Posted on 02/23/2025 9:59:57 AM PST by fireman15
It’s official: after 10 years of noble service, Windows 10 will reach its end on October 14, 2025, and what a great decade it’s been. For many users, Microsoft redeemed itself after a run of disappointing operating systems – the mere mention of Windows 8 still sends some people into a rage – but Windows 10 got it right.
That’s why the announcement of Windows 11 came as a shock. It felt too soon, too rushed – and unnecessary. Many believed that Windows 10 deserved more time to marinate. At least until it finally managed to migrate the whole Control Panel to Settings.
Jokes aside, Windows 10 made its mark with its support of legacy software, flexibility and its introduction of enhanced cloud integration in the form of OneDrive, which made accessing your files from any internet-connected PC a breeze. Its regular security updates and long-term servicing channels (LTSC) made it especially popular with businesses. (If you want to see the good stuff you will have to follow the link above.)
(Excerpt) Read more at techradar.com ...
Not all of the “improvements” made to photoshop over the years have been good. They took away one of my favorite adjustments long ago... Image > Adjustments > Variations. It was one of my favorites for years. We received some good replacements for it, but I never understood why it was dropped.
Just get LTSC IoT. Good till 2032.
Just get LTSC IoT. Good till 2032.
I didn’t know about that adjustment, but I di9dht like how they changed the way that the crop tool worked in ps6 so I went back to 5. Never did upgrade beczuss of it.
Yup- they can’t, e as very well enouhg alone- they get so ethical g that wkr,s really well, and then go and change it to something that doesn’t work near as well, a d is more inconvenient to use- that was why I didn’t upgrade to a couple of new versions of some softwaresx.
As you are well aware there are a lot of complications involved with this, but it is an option for savvy people with special needs. After support for Windows 10 is discontinued applications, programs, hardware and drivers will stop being updated by the companies producing them. We have been through this with previous versions of Windows... it has just been so long that it is not fresh in most of our memories.
The better solution for most people with “unsupported” hardware will likely be to use a stripped-down version of Windows 11 by bypassing the requirements phase of the installation. This was never difficult, but these days it is as easy as making an installation USB drive with RUFUS and checking the appropriate boxes...
If you log into your windows account and add/register your computer (it probably already is) then when you update even "unsupported hardware" to windows 11 it will license it when you log back into your Microsoft account. At least this has been my experience. Another way to do this if you don't want to mess up your current Windows 10 installation and your computer has USB3 ports is to create a Windows 11 to go disk. Just purchase an NVME drive and external enclosure... download the Windows 11 DVD ISO using Create Windows 11 Media Installation from Microsoft. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 Then use RUFUS to make your Windows 11 to go disk. Then log into your Microsoft Account after you have booted from your Windows to go disk.
Joke’s on them, I use Nobara Linux.
I just finished updating Ubuntu 22.04 to 24.04 on a couple of my computers today. It was a major PIA. Switching from one OS to another is like changing lanes on the freeway during a peak commuting time. Pretty much whatever you do does not really help. I use different setups for various situations and hardware. I don’t really consider one better than another... they all have their own purposes, advantages and disadvantages. I appreciate all of them and the effort that went into them.
I am “typing” this out on a “Windows 11 Pro To Go” installation that I use when I want to use Android Apps on a PC... The Android E-book apps and some others are a real pleasure to use on a PC. Windows 11’s subsystem for Android is superior in many ways to emulators which do basically the same thing.
Normally I use Windows 10 Pro on this computer because I have hardware and software that works better with Windows 10 drivers and I am just more familiar with it. My Windows 11 installation is much leaner so it boots up in a fraction of the time.
I tried that once several years back, didn’t really like it. But, maybe I can try it again.
I don’t really like vm’s either, but if I didnt duslboot, (actuslly triple boot), I would use Linux as main os and windows vm for any windows only programs I needed to run if they could run without a gpu. Ie potoshop doesn’t such hot without gpu for certain things. So I dual boot
I dual boot my laptop; W7 & Linux, and tri boot my PCs; W7, W10 and Linux.
I 5nink that is about the best way- I just wish there were a way to have them both running simultaneously so I didn’t have to reboot when switching os”s
I hear ya. Having to switch O/S’s is a pain, but a necessary evil. Hopefully more products for Linux will come available making switching back and forth occur less often.
That's probably going back into the mid 80's.....
There can be a huge number of reasons for that. If your computer has USB 3 ports you might try purchasing an inexpensive NVMe SSD (256GB are about $30) and an external enclosure which are about $15.
Then download a Windows 11 ISO directly from Microsoft
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
Then Download and use the portable version of RUFUS
https://rufus.ie/en/
Run RUFUS and select the Windows 11 ISO file you just downloaded. Then under Image Options choose Windows To Go. There are some check boxes that you can select and you should probably just select them all for the greatest compatibility and least amount of trouble.
This will put a clean and fresh install of the Windows operating system on your new NVME SSD. To use it you will have to go into your computers “BIOS” and enable booting up from USB. On most of my computers you just start hitting the escape key when you first power on the computer. Many manufacturers make you jump through other hoops so it may be easier to just type “Advanced Startup” in your Windows search box to get to your BIOS or actually UEFI to do this.
It will take a bit of time for Windows 11 to set itself up. After you do that the most time-consuming task left is typing “Windows Update” into your Windows search bar and taking all of the updates.
This will let you know what your computer is capable of with a clean install. Chances are your slow system has something to do with malware, or who knows what installed on your computer or some other type of misconfiguration. It will also give you a good way to get into your computer if your normal hard drive or system gets corrupted or stops working. You can also use this Windows To Go Drive on other computers, but it takes extra time to reconfigure itself when you use it on different computers. My clean Windows To Go disks typically take under a minute to boot up after they are connected to the same computer that you last used it on.
Well, the majority of my installs are actually on embedded systems with static hardware so diminishing compatibility is not much of an issue. I’m also using LTSC IoT as my daily driver on my personal laptop, but if/when software stops working with it, then I’ll deal with it.
Don’t get me wrong... I think it is great that you have found a solution that is likely going to work for you for quite a while.
We have a laptop that kept giving us nags to update it to 11. When we did the video drivers gave us problems along with an ANT+ type bluetooth driver that we use to connect it to a computer-controlled bicycle trainer. I could not get it to run without crashing with a bluescreen error every half hour or so. I reverted it back to a clean install of Windows 10 and it has never run so well.
Did you purchase your LTSC from an online source or do you have some other type of connection?
Sorry typo...
Did you purchase your LTSC IoT license key from an online source that you can recommend?
I can say this machine (Dell XPS) is the slowest, BY FAR THE SLOWEST, computer I’ve ever owned in my life. :(
Oh, I forgot to mention one more step that might be necessary to activate your Windows To Go license. Log into the Microsoft account that you normally use. I have at least half a dozen Windows 10 Pro licenses, a couple Windows 11 Pro licenses, and who knows how many Windows Home licenses. I am not sure which one if any are being used. I have never actually added Windows To Go device to the account, but after I log into my account the Windows To Go drive has always showed that the license is active... I really do not know why for sure. I keep meaning to run ShowKey Plus which is available in the Microsoft Store... but I always seem to forget. That would probably put an end to the mystery.
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