'End of 10' to Windows 10 Users: The Environment Wants You to Use Linux

Just an FYI - you don’t have to throw away computers that can’t upgrade past Windows 10. They will keep working.
- Long story short, my Dad just got a new computer. (His old was was actually really old, but he could have used Linux.)
  Anyway, I told him not to throw out the old computer and that I would take it. He was baffled that I would want it or could even do anything with it.
  I am going to set it up as a backup server in the house for my parents and myself as it will be a nice way to have an offsite backup for free.
  
  So many use cases! I'm giving an old NUC to a kid at work who's learning Linux. Jesus, the kid bought a copy of Linux from "the best/most-famous hacker in the world!". We had a come-to-Jesus talk about that horseshit.
- I recently virtualised an XP machine that had been running since time immemorial, and will continue to (virtually) do so.
- But you don't want to do anything that requires security on them like shopping, email, or anything that requires you to log into to an account that you dont want stolen.
  
  You can, if you install Linux
  
  Windows 7 is on par with Mint on the Steam hardware survey.
  I'm thinking the stuff you "don't want to do" after Windows lack of support ranks pretty low on people's new year's resolutions.
  
  Not true. As long as you keep updating your browsers etc you’re going to be generally ok.

Remember when Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last Windows? I 'member.
- I was for many of us. So, they were not totally wrong.
  
  So much this. I had dabbled with Linux on various sbc knockoff raspberry pis and put one distro on an old netbook that I gave to a friend. Now my main laptop is going full penguin.
- They didn't. They said it was the last version of windows you'd ever need.
- Technically, they didn’t, they just never corrected someone who did, and it spread far.

I'm doing my part!
I've loaded Mint on my prime system and a laptop, another laptop with Fedora, Manjaro on another main system I test with and EndeavorOS on all my media systems. I've also loaded about 8-10 other distros on Proxmox to play/test with.
Where I had doubts on whether I needed anything off of the old MS system, I P2V'ed the OS and spool it up on Proxmox if needed to review any history within the OS/browser.
I still have a couple of W10 VMs lingering and a Windows server. I'll "upgrade" the workstation VMs to W11 (and shut them down) since I have the license and I can see sometimes having to use Windows for whatever dumb reasons. I'll leave the Windows server for now to maintain the domain as that allows me to block telemetry with GPOs. I may tire of that at some point though as MS will further wane away on my network.
My summer task is to convert all my 'Arrr software over to Linux versions. Still on W10 there. Wasn't sure which distro to go to for that....
- Re: Arr software, spin up an Ubuntu VM and install Docker. Spin up portainer and then use that to spin up all thr arrs. Ezpz
- KDE Neon here. I really really like it.
- Windows 10 users encountering this post: this sounds like a lot of work. I'll just stick to windows 11.
  
  Disabling all the dumb shit and ads on win11 is triple the work of switching to linux and learning to use it.

endof10.org seems like a good website to direct people to via posters in your local community center or church. Or you can call a repair club in your area to ask if they want to be listed. Those are likely to have some Linux enthousiast members and already have a location.

Im hearing proton is good for games?
- i second @FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee
  it's fantastic for like 85% of all games, and good to acceptable for like 10%. the only big issue is games with kernel level anti cheats, which is a problem for some gamers, mainly AAA and fps lovers.
  
  Games with kernal anti-cheat should be treated with precisely the level of respect they show to us.
  
  Ahh what's what the previous person meant by competitive games.
- It’s fantastic. Unless you’re playing a specific few multiplayer competitive games, it’s just like windows (sometimes even better in terms of performance - and sometimes better in terms of retro compatibility)
  
  Nice! So long as i can still play with by siblings on some private games ill be ok.
- It is outstanding
- Been playing for years on a nearly daily basis, from Baldur's Gate 3 to Elden Ring to now Clair Obscur... to VR with e.g. Half-life : Alyx. That's on my desktop and often also on my Steam Deck. So... yes, Proton is very VERY good for games!
  
  Clair Obscur is running more smoothly for me on Linux than Windows. That doesn't always happen, but it's always satisfying when it does.
- Proton is so good that even when a game has a native Linux version, I often opt for the Proton version (so my games are all in one place). I was even able to install mods for games like Baldur's Gate 3 (albeit with a bit of tinkering)
  
  When I installed the Linux version of “7 days to die” the graphics were washed out and bad. I switched to the windows version with proton and it fixed the game.

I'm glad people are helping others move to Linux once the EOL support for Windows 10 comes. There's no reason for good hardware to end up rotting in a landfill. Not only can people use these machines still, it helps the environment since there's less electronics wasting away in landfills since most people don't properly recycle electronics.
- My old gaming PC isn't "good enough" for Win11 (tpm2 ofc), yet compared to the Win11 PC my wife's work forced on her you'd think it was some sort of future supercomputer
  If enough people actually ditch their hardware then we server admins are going to eat good this year, mmmmmmm
- I'll take there hardware and turn them into servers if they want to throw there old computer away

Been on Linux full time for al about 2 months now... Proton and Bazzite have made the transition soooo much easier as gaming is what was always holding me back.
- Yea, gaming has come a long long way thanks to Valve. I was also holding back due to this (and not wanting to spend too much of my spare time learning a new OS and commands etc) but I just installed Zorin (chosen for minimal effort) and hardly had to do anything. I struggled a bit to get Proton to work at first but now my entire Steam library works perfectly and I'm so much happier with it than I ever was using Windows. Gonna be getting my friends and some family on it as well!
- I switched in January because my PC doesn’t support TPM 2.0 (gen 1 ryzen) after having not tried Linux since like 2011 gaming honestly kind of blew my mind, basically as “plug and play “ as windows.
  
  I'm so happy that I went intel instead of gen1 ryzen that generation.
  I still use it for work and would be so pissed if I needed to buy a new computer just to use Windows 11.
  I genuinly need windows or mac for my work. I use linux on my personal laptop.
- I've been full time linux since 2017, i think (it was a long time ago)
  Honestly, linux gaming with steam/proton has been really good for a LONG time. Like even "AAA" games like RDR2 have been working well whenever i buy them (not on release day, but maybe a year after)
  In 2025, there's really no reason not to go linux unless you play some very specific game that absolutely doesnt work on linux

Part of me still does not think Microsoft is going to go through with it. There are too many Windows 10 PCs that will just become infected.
Part of me thinks the government will intervene as I think it could genuinely be a security issue to have so many unsecured devices in the wild.
But, another part of me has no hope for the future.
Sooo... I guess we will just have to wait and see.
- Sadly people said the same for xp and 7 soo...
  
  No lie. We play this game every 7 years or so. I was training on a Win10 machine at work yesterday. Think they're updating that? Nah. Hell, it probably could take an 11 upgrade and they haven't bothered. Why? It's a locked down machine. And if IT don't care, home users certainly won't.
  
  At least there was an upgrade path from them.

I upgraded my Win 10 laptop to IoT Enterprise LTSC recently which is stupidly easy and grants you support till 2032.
Aside from some weird app incompatibilities it's been working fine.
- I don't think that many people want to buy Windows Enterprise, which they typically want you to also buy a support contract for.
  Unless you pirated it, but I don't think telling people to "just run this pirate code" is that good of an idea.
  
  Of course it's up to you whether you want to use something that, according to Microsoft, you're not supposed to use, but the only "pirate-code" I had to run was to activate it. The upgrade itself was pretty straightforward. You could use it just fine without activating it if you wanted.
  IMO it's a better option buying a new computer to run Windows 11 officially. I'm not including Linux because I specifically wanted to keep Windows on the Laptop to run apps that don't work on Linux.
- I did an upgrade, instead of a clean install, to the same version. I just had to reinstall my graphics driver and everything works as before, I just went through another step to remove some programs and it's been smooth sailing since.
  Massgrave.dev provided what I needed. Was a breeze.
  
  I did an in-place upgrade as well. I was surprised how easy it was; it's just one Registry key and from there you can just do a normal upgrade.
  Way easier than installing Windows 11, which wouldn't even officially run on my ThinkPad T540p..

Check out PostmarketOS for older machines/phones too. I got it working on an old Microsoft surface RT that would have been e-waste otherwise
- I have a 2011 MacBook Pro running MX Linux. It's no match for my M2 Air, but it's still surprisingly useful.
  Was up the council recycling centre the other day, looking at some of the dumped computers, wondering just how many of them could still be very useful.

And even if you don't want to... Find someone who does! Donate that laptop to someone. Find a LUG or Mutual Aid group or a friendly local anarchist :)
- Wait so someone might wasnt the top of the line Macbook Pro from 12 years ago that someone gave me?
  
  A pretty large amount of people don't own a PC at all, though I'm finding it surprisingly hard to get a good number on it. Just anecdotally, most people I know who aren't IT professionals have either no PC or 1 old laptop, often from college or on loan from work. Most folks use their phones for everything. People I know with kids have school issued Chromebooks, which barely counts.
  As to exact numbers, I'm curious what others can find. I turned up between 74% and 94% of adults in the US owned a PC, which seems insanely high to me. But on the same page claiming that 89% of all households have a PC, I also saw
  In the United States, the number of households with computers is projected to surge from 4.7 million to 120.45 million between 2024 and 2029, indicating a substantial increase in computer ownership.
  Which... That's bonkers. They expect the number of PCs (in homes) to go up by a factor of 30 in just 5 years, presumably that guess was before tariffs as well. I'm wondering if these household and per capita numbers somehow include corporate spending because businesses and schools do purchase literal tons of computers.
  
  Yes please. 2013 MacBook Pro? I use a 2013 MacBook Air every day. I am sure your MacBook Pro is much better.
  
  Unironically yes. There's someone out there who is on the other side of the digital divide that would absolutely want any kind of access to what you currently take for granted.

Once it goes eol, get it off the network. But lots of other good ideas already in here.
- It really needs to be made louder that if you are stuck on 10 that you should not let it have internet access
  
  Unless you switch to IoT LTSC, which will continue to get security updates until 2032. It's kinda bullshit that they're still making the security patches and then just refusing to give them to consumer 10 users.
- quick question - what the hell do you do with a modern computer without internet access anyways?
  
  Local services only

Quick question. I have a studio pc running win 10, with dozens of audio and video projects. It's basically impossible to transfer to Linux, macOs or even win 11 since it involves a ton of audio plugins, etc. and my projects would become unsable.
What does end of supports involve for me? I actually disable updates and a while back since it was sometimes screwing things up. My most recent projects are done either on my M1 mac (work thing) or my most recent.Linux station on Nobara. Should I be worried about anything? Should I disconnect my old studio pc from the internet to avoid it being fucked by microsoft?
- Get the w10 enterprise edition that gets patched for 4 more years.
- You should back up your windows 10 pc as an image and use it as a virtual machine on the Mac or some other Linux environment. Once support stops nothing really bad would happen, besides security stuff and maybe perhaps some unexpected hugs. So you could just disconnect it from the internet too but the VM option isn’t reliant on the hardware which could go bad.
  
  Intetesting, I didn't thought of that. I'll give it a try. If I can get an image to run in a VM to allow me to access archived project when needed, that would be the perfect solution. I'm just worried about all the plugins activation, etc. Hopefully it will work. Thanks!
  
  Unexpected hugs are the best kind of hugs.
- It shouldn't get fucked by MS they'll just stop adding things to it to prevent outsiders from fucking it up. You'll be alright for now, but keep an eye out for any potential vulnerabilities that get found after end of support. Then that's when you can start thinking of disconnecting it from the internet. That is if you can't risk yourself being patient 0. Then in that case you should disconnect as soon as end of life comes around.
- Once updates end in October, Windows 10 won't be secure and probably shouldn't be allowed to connect to the internet. It will still continue to function though. You can buy a year of extended support for Windows 10 for $30, but it's unclear whether there will be support after that.
  Probably best to start switching to something else, or plan to run that PC offline.
  
  That seems silly to be running offline. There are some businesses that still run windows 98. So why would windows 10 suddenly be way off worse ?
- or even win 11 since it involves a ton of audio plugins, etc. and my projects would become unsable.
  Have you looked into this? Because Windows 11 is so much Windows 10 with a UI change that they didn’t even update the NT number.
  Like, Windows 2000 was NT 5, and XP, which was very similar to 2000, was NT 5.1.
  But Windows 11 isn’t NT 10.1, it’s still NT 10.
  At their core they’re very similar. I’d be shocked if something designed for 10 wouldn’t work with 11.

Whatever will I do without my deshittified emotional support laptop :'(

Windows 10 end of life is just nature's way of setting you free.

Hopefully many more Windows refugees would embrace the Kingdom of Torvalds.

Among lot of distro, Linux mint has to be the closest to windows and more refined

Can’t you just install bit defender? It’s just that one chip on the board that was added about 10 yrs ago to prevent hackers using that desktop tunnel on the elderly. So dumb that they had to promote large scale computer waste over a piece of hardware smaller than a thumb drive.
- It's part of the design. You think their partners weren't ecstatic about them implementing something like this, that has a very easy work around that they aren't advertising‽

Never felt so much more in control than when ditching Windows and installing first Linux Mint and later Kubuntu. Gonna try Arch in the future to feel like a god and completely in control over what happens on my machine.
- that trajectory leads to Antix to give you full control over every decision and then from there to debian or devuan because all that decision making is exhausting, can't the machine just work and only update when there's security patches?

Show me how to use the Xbox app in Linux and I will switch today.
- But isnt this like asking "Show me how to run Nintendo Services on the PS5 and I will switch"?
  Windows has it's own ecosystem just as much as Linux has it's own ecosystem, so expecting Linux to run everything Microsoft is kinda of unreasonable IMO.
  To switch an OS also means to switch an ecosystem. You wouldn't move from Android to iOS expecting it to run Android's .apk, right?
  I'm not criticizing you tho, if a service you rely on doesnt work on Linux, then Linux isnt for you, and you're free to use Windows, an OS is just a tool after all 😁
  
  I dual boot at this point. I have a POP_OS! nvme where I do normal pc stuff and maybe some light single player gaming, then I boot into my windows ssd for the heavier anticheat stuff. Imma be completely honest though. For most people I recommend just upgrading to windows 11 if you can. Linux is great but I think if someone just cares about gaming they should stick to windows.
- Gamepass was made to have you in the ecosystem so you really can't, and I don't blame you since it helps with these expensive games like the new Doom
- Out of curiosity what even does someone use that app for. Iv always just turned it on on my windows installs. It always just breaks and caused me issues. Or performed worse then just other apps for the same job.
  
  I play XBox games on my computer. My computer is more than 10x faster then my XBox so games often play way better.
- Or pretty much almost any game or driver issues.
  I like Linux but these video game developers dont support their game properly for Linux.
  
  Majority of steam games work without issue nowadays ime