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 ...
OK... https://www.gamers-outlet.net/index.php?route=product/search
I have been dealing with this company for a long time.
Here is their Trustpilot ratings page.
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.gamers-outlet.net
Out of 37,431 reviews... most of them are overwhelmingly positive giving them an average of 4.6.
Can review sites be gamed? Obviously, but the other review sites have given them overwhelmingly positive ratings as well. I have no association with them at all other than purchasing licenses from them for years, all of them have worked. I always suspect any company which is selling license keys which I have mentioned in my comments.
I have also purchased license keys directly from software developers. I have spent a lot of money on some. On occasion the companies that I purchased them from went out of business or were sold to other entities. The keys and the software then quit working, and I had no recourse. I was just out of luck. So, I am very sensitive to paying for products that quite working after a period of time.
“For some reason, Win 10 won’t open some .jpg files that Win 7 will.”
Install Paintshop Pro 5 (1998 freeware program). It opens and edits most graphics formats and doesn’t require any registry entries so it can be copied from machine to machine. I have used it since Windows 95 on every version right up to Win 11 without any problems.
Bookmark.
” I still prefer Windows 10.”
One thing I like in 11 is the print screen button. Instead of grabbing the whole screen, it lets you designate the exact part of the screen you want. Then you can paste it in Paintshop Pro 5 for editing without having to start with a crop.
How you you go about doing the
“paying $30/yr for 2 years” option?
This pretty much eliminates the ability to migrate to Linux or the MAC. Most of this is not available at any price, that which is available is too expensive to repurchase.
Looks like for individual Windows 10 users it is $30 for year 1 but not sure if you extend it beyond one year.
Windows 10 for enterprises allow you to extend support for up to three years. Still checking this out.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended-security-updates
Thanks.
Please reply back if you come across any more information.
“
OK... https://www.gamers-outlet.net/index.php?route=product/search“
Search
There is no product that matches the search criteria.
/i You are of course eminently more qualified than I am to make the determination as to whether one should rush to do this upgrade. The primary goal is to preserve the usefulness of hardware that is out of date but still has an impressive and expensive to duplicate feature set.
I would note that there are approximately a billion devices running various forms of Windows 10, many with owners who have little to no awareness that their machines are about to become riskier to use when connected to the internet. Regardless of precedence with previous operating systems this is a situation created by Microsoft which they and hardware manufacturers hope to profit from.
I am not sure that the licenses being sold by third party providers are completely legit. But even if there is some form of skullduggery taking place... the supply is still likely to become restricted when larger numbers of people become more aware that a solution which can allow them to keep using their old hardware just as they have been without subscription fees exists.
I suspect that there is a good chance that this option will not be available much longer. The supply of these licenses could easily be cut off completely before October 14. Even if the supply of licenses remains stable, when the servers which provide Windows 10 updates to normal home and business users start to get shut down the solution that I advocate may not continue to work as efficiently or at all. Allowing this work-a-round to exist runs counter to Microsoft's long-term plans to switch to a subscription-based model. My feeling is that this technique could easily be a fleeting opportunity, and it is important to take advantage of it before it goes away
Bkmk
-PJ
“This will take you at least a couple of hours and maybe more...”
I’ve got your couple of hours right here mate! What do you have for 5 minutes?🤔
I will have to learn to use Apple products. I put up with Windows because you can see what you need to do, even though it may take the PC five minutes to start up Edge.
Edge starts instantaneously even in the computer I am using right now an eight-year-old HP Ryzen 2500u based laptop with 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD and a 2TB NVME. Your problem is not normal. It likely is from all of your RAM being used up and the computer using a swap file on a legacy hard drive. But there could be other easy to remedy problems as well.
This computer was lagging a bit before I “upgraded” to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC. It is possible that 21H2 which it is based on is slightly more efficient than 22H2 which is the latest version of Windows 10, but I think that it is likely that system corruption was to blame.
I would start with using your search bar or icon next to the Windows 10 icon on your taskbar and search for Command Prompt. Choose to run it as an administrator. Enter the following command into the command line: sfc /scannow
It will likely find a few errors and correct them. When this is done run another command: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
After this command has finished reboot your computer.
Then you should open up your task manager and seeing what is using your RAM and Processing power.
I should have mentioned that the first person who mentioned Windows 10 IoT Enterprise 2021 LTSC to me on Free Republic was “Still Thinking” in a thread that I posted in February.
Windows 10 has a year (8 months) left to live – but are users prepared to upgrade to Windows 11?
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4299866/posts?page=1
I am kind of the Chicken Little of Free Republic when it comes to Windows 10s End of Life event.
I also have hardware and software tools and packages that will not run on Windows 11. This is one of the primary reasons that I have become the Windows 10 End of Life Chicken Little on Free Republic.
Thanks. I’ll give it a shot. I CAN open those jpg files in an app that came with my system (Edge? MS? Windows? I have no idea), but I prefer to edit in Picture Manager that’s part of MS Office Suite 2003.
Thank you again!
I think that replacing your motherboard, processor, GPU, memory and hard drives would be an excellent option for your computer. Or you could just buy another one and use the old one for some other purpose.
You do have the option of using the Windows 10 Consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program. This costs $30 and lasts for a year. For businesses I believe that this can be extended for up to two years.
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