Petition demands that Microsoft extends Windows 10 support
Petition demands that Microsoft extends Windows 10 support
Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) petitioned Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella this week to reconsider ending support for Windows 10 in October 2025.
OS-as-a-service needs to be made illegal, ffs
It makes some sense for business & enterprise stuff, but not for household/consumer computers & devices. That's just rent-seeking and forced obsolescence. There is no good reason a home computer from the past fifteen years should have security patches withheld because the manufacturers want people to throw them away and buy and brand new ones.
I kind of get it, but I feel like even in a b2b context you shouldn't be allowed to charge a subscription for something as low level as the OS.
Now if Microsoft wants to offer paid support subscriptions for business customers (they might already do, I didn't look) that I would be fine with.
Of course, businesses would just pivot in the other direction and speed up the release cycle to every year or two, making smaller and smaller improvements. No system will be perfect. I just hope we get to a better solution than "constant vigilance" eventually, whatever it looks like.
Could you imagine having to pay apple a monthly fee just because you use iOS on their phone?
Or pay Google every month to use android?
Xbox Live and Playstation Plus: backing slowly out of the room
Paying for a service or product is never going to be illegal. It being an inferior product that the public is made aware of is the only way this shit is gonna change if ever.
What about other products-as-a-service? And on what grounds? I think it's unwise to use/rely on these services, but I'm not sure how they should be regulated. At a minimum your data should be freely exported in bulk on request.
So what do you propose? You buy windows xp and you deserve free maintenance updates while windows 55 is out?
Me when I demand corporations pay people fairly for their work 🤬 Me when I demand free labour in 2045 because I paid 100€ in 2015 😗
Why? Because you're too lazy to try replacements?
Actually I'd prefer a petition for Microsoft to drop Windows support entirely.
Even better: petition for Microsoft to release the Windows source code under the GPL
I'd sign that!
Yea they should stick to phones
It would be beautiful to see Windows become another Linux distro and ditch the NT kernel
They really should. Windows 11 has the bullshit "requirement" of needing SecureBoot so it can't work on BIOS motherboards, only UEFI ones. This is different than saying you no longer support 32 bit CPUs. There's no reason to require fucking SecureBoot. Seriously. It's like someone saying they won't sell you a TV if your house doesn't have a lock in the door and then advertising their TV as secure because of that.
Your entire statement here stems from not knowing what you're talking about. That's OK. I'll provide some insight.
Secure Boot is a security feature of UEFI that only allows trusted, cryptographically signed operating systems to boot. The nature of this prevents rootkits. Software that runs before the OS and injects itself. BIOS has many hard limitations and disadvantages over the modern standard that is UEFI. Your comparison going from 32 to 64 bit architecture is quite fitting. It's not that different. There are many hard limitations and disadvantages to 32 bit. It's unfit for today's standards due to lack of features and security. All aspects of technology have to move forward.
Yes, but you could still buy a new motherboard without UEFI support a year ago, and there are still some units in stock online.
It's way, way too early to drop support of an OS that is the latest version that can be run on hardware that current.
People who spent 3 grand building a computer in 2021 should be able to have OS support for at least a decade. They can't upgrade their OS, so the latest OS they could purchase should be maintained longer.
If Win11 didn't fucking go "naw bro you don't have a LoJack on your motherboard so no install" I'd be like whatever but since it does they need to keep supporting it for at least a decade or remove the Trusted chip requirement. I know you can bypass it, but nobody in business is gonna do that and neither is Grandma.
“Please sir, could I have some more?” - windows user
“Huh, what?” - Linux user
“Huh, what?” - Linux user with broken audio driver
audio driver support in Linux is good enough these days.
and if it doesn't work in your specific hardware, that's your hardware's fault and not Linux's.
It's like buying a Raspberry Pi and saying "windows doesn't work". You've acquired the wrong hardware.
Linux kernel is huge, I bet it has support for more audio devices than Windows or MacOS, as it is used not only on PCs.
Considering it should have been the last Windows ever... Yeah.
Remember when Windows 10 were advertised as the final and only Windows? Pepperidge farm remembers...
Yeah that was my inspiration 😀
They did that with XP also. It will be the windows experience!
They didn’t. It’s kinda weird how many people “remember” advertisements that never existed. It was literally one Microsoft employee saying things, in an unofficial capacity.
Edit: If anyone can show me an advert that claims this, I’ll happily eat my crow.
That was back when Mac was still OS X right? Once they hit 11 numbers had to go up. It's why there isn't a Xbox 2.
No, it's about M$ saying Windows 10 will be last Windows ever...
And yeah, basically everybody knew that ot wasn't going to be the case, but we can still throw it in their faces.
Linux is something I've tried to switch too a few times but but the cost of lost software would make it a more expensive choice than windows. Its gotten better and more things work but I'd still be losing some stuff I use quite often, both games and tools for work.
I have multiple machines for different use cases, so I switch between Windows, MacOS, and different Linux flavors constantly. They all have their benefits and drawbacks.
People like to push Linux gaming, but 90% game support still can't beat 100% support. Meanwhile, I wouldn't let Windows ever even touch a server machine. You can trust software like Ubuntu Server or Amazon Linux to be stable if you're not touching it, while Windows likes to keep you on your toes...
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine. It's fairly stable, and it has a Unix style base so it can run Shell happily. Meanwhile software is seemingly a horrible mixed bag that has only been exasperated with the Arm jump. For a computer noob however, it's great. If you don't mind staying in Apple's little zoo then you're not going to have issues.
I don't know why I went on this ramble.
MacOS is a good middle ground but not one I would personally use outside of a work machine.
I fail to see how it's a "middle ground" between the drawbacks you mentioned before.
When it comes to gaming, Mac OS is the absolute bottom of the barrel, compatibility is utterly atrocious. With Apple's insistence not to allow Vulkan drivers, they pulled the rug out of any leaps Mac OS could have made in that regard (like Linux did).
Apple also pulled the plug on any server capabilities Mac OS once had.
So, when it comes to gaming or server use, Mac OS would be my absolute last choice, not a middle ground.
Software choice is limited, but software quality is generally high and for some professions, the choice is flawless: when it comes to content creation, Apple's ecosystem is hard to beat.
still can’t beat 100% support
You don't get 100% support on Windows. “it works on my machine, format and reinstall Windows” is 99% of the support you will get on Windows. I can play dozens of retro games on Linux today that no longer work on Windows and never will ever again. And that's not even counting the myriad of game breaking bug reports that are reduced to “yeah, we don't care” that never get fixed.
I find Linux always breaks on me, and eventually it breaks in a way I am unable to fix. Windows never does this to me, I am always able to fix an issue on Windows.
I would love if Linux was as easy to use, but my personal experience is quite the contrary.
Sure it is easy to set up and get running, but windows is even easier , and then the breaking happens... inevitable and everything time.
Interestingly enough, the exact opposite happens to me. Just about every time I use Windows, it breaks horribly somehow and I can never seem to fix it without a complete reinstall. There's just no way to get into its innards to fix things.
I've never had that kind of problem on Linux.
I imagine this sort of thing comes down to what platform you know.
I'm curious, what distro where you running? And do you run on hardware that's known to be incompatible with Linux?
I'm happy to help you get started, or at least sort out if Linux is the right fit for you.
Timeshift has saved my ass a few times
If you'd be open to try Linux again if it were less likely to break than your past experience, look into the recent trend of what they commonly call "immutable" distributions. This should give you the ability to always switch back to a working OS if anything goes wrong (which should be much less likely in the first place). It's similar in concept to Android or Chrome OS, from what I understand. I'm watching this space very closely because I'm concerned about experiencing the same thing as you if I switch to Linux, and not having the ability to fix the system myself.
Haha, translated petition demands Microsoft earns less money and loosens up control over their users. Ain't happening.
Worked with Windows 7
or, you know, just switch to linux. several distros are basically just as usable out of box as anything microsoft has released.
I've tried and gaming is a lot better than it was, but I still prefer Windows in that department though I do stick with SteamOS for the Steam Deck and haven't bothered running Windows on it.
If only SteamOS was made generally available.
And I honestly prefer the non-terminal solutions that are generally in Windows.Users here generally seem to forget that
1: Not all users are power users
2: Professional software is generally not developed for Linux but either Windows or Mac. Linux is an afterthought
3: Not all programs run as you'd need it to. Wine and Proton can work for single use but I don't see daily activity going very well with it.For downvoters on point 3 saying they do it:
I tried the EA launcher with Proton on the SteamDeck. It's a hacky solution and in general a not supported environment. Good luck getting help from EA if something goes wrong.
This also applies to general work environments: HPE (server brand of HP) for example denies support if it sees a non-HPE product that may interfere with your support case. They ask you to remove it and then send another support file.Windows on steam deck is the most awful experience. There is a reason why tablet PC's and non-laptop portables failed until apple used fanboy power to make tablets viable again.
That's all well and good, but choosing Microsoft is choosing their bullshit too. It's your right to choose, but if you're sharing a rowboat with an alligator don't be amazed when it eats your chicken. (or something like that)
Especially in comparison to windows 10.
It's not gonna be getting feature updates, even if support continues, and W10/Linux desktop feature parity is a lot closer already than one would think.
Not really an option for the M$ dependent corpos
yes, but the Enterprise level license usually lasts longer than the individual license does. Enterprise level you're basically stuck in that ecosystem, you've got tools written for it. I remember when IE6 was the latest hotness and then everyone struggled to get away from it for years and years but integral revenue generating tools relied on it.
I am starting to make the effort in switching but honestly, it's not going as easily as I hoped... I got my old Surface Go running fully on Mint now and I've got some frustrations trying to make it work the way I want. I'm sure I'll get there, but what seemed like a fun project has become frustrating.
Next I plan on setting up dual booting on my gaming setup, which I suspect should be less frustrating than trying to run Linux on Microsoft hardware. If that goes smoothly I'll wipe Windows on the machine and switch fully to Mint there.
Only thing I don't think I can let go of Windows on is my work laptop. I use too much MS office suite stuff for work and have to move documents between people all the time. I already tried using Libre Office at work a few years back already and it just didn't work out, especially Power Point / Impress.
Overall, yeah, I think we should all start making a move off Windows when I see the state of things, it's just... not that easy for everyone.
These people... install linux! Your computer aren't made to run just one single OS.
Please let me keep these old chains for a bit longer!
We must continue to improve freedom-respecting operating systems so that more users will switch.
Freedom respecting operating systems have been painless for most machines for at least a decade at this point, for that long anyone could have installed an easy distro and just used it normally. The problem now with getting people to switch is that they expect zero adjustment period, when they could just get used to something new that still functions 95% the same as Windows on the user's side.
You know when you have an issue with your Linux so you air it on a public forum and are overrun with useless comments that you should switch to Arch because it's so much better and you're stupid if you don't?
Yeah.
Is Arch really that popular nowadays?
I mainly know it from the colleague who switched to it back in 2006, and then we made fun of him over the next year for all the stuff that was broken on his system, and worked on ours. He only was let off because a new hire went for Gentoo, and had stuff even more broken.
Arch is great these days, and in my own experience rarely breaks just due to updates if you set it up correctly.
But unless you're willing to configure a lot of stuff to your own liking, it's probably best to use some other, more mainstream distro.
Unfortunately, linux has its trolls too 🙁
I'm relatively new to Linux, but my experience has been the exact opposite. People seen super fucking helpful on all of the forums I've come to from Google after searching my problem.
Like REALLY helpful and nice.
I think the Arch thing is literally just a meme too (I use it, btw)
My PC doesn't fill the requirements for windows 11 and yet it was trying to update to it. (I7 2600 works fine, but not supported)
Installed Ubuntu and just didn't look back
Linux is the way. Microsoft will never stop making Windows worse.
Arch
That is a fucking awful suggestion for someone who just switched from windows lol. And I say that as someone who uses Arch (btw) as a daily driver
Arch is great for power users and hobbyists, but I can't think of a quicker way to turn a casual user off Linux lol. Ubuntu wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice either, but it's a perfectly serviceable windows replacement
I'm still on Windows 10. Are the complaints people have over windows 11 overblown or valid?
Some valid, a lot overblown. Take everything with a grain of salt.
A lot of people on Lemmy revere Linux to the point that Windows anything is a dirty word, so negative qualities are amplified quite substantially in discussions here.
I use Windows 11 daily on my personal laptop. As (what I am assuming to be) a typical end user, I will say I don't hate or love it any more than Windows 10. But I've never been one to nitpick over small details as much as others seem to.
I'm generally unfazed by start menu changes because I access the majority of my apps by just typing the name into the start menu. The dedicated search button in Windows 10 is superfluous for that reason, so I never used it and don't miss it. Rounded corners vs straight corners in the UI is essentially meaningless. And while Windows 11 currently does not allow you to reposition the taskbar to other sides of the screen, Windows 10 doesn't allow the taskbar and start menu to be centered, so pick your poison.
I think the right click context menu is improved in Windows 11 over 10.
That's interesting, the right click menu change has personally been driving me bonkers haha. I guess it's cleaner looking? But they removed most contextual options, so it's extra clicks or a button combo to get at what I'm looking for now.
Honestly, a bit of both. It probably gets more hate than it deserves but there's a lot of pointless change just for the sake of changing things. It's better than Win10 on a Surface, touch screen and pen support have improved. But beyond that, I don't really see a reason to jump to it until they force the issue by ending support for 10.
Tried it for the first time today and I hated it. Everything I organized for the start menu is gone and they replaced it with a stupid apps menu. It definitely runs sluggishly.
i mean users are free to use 3rd party start bars to have a windows 7 style start bar. The thing I always find odd is that if you opt for the 3rd party option, your experience with windows is mostly consistent.
One of the biggest features Windows gives users is the ability to modify stuff and people choose not to use it. It's like anyone who outright chooses to use IE/Spartan/Edge and complain about it instead of just switching to a 3rd party option.
Honestly, I ended up with 11 after years on 10, and I don’t find it nearly as horrible as everyone makes it out to be. It took some tweaking and a few tricks, but it’s fine and useable for what I do. I certainly spent less time futzing with Win 11 to run games than I ever did Linux.
That said, I haven’t been able to use windows for serious work/development since the 90’s… i only really boot up windows for gaming, so ymmv. For the most part that all works out of the box. For dev/ops work I’m a Linux or (since my work doesn’t allow Linux anymore) MacOS guy, which is much better workflow and capability-wise than Windows. IMHO.
I use it every day for work, used 10 before that. Overall fine, similar to 10. Some things were annoying after the switch, but some things are also better. It also helped that I held out for a few months, as the people switching first had a lot of initial problems with the new laptops and 11.
can't have sideways taskbar
This is a primary reason I'm not upgrading, aside from the fact that I will drop W10 for all my computers for Linux at End of Support.
I am too. Well, dual-booting. My PC doesn't have TPM and I'm not upgrading my hardware just to accommodate Microsoft's nonsense so I'll just keep running 10 until the wheels fall off.
I disabled my tpm so I don't end up with a surprise upgrade.
It's not terrible but it takes some fiddling initially to make it look like a real Windows install.
I use Win11 on my gaming rig and on my work pc by choice.
Gaming Rig (Ryzen 7 7800X3D):
Desktop environment is a slight downgrade but they are slowly reworking the whole UI. Though I really enjoy to customize my environment to my liking and probably bump more into edge cases than the average joe.
MS becomes more pushy with their subscription models but those can be ignored.
Windows Updates generally work well.Office Rig (HP Elitebook i5 8th gen):
My laptop needed an upgrade from 8 to 16gb to run more smoothly. Same UI issues but it's workable.I like the new explorer though.
On my NAS/home server I use Debian 11 and am pretty happy so far.
I use windows 10 and 11. Most of the complaints I see about 11 apply just as much to 10. Very little of the big complaints I see about 11 are just about it. The ones that are actually unique are more subjective (the UI changes which have gotten a lot better).
The big one that really bothers me is that soooo many perfectly good computers cannot run it. Their hardware restrictions are absurd. My desktop has an i9-9820X, which was released at the end of 2018, and I'm not able to upgrade. I have 4 computers that all run great and run Windows and only one of them is able to upgrade. Windows 11 will likely result in a lot of e-waste (and a lot of people switching to Linux, myself included).
I don't really care too much about the other differences, Windows 11 is just like Windows 10 except they moved a bunch of stuff around. It could have all just been an update to 10.
Have you turned TPM on in the BIOS? Only new processors have it on by default. The 9820X should support it (and therefore Windows 11), you just have to enable it.
Win11 is basically just UI lift to Win10, the core OS is exactly same.
They dropped lot of support (ie11, classic bios, non-tpm2.0, 32-bit), which most are IMO just good because it forces adoption. I think those are overblown, people just hate the UI changes.
Been using it since the launch, and the issues have mainly been similar to just win 10 build upgrade issues.
Was forced to switch to 11 on my work laptop so now I'm working on transitioning to Linux for work. In 11 you have to fight the os more than ever to get the experience you want. I used a program to change Explorer to be similar to how it was on 10, and when I switched back to the default one it's very noticeably slower than custom. It's especially noticeable when sharing screen in teams, it feels very slow and laggy, crashes frequently.
"explorer randomly talking focus" nuff said
Well, it got worse again, like basically every Windows except for 7. The real issue is that arbitrarily chose not to support certain "old" hardware.
Yes, it's a straight upgrade over win10, but the UI isn't nearly as good imo
I understand the CPU hardware limitations due to Spectre/Meltdown issusles, but at the same time it is an ecological disaster. Two decades ago you would ditch your hardware frequently, simply because it could not run any new application. Now I have systems which do have more than appropriate computing power for my specific tasks and are forcefully obsoleted. They should at least extent Windows 10 critical fixes until 2030.
I believe the situation will cause to Windows 10 to become the next Windows XP immortal ghost for quite some time.
Same here. There is nothing wrong my my 7 year-old PC. I built it to last. It runs everything fine with good graphics and yet I'm being forced to change hardware for what? It's just a waste of money and something I can't afford.
I’m not a windows user but it seems every time there’s a new version people swear they’ll never use it and that the old version should be supported forever… and then eventually that “horrible” version becomes the next version that people won’t let go of… Are you guys okay?
Basically Microsoft tends to release operating systems in a 2 stage cycle. Every other version of Windows does something new and innovative, and then the next version is more polished, stable, and normal.
95 - new, innovative, and crappy
98 - solid
Then it got weird. They wanted to stop building the consumer version of Windows on top of DOS, and move it on to the NT kernel as 2000. The consumer version wasn't ready by the deadline, so they released 2000 for business only, and released a new DOS based Windows Me.
2000 - Really nice but boring. Extremely innovative new features for business use (Active Directory). The amount of work they put into Active Directory is probably why they didn't have the new consumer friendly UI ready in time. It's a rock solid OS but they significantly missed their goals.
Me - Absolute garbage, a cash grab. They basically put something out to satisfy the bean counters since they couldn't market NT to consumers yet.
XP - They finally pulled it off, and it's a pretty good OS that has the stability of NT, and all the multimedia features that consumers want.
Vista - They rewrote a huge portion of NT to be 64 bit, require signed drivers, and be more stable. The release version was pretty crappy but after 1-2 service packs it was actually pretty decent. But by then its reputation was already tarnished, and overall it was innovative and crappy.
7 - This was a very solid release. They took Vista and refined the UAC system to be less intrusive. Also a really nice new feature where you can use the taskbar like a dock where an app's icon stays in one place, even if it's not running.
8 - Experimental implementation of adding a touch UI to Windows. They made a decent effort but it really felt like a tech demo and nobody recommended it for anything outside of tablet devices. It was dreadful for people using traditional mouse and keyboard.
10 - Another solid OS. They basically took 7, added 8's touch UI features, and figured out how to blend them without it being annoying. The touch interface doesn't get in the way if you're using keyboard and mouse, and vice versa.
11 - I'm really not sure what the purpose of this OS is. I guess they're experimenting with trying to make the Windows UI more Mac-like. The taskbar centers the icons by default so it looks like the MacOS dock, and they're really pushing the new app store where all the apps have to be written with the newer UI libraries that work a lot more like mobile development platforms. So it really seems like Microsoft is planning for a future where Windows can run on many different types of devices and run the same apps. And Windows 11 is kind of a stepping stone to get there.
So Windows 12 should be interesting.Also, while all of this is going on, with every new release generally comes a server version as well. They're constantly expanding the Active Directory schema and adding a lot of cool new features to Active Directory, such as new Group Policies that can be applied to groups of computers and users throughout an organization, which can automate a ton of things. If you want everybody in an accounting department to have a Q: drive with their QuickBooks files in it, you throw them all into an AD group or OU, and set up a new group policy on that group to map that Q: drive. And now all of those users will have that drive. I think it was starting with Windows server 2008r2 (Windows 7 server basically) and Windows 7, they added new Group Policies that did the drive mapping differently, and they would automatically map without the user even having to log off. Also, if the Group Policy is removed from a user, or a new user is moved into that group, it will automatically handle the changes. There's so much more to Windows than most people realize.
They’re constantly expanding the Active Directory schema and adding a lot of cool new features to Active Directory
you mean by letting it rot and become a security nightmare while trying to force everyone to move over to azureAD/entraID?
Nope. If this is business as usual Microsoft won't fuck as badly with Windows 12 and people are going to skip 11.
I've seen this but nobody actually likes the older versions either. Vista being an outlier, of course
Microsoft be like: Windows 10 Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC)
I don't think that's available for private customers. Unless of course you pirate it; but even then it comes with the limitation of being English only. And there are plenty of people in other countries who want/need their OS to be in their native language.
Remember when Windows 10 was gonna be their final OS?
And they believed that! Haha Buncha suckers. - Some MS execs, probably.
That was just one dev saying something off the cuff, and the media ran with it. It was never an official stance, or even said by anyone with the actual authority to make decisions like that.
It would be like you saying “tomorrow our company is shutting down” to a reporter about your work.
Accidentally read petition as putin lol
nah he's still crying about Win98
There is LTSC that has longer support cycle.
Linux and Wine and no need for W10
Good god this gets old.
Slaves will be slaves.
Windows 10 came out in 2015, 10 years seems like a plenty decent lifespan.
Windows 11 came out in 2021, so 10 users will have had 4 years to upgrade.
Windows 10 was supposed to be the "last version" of Windows and Windows 11 requires a lot of hardware that older machines simply don't have, most notably TPM. Microsoft creates thousands of tons of ewaste for no reason and the owners of this ewaste have to spend thousands or millions to replace machines that are perfectly fine.
Yes, you can circumvent these restrictions, but not as a business.
Windows 11 requires a lot of hardware that older machines simply don’t have, most notably TPM.
In other words, despite fanbois' attempts to claim that Microsoft has long since reformed, it's still trying to slowly tighten the noose on being able to install other OSs (and by extension, the ability to perform general-purpose computing without corporate overlord approval as a whole).
Microsoft creates thousands of tons of ewaste for no reason...
Of course there's a reason, you said it yourself: TPM.
With TPM, Software will be able to cryptographically verify that the OS and Hardware are all unmodified. This'll be an end to piracy and end to unauthorized modifications to your PC ("We've detected that you've installed an Ad Blocker, please remove it before accessing your banking website")
This won't happen overnight, but the forced hardware upgrade is all about control (Microsoft over you) and creating a walled garden to drive profits (like Apple).
You can take a look at Android's attestation and how it prevents running your banking apps on a rooted cellphone as an example of things to come.
Windows 10 was never meant to be the last version, one guy said it and somehow it stuck. It was never the plan though.
Why blud even uses windows 10? its worse than win11.