Microsoft is trying to convince Windows 10 users to upgrade with full-screen prompts

I have never received one of these screens with this One Neat Trick:

I disabled the TPM in UEFI settings.

Beautiful.

Aww your poor wittle pc is unhealthy! It just needs some rest and some fluids.
It's cool while it works. But these options are not going to be provided forever in newer hardware. Recent example I saw is the absense of AHCI option in new laptops (you now need additional drivers just to reinstall Windows manually). We need to keep developing software solutions to software problems.
This is the fucking way
In the 90s this was hacker shit. You'd do this shit to, like, break into the pentagon or something.

Fucking cringe cyberpunk; everybody's a hacker, because theres no other way to see your fucking calendar.
Aren't you using the TPM for full disk encryption, though? Or are you entering your BitLocker Password at every boot?
- I use full-disk encryption on my Debian, and I honestly don't see what's wrong with entering your passphrase on boot.
- also windows 10 requires tpm for passkeys
Is it not disgraceful that you have to use a trick so some third party company doesn't install software you don't want on your hardware? I think that's appalling!
Aren't these screens from the article specifically for unsupported devices, like those without TPM?
Oh it looks like your PC is not supported because you turned off single option in UEFI. Go to this link and buy your new Windows 11 PC today!
Sounds like a good idea to disable a security feature to not be reminded of the EOL of the software you’re using /s

I'm not a marketing person but maybe they should try making an OS people actually want.

They do this every 4-5 years. Nobody is ever bothered enough to cause a problem for Microsoft's bottom line.
- I don't remember anyone being excited for a version of Windows since 7. 8 and 8.1 were universally hated, a lot of people clung to 7 until they absolutely had to upgrade to 10, and now they're clinging to 10 as long as they can. I seriously doubt there's an upcoming release of Windows people will genuinely like and want, because there's no money in doing that.
- We need to wait for the next version, 12 or wherever. Every other Windows version is “good”
They do. It's called Windows 10 LTSC.
Why would they do that when people use this one all the same?

Got to say they convinced me at last and I finally upgraded.
...to linux

Never.Going.Back.

Yep. The other day it rewrote a registry key that prevented these pop ups. I'm out. Debating which Debian distro to go to now.
- Debian is the slow reliable. Go with mint for easy, Debian for completely foss, pop! OS for eaay nvidia drivers, or Ubuntu for.... Uh.... Ubuntu.
- I tried a few, Fedora, LMDE(Linux Mint Debian Edition), and EndeavourOS.
  
  I'd say LMDE if you want a rock solid system, being fundamentally Debian Stable with Mint treatment for user friendliness, or Endeavour if you want bleeding edge updates (and of course bragging rights to join the meme by saying "BTW I use arch")
- Debian 12 itself isn't bad
- The other day it rewrote a registry key that prevented these pop ups.
  
  This is what drove me away. There are like 7 people that figured out how to make these pop-ups disappear and Microsoft invested money to "patch" that "error" to ensure they were forced to continue seeing these ads.
I like mint. Everyone says it beginner friendly, like in a bad way, but stuff just working sounds good to me.
- Yea I installed it for my wife and she never has to second guess anything, she knows where to find what she's looking for and whatever it is, it just works. It's weird that this feels almost off, right ? stuff "just working"
I have to give huge thank you to Valve for making gaming on Linux actually a valid option. I've been mainly a Linux user since 2006 but always had to have a dual-boot setup for gaming. Seeing the progress on Proton, I decided a year or two ago that Windows 10 was going to be the last one I'll have on my PC and since my SSD died a couple of months ago, I didn't even bother to preserve the Win10 installation anymore.

Funnily enough on my front page, the next link below this post was "Microsoft starts testing ads in the Windows 11 Start Menu". I think that pretty much sums it up why I don't want to even try to mess with the thing anymore. It's been a good run and Windows has improved A LOT since XP days but oh dear god all the data harvesting nowadays...

If only they didn't intentionally give up compatibility with 250 million PCs by introducing artificial CPU requirements, then adoption rate would be higher...

But blackrock and vanguard (they control ~15% of Microsoft, Intel, AMD) really needed to increase their profits by selling more CPUs...

Also it didn't help that until October 2023 the taskbar was completely broken and unusable, people like me forbid the installation of the os in the company for that reason alone

the taskbar still broken and unusable.
icons straight up disappear when you switch virtual desktops using the touchpad, tray icons sometimes don't show up, messing with some things can cause an explorer crash
- On my end, the icons disappearing happens sometimes when switching with the keyboard. Also, I happen to use full labels on the taskbar items (like on 95 to vista) and they're all sorts of broken, especially when changing virtual desktops.
  
  Also, despite having quite beefy hardware (Ryzen 9 + 4090), I can't use an image as wallpaper (only a solid colour) otherwise changing virtual desktops has like a inexplicable 1 second lag after pressing the shortcut keys.
  
  This is the kinda shit people would give up on Linux for.
This is what finally pushed me fully over the edge to Linux on my main PC. Nothing wrong with it but they just don't like it.
I don't mind upgrading but windows won't allow me... MacOS looks not bad. Or linux
What do you mean by the taskbar being unusable? I used it on my windows 11 laptop way before october 2023.
- Combined icons make the computer unusable for who has multiple windows open from the same application.
  
  For example if you constantly have to switch between 5 excel files you can't directly click on which you need
  
  It's the reason I can't stand MacOS at all
- You still can't make it narrow or move it to the sides of the screen either. It sucks at work at 1080p because the taskbar takes up half the screen it's so massive.
Uhh, Vanguard and Blackrock are ETF providers, those stocks are assets under management

They don't "control" anything about those companies.
Yeah, maybe a few delusional shit heads making insane decisions for absurd reasons completely insulated from reality by a thousand layers of abstraction isnt good and we should just count anything run this way as already dead?
Lin...UX?!

“We tried asking. We tried begging. We tried bullying. We even tried tricking people into upgrading. We tried everything short of actually making a usable OS!”

I understand how it is possible for an OS to interrupt one's use of one's own computer to beg for money or to install spyware. I don't understand how such an OS would still have users.
- If I didn't have to use it for work, and if Ableton Live made a Linux version, I'd never use Windows again. Every single activity is interrupted by messages that are effectively adverts for things you're not interested in. The Start menu still doesn't work after 29 years of development. Searching for a file is ridiculously slow and doesn't find the file. Everything else is also slow, all the time. I have given up trying to arrange my desktop icons because they always go back to the same position they've been stuck in for months. All the applications hang, and the whole system has frequent unresponsive moments where God knows what it's doing but it's nothing I asked for. I dual boot into Linux and it feels like an oasis of peace.
"Please people, please... just give us your money. We might leave you alone after that. For a while."
Surely more AI will fix it!

Are they spamming people with this on computers they know don’t meet system requirements?

You better believe they are. I get it about every other month, and my laptop doesn't meet those requirements.
I turned off secure boot and didn't get any popups for windows 11 ever
- You might at some point, you don’t actually need secure boot turned on for Windows 11 your PC just needs to be capable of secure boot and use UEFI mode rather than legacy boot
Did you read the article? The popup warns users about it, yes. It's a good thing to let them know there won't be more security updates for their OS.
- And 90% of home windows user don't give a damn.
- I can see your point. Warning the user once is probably enough.

Can Microsoft be any more annoying?

I had to laugh when I searched for "Vivaldi" in Edge on a new installation and Bing said "There's no reason to switch to a new browser!"

There are tons of reasons. Their insistence that there are no reasons is a good example of a reason.
How about when you have to update your machine and it goes through the "setup" which is just disguised ads for services like microsoft 365? That's pretty annoying.

Microsoft has 18 months to convince folks to upgrade.

They'll be lucky if I boot my Windows 10 partition between now and 18 months.

I almost did the other day. But then I found out that someone made a Flatpak of MakeMKV, so I didn't need to.

They have been doing this for at least a year now. They have one that tries to trick you into thinking that it was already updated and you have to finish setting it up. It takes several clicks on tiny hidden buttons to escape it. There's no option to tell it to fuck off forever. They'll pester you again a couple weeks later.

dark design or fraud design should be fineable.
- Dark patterns were outlawed years ago, but the FTC has to enforce it. My guess is that Microsoft either designed it in such a way that it barely meets the requirements, or they figured it won't matter because even if they get caught, the fine will be less than their savings/profit.

I see Linux in my future, as I just don't have the cash for a new rig.

I have to be careful though, as it's my family PC, and the rest of my family aren't going to tolerate much of a learning curve. It really needs to just work out of the box.

Considering Zorin OS. Hopefully I can get it on my SSD next to Windows so I can dual-boot for a while to test the water...

You'd be better off installing Linux on another drive if you're going to dual boot. Windows loves to mess with the EFI boot partition which ends up borking the Linux bootloader.

If your family does more than just browse the web, there's definitely going to be a bit of a learning curve, it's possible though. I converted my 73 year old father to Linux after he used Windows for 25 years.
- If you install the Linux bootloader on a separate partition from the Windows bootloader, then it's trivial to repair it, but that might be a bit advanced for a basic user.
- Ah really? I could put it on the hard drive, but the whole point of the SSD was for it to take the OS... Will have to think on that.
  
  They generally don't do more than browse the web so I'm not anticipating any major issues. I used to game on it, but it's so old now I've stopped using it for games.
  
  Maybe I'll put it on a usb for a while instead of dual booting.
- I have been wanting to make the switch to Linux myself, and have done a bit of research on which to try for a beginner coming from windows. However the dual boot dangers are worrying me a bit, I dont want to nuke my windows installation just yet and only test the waters.
  
  I have an SSD with windows on it and another with most of my programs and files. Could I partition the latter for a Linux installation or would I risk windows messing with it anyway?
Go with Pop! Pop! Is a great OS and has pretty much everything working right out of the box. Go with Gnome so that people understand they need to do things slightly different rather than trying to use a Linux machine like a Windows machine. Plus Gnome is just awesome. Hit the windows key, type the first couple letters of the program you want to open, hit enter, done! The Pop shop has almost everything an average user would need, so you can install things with the click of a button without having to search the Internet, and updates are a hands off affair.

Edit: since you're not a Linux user I'll clarify Gnome. Gnome is a desktop environment, and Pop is the actual operating system. In Linux you can change how your computer interface looks and works by choosing different desktop environments(DE). A variation of Gnome is the default DE for Pop, and it works great. KDE would be the DE most similar to Windows, but it has enough differences that it can frustrate Windows users. Gnome is completely different, so they'll take the time to figure something out rather than just getting frustrated that it's different. Besides, the learning curve on Gnome is basically zero. Just use the Windows key and start typing. It's literally that simple.
- I’ll counter that when I tried gnome it was so far it was frustrating while KDE took some adjustment but it worked like a de was supposed to work in my brain. And gnome wasn’t as easily customizable as kde
Go with Mint rather than Zorin.
I use Linux Mint on a bunch of my machines

In general it's pretty painless

I still have a Windows machine but I'm hoping to fix that soon

I took the free upgrade. Then after a bit I updated my bios and it killed my license. Microsoft wouldn't fix it and said I changed my hardware so there was nothing they could do. Still pissed off about that.

Wow that’s fucking annoying Jesus
There's a mass grave way to get a new digital license from Microsoft 😉

Btw when I changed my motherboard and Windows deactivated, I called them and told them "it broke, then I replaced only the motherboard" (actually was an hardware upgrade) and they give the the phone activation codes. But that was during the Win7 era
That’s crazy. Not a Microsoft fanboy, but I’ve had issues like that after an actual board swap and they still have made it right (and technically they were in the right to disallow it), and they’ve fixed issues with transferring around my retail license that I’ve had since like Windows 7 because by now it’s been activated a bunch of times. Enshittification.
https://massgrave.dev

They could convince me to update by making windows 11 not suck.

By reworking windows 7 to work with new hardware
- God I'd cry if I could get windows 7 supported again
Every pop up just convinced me to switch to Linux lol
- Same. My next build will be Linux. Just distro shopping right now.

I'm used to hearing about how a lot of people are put off of Lemmy because of all the "Linux" people on it, "people pushing Linux", "elitists", etc.

And yet I see something like this and think "are we not supposed to give good advice?".

If is the kind of thing you want for your computing then go for it.

I think it's mostly that it comes across more like religious proselytizing than "good advice".

Also, that "advice" is mixed in with just as much messaging about how fussy it can be and implications that you've got to basically be an enthusiast level user to make it work for you. Not that it necessarily is that way, but overall that's the messaging I see from this community.

As someone who tried Linux many years ago, disliked it, and went back to Windows, generally my take is that Windows is far from perfect, but it's the best option for me, and I'm happy to try and ignore the Lemmy buzz around it...but that buzz just gets more and more annoying over time.
- On self-reflection I'll admit that there's a bias experienced by people, like me, who live in the Linux bubble, surrounded by people who are happy Linux users, to overestimate the eagerness of other people to be on board. It's also easy to forget when you're on a general Technology community like this one, where a lot of people are talking about Linux, that it's not everyone is a Linux person.
  
  In fact I don't even really detect much of a "Lemmy buzz" around it mainly because I participated in Linux-y parts of Reddit, and other places, before now. If anything from my point of view there seems to be more resistance to it on Lemmy.
  
  It could be that having used it for nearly 20 years I've lost my ability to fathom why it would be difficult. But that said, both my parents use Linux and are non-technical users - they were fed up with windows crap like in OP so they asked me to set it up for them and it's been 5 years now trouble free. So even if you do need to be an enthusiast-level user to make it work, you only have to know one. What I still stand by is that it's good advice for most users.
- Take it on good faith that I won't bible beat you. I'm genuinely curious. What are things about windows that are 'far from perfect' as you put it? What would you do to change them, and if you could wave a magic wand and change whatever you want, what would you change?
It's unsolicited advice.

It would be like you posting about a minor annoyance with Minecraft, and then having multiple people tell you to ditch it and play Minetest instead.
- I don't know anything about Minecraft but if Minetest is an appropriate replacement without that minor annoyance I would suggest that's solicited advice.
- That's not an apt comparison

I see they're getting desperate. One year and half to eol, and still, according to statcounter, 69% of the world uses windows 10.

I would have upgraded if they didn't include the UI changes. I don't know why Microsoft keeps trying to make these big UI changes given that they have a built-in audience of power users that have optimized since XP.
- I think it's a way to justify the update. It's probably really about telemetry and hardware control, but normies see the centered taskbar and subconciously go "this must be new technology"
...nice

My computer doesn't meet the requirements so I guess I'll just not.

Yeah new cpu and mobo is way down my list of important expenditures right now.

I think now that I’ve moved most of my photo editing to my Mac and steam has propelled gaming on Linux into ‘very reasonable’ territory, it might be time to actually just ditch the ol’ windows. Only issue is I have an nvidia gpu atm unforch.

I’ve fully moved to Linux with a 3080ti. Only non functional feature is HDR but that’s mostly a Linux issue

I went with PopOs and have had a pretty smooth experience
- vrr and tpm passkeys are also missing which is a bummer since i recently started using both and already used to them
Only issue is I have an nvidia gpu atm unforch.

Not an issue, been gaming with a 2080ti and 4090 for a while now, just works for me, including in VR on "Windows only" games.
- Edit : link to a (strange) thread with a bit more detail https://lemmy.ml/comment/10195095 but the TL;DR being that NVIDIA drivers do work and ProtonDB literally "changed the game" during those very last years.

At least in the EU until now no such PopUps, but it's hilarious, that I can't update to W11 in a 3 years old Laptop, at least not without cheats, only because my Graphic Card, AMD Radeon with 2+1 GB isn't in the MS list, not for other reasons.

I'm in the EU and yesterday I booted in Windows 10 and I got one :(
- At least not in my, maybe I've gut Windows from all telemetries, notifications (except for updates) and other crap and services. If the Pop Ups persists, install the Optimizer (FOSS), which can help you to give it a kick in the ass.
  
  https://github.com/hellzerg/optimizer

If corporations would just end their love affair with exchange online and fucking outlook, maybe windows would go away

Well, what is the alternative? Google? I don’t think that is a good trade.
- Just use NeXtCloUD
  
  The reality is that there is no real alternative to the office suite including outlook. That is a real problem but just using Linux is not the answer.
- A little less lock-in is literally a little bit better
- why not?

Pretty much the only thing I use my PC for is gaming so it really sucks that I can't just dump them for Linux...

I don't want some games. I don't want to have something I've been hyped about be out of reach for God knows how long just because Linux support is crap as the market share is so low, but man do i hate Microsoft...

Gaming on Linux is really not as bad as all that unless you play a lot of games with invasive anti-cheat; which honestly, even if you never try Linux and stick to windows, I'd recommend avoiding or at least having a separate windows install for. I'm not a fan of having to install a rootkit on my computer that constantly monitors everything I do just to prove to some mega-corp I'm an honest player (especially considering how poorly even those work to stop cheaters).

I'd highly recommend anyone upset with microsoft to at least setup dual boot with one of the popular gaming specific Linux distos and trying it out. Even if you did a few years ago, it has really come a long way in the last few years.
Beside we-know-which games that use a root-kit anti-cheat, which games you think doesn't work on Linux or work terribly or straight out not work on Linux on first-day?

I don't play those and I don't own them on Steam. Out of 600+ games I own on Steam, everything literally run without me touch my terminal once.

Unless you don't think proton is good, then you might be mistaken somewhere. It's straight magic
- To be honest I just see people commenting here and there that xyz game didn't work for them and they have to jump through a bunch of hoops for what does work that I just write Linux off for now.
  
  That and I tend to like to check out early access games (cough star citizen cough) so I just dont want to limit myself just to give Mi€ro$oft the finger.
  
  Also, (see early access comment) I'm kind of impatient so even though I'm pretty capable, the last thing I want to do is have to be an IT guy for my PC every time something doesn't work lol windows is pretty good in that respect.
- Some Lego games.
Because of proton it’s not perfect but it’s damn close these days. And that means that linux support is rapidly increasing with linux marketshare. And when all else fails, I keep a windows partition just in case
I love The Dark Mod, a great envolving game at the level of commercial ones, it's 100% free with a great community and works fine in Windows, Linux and Mac. A game for Years with currently more than 170 community made missions, more every few month.

What's new? This has been going on since the launch of W11.

I'll upgrade once Win11 is out of open beta. Almost once a week they patch in a bug that's inconvincing users, I don't have that issue with win10. I wish MS would spend that energy on bug fixing and QoL UI elements. Win11 has less taskbar options, you'd think they added them by now...

No small taskbar icons option was bothersome for me. Have to deal with it on my work PC. So much lost screen space 😭
- Used W11 for the first time recently, the lack of small task bar buttons blew my mind. Decluttering the task bar is the first thing I do on a new computer.
- This is in my top 10 reasons not to switch. You can make them small still via a registry edit, but then it messes up the date/time display.

Installed Zorin OS the same day I got the full-screen prompt.

The latest Zorin is slick. Love it.

Upgrade to Linux! :D

That's what i did and with very few issues (especially compared to what i had with Windows) I've not regretted it at all

How long will we be able to use 10 after EOL? Would companies immediately stop updating their apps?

As long as you want, assuming that you're fine with the security risks and everything that's rendered incompatible in the future.
- I've seen POS systems in local burrito shops still running Windows 7... native, not a VM...
- To be honest, Windows 7 is best Windows for me but no existing applications can be used on it. So I hope I can use Windows 10 until game compatibility on Linux passes the threshold I'm looking for :)

At the Office it's my employers problem and at home Mint doesn't give AF about Windows 11.

If epic didn't suck ass and actually wanted to support EAC on Linux I already would have switched.

Epic will continue to suck ass and chances are that they will get even worse some day. Don't let yourself be chained to Microsoft because of Epic. I know it's hard to let beloved games go, but there are so many other titles of better companies than epic that deserve your attention.
- It ain't me. Its my wife lol. But you right.

The cycle continues

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Reddit user Woopinah9 spotted a notification “while in the middle of working,” where Microsoft thanks Windows 10 “customers” for their loyalty with a full-screen message and then explains the end of support date.

“Your PC is not eligible to upgrade to Windows 11, but it will continue to receive Windows 10 fixes and security updates until support ends on October 14th, 2025,” reads Microsoft’s message.

The options to dismiss the full-screen interruption include “learn more” and “remind me later” buttons, which suggests that this prompt might appear more than once.

Surprisingly, Microsoft’s full-screen prompt doesn’t directly mention that consumers will be able to continue securely using the operating system beyond October 14th, 2025, if they’re willing to pay.

Microsoft revealed last week that it will cost businesses $61 per device for the first year of Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10.

Hopefully, non-business users of Windows 10 will get similar discounts, but Microsoft says it will share details “at a later date.”

The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 163 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I guess I'll have to pirate security updates at some point, huh?

Someone should let Microsoft know that they only have 18 months left to put out an OS that isn't a complete dumpster fire. Right now, I would take Vista over 11.

Well sadly my laptop is not supported for update 🤷

I'll wait for it to day and get a proper Linux supported device:)

Till then, I'll fly my w10

What exactly is not supported on linux?
- Wicked processor freezing while switching into power saving (idle cpu-modes) modes, workes fine if I disable these, but then it's always on full power
  
  Have tried a lot, is a pain
- If it is like mine, it's the update itself. It says something like hardware not supported and gives you a big ol' Fuck You
IMO it's their loss.

Windows 10 keeps turning that stupid news feed back on on my taskbar, too.

This helps with all that bs https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/block_windows_11_from_installing.html

I would gladly upgrade to W11 if MS just let me on my old hardware (which is still fast enough for my daily tasks)

The desperation. UPGRADE TO 11. ALSO USE BING. AND EDGE. COPILOT TOO PLS.

yet again

Not creepy at all/s

If Microsoft gifts me a mobo that supports their new tmp2 or whatever then I'll switch, until then I'm sadly stuck on w10, oh the misery 🙃

This might be a bit off topic but I hate how you can't dismiss these kind of messages and be done with them, instead you have confirmation or remind me later. They just keep pestering you and I find that insulting. The same thing with Google play pass whenever I install something, that damn popup keeps coming back.

What’s wrong with Windows 10?

The ads

I installed Atlas OS on my Windows 10 machine and I don’t get any of this shit.

So you're running windows without system updates, without restore points, AND without windows defender?

That's pretty daring raw dogging the internet like that
- …I have all of that enabled.
What’s that like then
- Just strips out most of the bullcrap that MS won’t let you uninstall.

they don't bother me

probably because they would have to back down of pretending they require specific hardware I'm not going to buy.

Win 11 will eventually replace win 10, just as win10 replaced win7, they are just desperate to reach their target before releasing windows 12.

Windows 10 was the last Windows version for me. I'm done. I'm done with the spying, and the ads, and the hidden admin options spread across 5 different locations, and the registry, and the bugs, and the viruses, and just their whole shit show. Linux 4 lyfe.
- It's just the spying for me. If it wasn't for the spying and ads then I'd still be a Windows die-hard. If my OS was just an OS then I wouldn't feel the need to switch to Linux
You missed Windows 8, which never replaced Windows 7
Windows 12 is scheduled to release before Windows 10 goes EOL. At this point, those who haven’t switched are better off just waiting to see if 12 is decent or it’s shittier than 11. If it’s the latter, it might be time to finally ditch Windows on my gaming PC.

I don't even get why they care. Can't you just inform users once, then drop support and still collect their data?

But there so much more data they could also be collecting. Think of the poor multi billion international company.

I wish I wasn’t a vr gamer sometimes so I could unsubscribe from this os permanently

Quite curious, I'm a VR gamer (and developer) and so far I've just had no problem with Proton and SteamVR, including for officially non supported games.
- I am too far into nvidia windows things. I run really extreme games with 4090 and tons of mods. Unreal, unity, blender all that stuff. If there is one thing that windows does okay it’s my use case.
  
  I guess they have me right where they want 😂
  
  Also I am not sure if virtual desktop works on Linux

Not me. I kill any process that pops up in task manager whenever i have to connect to the net. Some of them are annoyingly persistent but so far no full screen popups

That sounds exhausting
- Also completely irrelevant and doesn’t do what he thinks he’s doing
- Lots of fun things are tiring

Alternative for those which want to use still Windows, but without all its crap and spyings

https://windowsxlite.com

you should NEVER use "builds" like that.
All you need is available via GPO, also you MUST use Enterprise edition in order to turn the telemetry down to "Security", all other builds can only go down to "Required"
- No, I currently have all telemetry and other crap disabled on W10 22H2 Home without any problems. I need to use Windows for several reasons and because of this debloat it was the first thing in the new PC. Anyway in the future I'll use it in dualboot, maybe with Mint or Q4OS