you go this route...
Run the following 2 commands before you image your disk. And then run them again after you install Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC
1. **System File Checker (SFC)**:
- In Command Prompt (Admin), run `sfc /scannow`. This checks for corrupted system files and repairs them.
2. **DISM Tool**:
- Run `DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth` in Command Prompt (Admin) to repair the Windows system image.
Second, I noticed that the release ID in the registry “hack” should be 2009 and not 2H21 as I and the person in the video have told people.
Running Regedit as an administrator navigate to...
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion
now change to the values to the new ones listed below by double clicking on the Key Names:
Key Name = New Value
CompositionEditionID = IoTEnterpriseS
CurrentBuild =19044
CurrentBuildNumber = 19044
DisplayVersion = 21H2
EditionID = IoTEnterpriseS
ProductName = Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021
ReleaseId = 2009
This error actually does not matter because it gets corrected by itself either during the installation process or by running the two commands in the Command Line that I mentioned above.
After your system is up and running and you have checked for corruption with the commands mentioned above you should then type windows update into the search box or icon nest to your Windows button. There will be 4 more updates that will not take all that long... After that your system will be completely updated.
As soon as you are sure everything is working right run Microsoft’s included Disk Cleanup to get back around 30GBs of hard drive space. In my case this actually made the new installation take up less space than the original. This also illustrates the reason doing the installation this way takes so long...
People who wait until after Microsoft shuts down the servers that it currently has up and running, will have a more difficult and time consuming trying to find all of the updates that we are currently getting installed automatically.
Will this work on the Windows Home version?
Will this work on the Windows Home version?
Yes, that makes no difference. But while you currently can get an OEM license key for about $5 to upgrade Home to Pro The Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC license key costs about $23 minus the 10% discount codes that are always available if you do a Google search.
I should remind you that basically all the sellers of Microsoft license keys on the internet are grey market meaning that no one really seems to know where they come from. The place that I have purchased from the most over the last several years is Gamers Outlet, they also provide an often hard to find link to the appropriate ISO file that actually contains the OS.
The file is
en-us_windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_257ad90f.iso
that you should be using is:
en-us_windows_10_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2021_x64_dvd_257ad90f.iso
Size: 4.518 GB (4851668992 bytes)
The hashes that verify that you have the original unadulterated Microsoft version are listed below. Just type hash checker in the search in the Microsoft Store and pick one that a lot of others use.
CRC-32: 188c9d0d
MD5: 2463b19beac328290e6a8adcedb7533a
SHA-1: 76c3c10e38307d29fd8b4748522ed144dba35829
SHA-256: a0334f31ea7a3e6932b9ad7206608248f0bd40698bfb8fc65f14fc5e4976c160
SHA-512: 640942d93daf8cd183d06e35d5d753a4b93c952c3196c3e3fa7876295b39d8bfef5df8ef2a3b420b5247905fe396606f94ccf093982ee999e503d09e69850143
SHA3-256: 33bacaa70b78abcf4969fa0f6219a5cad7dd4d49c9b975ddadc8b15658d17d48
SHA3-512: 03e3a8e34a79363235aaf91333cb3afa4927feb0b1f1cf212e6cf4a70c54cbe7ab367fafb6143e6057dac00e407c1b661cb0e2511f7eadb4562c49d0ee606a4e
Sorry for the cut and paste error with the file name.
Oh no worries, glad I could help!
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.