Posted on 07/18/2025 1:35:20 PM PDT by fireman15
Choose wisely. Your PC could end up vulnerable to online threats otherwise.
This fall, Windows 10 will reach its end of life—at least, as defined by Microsoft. On October 14, the company ends feature updates to the operating system. Security and stability updates also become restricted—a potential liability, depending on the choices you make now.
To help users successfully navigate Windows 10’s extinction event, Adam Patrick Murray sat down with ethical hacker Mike Danseglio to talk options. The goal: To find the best option for your PC to stay current with security updates and patches, no matter the age of your hardware. AI tools have increased the speed and volume of online attacks, with vulnerabilities more easily discovered and exploited.
The duo frames the possibilities as a decision tree, with two main branches: PCs compatible with Windows 11, and those that aren’t. For systems ready for Windows 11, Mike simply recommends upgrading—and making the jump before the October sunset. I echo this advice, as doing it well before the deadline ensures your PC will keep receiving uninterrupted security patches.
(Not sure if your PC’s compatible? If it has an Intel 8th-gen or Ryzen 2000 chip, you’re probably fine. Windows Update—or a Microsoft nag screen—will tell you.)
If your Windows 10 computer is too old to upgrade to Windows 11, you can choose between five different potential paths—but only three are smart choices, according to Mike:
Do nothing Buy a new device Pay for updates Modify your Windows install Install another OS Doing nothing leaves you open to vulnerabilities in Windows 10, which attackers will unearth as time passes. Exploits could then allow hackers to run code on your PC, steal your data, or even potentially remotely render your hardware unusable.
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
I don't recall your prediction have been the case for prior versions of Windows in any meaningful way.
Help me out if I am wrong because I have never upgraded just because the version of Windows I was using reached EOL.
Thanks
bttt
Gamers-Outlet. I should mention that Gamers-Outlet always has 10% discount codes available that you can search for using Google or DuckDuckGo, so this “project” costs right around $21.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4325758/posts
Yes, after installing the Iot version on several more computers... I wanted to update my original set of directions.
I feel this is a worthwhile thing to do for older hardware that does not have Microsoft's official blessing. I use several flavors of Linux, and I have several computers with Windows 11 installed.
“”Sheesh””
DITTO! I hated the switch to Windows 10 - finally got used to it..It was installed right in front of my eyes when I was on my bank’s website and I couldn’t sign in without it - I did nothing - it just loaded and I was powerless to stop it.
Whatever happened was done through the bank as they had changed something - all GREEK to me. There may have been a way but I didn’t know what it was. If as mentioned here it’s true we’ll be safe until 2032, I’m not counting on being around then - end of the road...
Thank you! Bookmarking for my senior citizen PC’s (circa Win7).
I have W10Pro on one laptop, my folks keep using W7 and like it. One brother has W11 and is disgusted with it.
I keep W7 and XP around for a few ancient games I play once in a while.
Old computers are old and slow, so I figured to start fresh.
There is also linux os which I played with long ago. Works but need to spend time researching programs and settings.
BFLR
I use mostly various flavors of Linux with my home server projects and just for fun. I love Ubuntu Studio's KDE Plasmas environment and all of the extras that come pre-installed. My NAS runs on Debian. I use Ubuntu Server to with Apache2. If you are pretending that Linux can completely replace Windows or Apple... it is almost a joke. Most builds are fine for people like me who started out long before Windows or Macs even existed. But for someone who is not comfortable using a command line I know of no versions that are completely ready for prime time.
Your $21 option seems like a lot of trouble.
One can purchase security updates for $30/yr until one decides to buy a new PC, right?
Unless I missing something I could defer buying a new PC for 2 years and just pay $60 for the security updates, right?
My issue is that I use Linux at work as it is our mainframe. It’s just all command line. I’m used to writing scripts and cron jobs. My work experience on Windows is SAS, Office, VBScripts and MySQL.
I retired in Jan of 2024 and failed at it. I retire again at the end of the month, hopefully successfully.
Once the Win10 EOL date hits, I’ll be using my Linux PC for all web browsing and online account accessing. This is the most critical of my needs, and it’s the one area easily addressed by switching to Linux. Most of what I use on Win10 has install options for Linux. Some don’t, but there are suitable equivalents.
I few items will need to run on Win10, like the baseball sims I use (Diamond Mind, Action! PC, OOTP). I have several Office macros set up for Word and Excel that I need to make sure can run on the Linux equivalents.
I have numerous batch files that will need to be converted into shell files (the MAWK routines called from those batch files will transfer over nicely). It’s been a dozen years since I’ve written shell files for Unix (Sun Solaris OS).
The one application I will need to figure out is TurboTax. It won’t run on Linux, and I suspect they’ll do the same thing they did when Win7 was EOL’ed and prohibit its install on Win10.
Please don't spread this mindset. You are completely misinformed.
There are new 0-days, exploits, and malware popping up literally daily. Security patching is a lagging operation, playing whack-a-mole with new problems as they are discovered, tested, and patched. Threat actors are actively and regularly exploiting unpatched Windows 10 machines, and I promise that you have no idea it's happening. The grand majority of home user compromises happen within seconds and threat actors often have persistence in your home environment for weeks or months before you'll even notice, if ever.
If you think you're safe because you're savvy enough to spot a scammer on the phone or a malware pop up, you're not even halfway to safe. 83% of attack success by a threat actor is against unpatched machines.
Understand that they may not gain initial access via an unpatched endpoint. Your ISP's modem is often the initial access vector. Once they've established a beach head, they start probing your network for endpoints. It's very easy to determine operating systems running by simple, publicly-available scanning solutions such as NMAP.
Once they've found an OS that's no longer supported, it's trivially easy to breach them, because the exploits are known and unpatched. For more recent operating systems, they'll probe for open ports, and they'll start hammering on them with common attack vectors to see if any of them bear fruit. Once they find one, it's game over.
Saying that security updates for Windows 10 don't impact a typical home user is foolhardy. Just because you're sitting on a NATted machine behind your ISP doesn't make you safe. Just because you have three antivirus and antimalware solutions installed doesn't make you safe. (This actually makes you LESS safe, FWIW.)
Stop blaming the OS developers. They're deploying patches to keep you safe. You have to do it on your phone regularly. You have to patch MacOS and Linux regularly too. Why does everyone think Windows is some unique fish in this pond?
Bookmark
I have Windows 11 installations on external Windows To-Go NVME drives that I use with hardware that did not make the official cut. But there are various reasons why most the time it is better just to get new hardware if you want to run Windows 11.
My latest computer acquisition is a Ryzen bases Windows 100 mini-computer that I picked up on Amazon for $129. I did spend some money upgrading it a bit, but it works great in my home server lab. I have it quadruple booting 3 flavors of Linux along with Windows 11 Pro. I enjoy farting around with this stuff.
Running Windows 11 on unapproved hardware will likely work fine for many people until the computer is no longer worth upgrading or something major goes wrong with it. But I have one computer that made the list that does not have drivers that work well with Windows 11 even though it works fine with Windows 10. So, I downgraded and put a clean install Iot on it.
bfl
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