Windows 10 users after 14 October 2025

[Fastpedaller]

My guess would be you need to update whatever software your USB drives use. I have drives that are 10 - 15 years old that work perfectly with the current W10.

MS say it's got the best/latest, so maybe that's the problem - I've never had issues with it before yesterday (used same for 10+ years)

 

[Ming the Merciless]

USB drives won't work

By this do you mean a HDD or SSD that plugs into a USB port. Bog standard USB sticks should just work with the built in standard drivers.

 

[PaulSB]

I'm in same situation as many here, on W10 and getting advised to go to W11 (by official Windows pop ups).
My current desktop pc isn't W11 compatible.

So, having read through 8 pages so far my take away is continuing on W10 will be fine. Possibly/probably advised to pay for security updates.

Seems excessive to ditch a perfectly good working pc. It's in MS interests for everyone to upgrade to a new windows pc and software so the thoughts there may be some scare mongering by MS does occur.

However, if someone can definitively say it is essential to change to W11 then I would. Computers are great until they're not and seeing as just about everything is done online these days if it all went pear shaped it would be inconvenient to say the least.

I have an MS Surface Pro 4 in perfect working order. Nine years old and the battery life isn't great but it remains the best laptop I've owned.

I'm someone who likes to keep things bang up to date for security reasons. Until recently I'd planned to replace it with a Chromebook. I've changed my mind. There are many good reasons not to ditch a perfectly good bit of tech. I don't behave online in a manner likely to cause me a problem and my overall approach to security is good.

I'll stick to W10 until such time as I encounter a problem.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Our desktop gaming pc, our old Surface Pro 4 tablet and MIL's laptop haven't got the "security chip" to install Windows 11 properly, at the mo not sure what we'll do, MIL is panicking and talking about buying new laptop.

I've been doing internet at home with PCs for ~25 years and it's the first time I can recall not being able to install the newest Windows, due to the old version having lost support, all because of that chip put on motherboards in the last ~9 years... No idea if the chip really does much, or it's simply a gimmick to encourage us to buy a new electric toy, despite the old toy(s) working!

 

[ColinJ]

I don't really need to use Windows these days. Probably about 75% of the time I am just using a web browser. Most of the rest of the time I am on 2 apps which I could get Mac or Linux versions of. I think I might buy a Macbook Air 4 in October, and put Linux on my current laptop.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

No idea if the chip really does much

It’s all part of the cryptographic security from hardware to software. Mine has the TPM chip but it’s on firmware version 1.2. The manufacturer could release firmware for version 2.0 but why do that when they have a chance to sell a whole new PC.

I am sticking with W10, and have made changes to make it as secure as poss, even post end of support.

 

[DaveReading]

I'm in the happy situation of having a W10 laptop that refuses to load updates.

OK, it's a bit of a pain once every month or so when it takes half an hour or more for the "attempting to load-unable to complete update-rolling back changes" cycle, but at least I know that all the drivers that work today will still work tomorrow.

 

[HMS_Dave]

It's all arbitrary really. For the environmental reasons alone, i would advise people to keep their hardware going for as long as possible, either through MS extended support updates for W10, a modded ISO of Windows 11 using rufus or similar to bypass the TPM and Hardware checks or a move to another operating system altogether using something like Linux or chrome. All these limited years support for perfectly serviceable tech devices such as PC's and Phones really irritates me when they all pretend they are "green" as long as you buy a new device every two years.
Pure madness...

 

[PaulSB]

It's all arbitrary really. For the environmental reasons alone, i would advise people to keep their hardware going for as long as possible, either through MS extended support updates for W10, a modded ISO of Windows 11 using rufus or similar to bypass the TPM and Hardware checks or a move to another operating system altogether using something like Linux or chrome. All these limited years support for perfectly serviceable tech devices such as PC's and Phones really irritates me when they all pretend they are "green" as long as you buy a new device every two years.
Pure madness...

My decision to stick with W10 is 50% environmental and 50% why should I replace an excellent working machine. Possibly I'm very ill informed but I don't see a real threat to me. My laptop use is email, Word and Excel. I rarely surf on my laptop. I have two Google accounts, one "business" for a small charity I'm involved with, the other personal. All my docs etc. are in the cloud with Google or OneDrive, nothing stored locally. I'm very aware of scams, phishing etc. Unless I go to "bad" places I cannot see a threat.

Everything that is sensitive, banking for example, I already do on my mobile.

I hear what you say about other systems and understand, to an extent, how this would help not just me but millions of users. The problem for many is we simply wouldn't know where to begin or what to do when issues arise. I would probably end up with a broken machine.

 

[bonzobanana]

Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC IoT doesn't have the security chip requirements and is the newest Windows 11 and has security updates long into the future. It's a cut down version so runs much faster and has far less vulnerabilities overall. You can install it much easier with a local account which is much more secure as you don't have to give Windows your details which could be hacked. Of course the issue is licensing. Most Windows installations in the world are not licensed but pirate copies and the licensing situation has been completely hacked and easy to licence very quickly. One of the huge issues nowadays with Windows is they are selling your data all the time so a local account prevents this and adds a huge level of security.

https://archive.org/details/mul_windows_11_iot_enterprise_ltsc_2024_202409-Archive

1. Open PowerShell
   To do that, press the Windows key + X, then select PowerShell or Terminal.
2. Copy and paste the code below, then press enter.

irm https://get.activated.win | iex


Then do all the normal stuff of using debloating software and setting all the options for maximum performance. An older pc can actually be an extremely fast pc for normal use.

Not signing into windows can actually be one of the most secure things you can do. You really don't want data about you being sent back and forth if your computer gets hacked. You certainly don't want to use Edge which is integrated into Windows quite deeply. Much better to use an independent application like Chrome anyway.

Personally I don't care if I have a Windows licence for Windows 10 Home and instead now have Windows 11 Enterprise LTSC IoT especially as there was a free upgrade option for Windows 11 anyway its just my hardware couldn't make use of the official free upgrade and I had to move to a different version of Windows which was actually more cut down in features except for improved security. Yes I'm trying to justify breaching the licence conditions and in that vein it is estimated non licenced versions of Windows in the world is over 95% possibly higher. As you can imagine the bulk of this though is in Asia, Africa, South America etc. Of course nowadays Microsoft makes most of its money from selling your data from Windows and Edge and I totally understand by not signing into Windows or using Edge you prevent Microsoft from earning that money. Which is why on most versions of Windows they are making it difficult to use a local account and push Edge so strongly but that is exactly why I don't sign into Windows or use Edge for security reasons.

It's not in our economic interests to just give up on perfectly good computer hardware. We have a huge trading deficit like a lot of countries and it adds hugely to our debts as we keep borrowing the money that is lost from our economy and currently there is approaching £200k of government liabilities for every single person, be it a baby just born to a person on their death bed. For 50 years we have run this country in the most ridiculous way not protecting our economy at all so anything however small in the reduction in imports is beneficial. The government is constantly having to increase its debt repayments as it continues to borrow huge amounts of money which has a knock on effect to the NHS, Police etc.

 

[CXRAndy]

I've not got around to this my NUC has everything except the CPU isn't on the approved list. I might try one of these modified installer setups that correct the registry to allow W11 Then go for it.

 

[oxoman]

Just spotted this thread and read a fair bit of it. What annoys me is how they try to shoehorn W11 onto your laptop or PC through auto update regardless of the consequences. My son accepted an update request thinking it was for antivirus and it went from w10 to w11, the greif it caused me as it effectively locked me out of various things I use including a fairly new printer. Not good when wife working from home at the time. I have had to revert back to w10 twice now and its still trying to force an update every few months or so. Bloody annoying tbh. Not sure what I will do when w10 is finally finished, hopefully they will improve it before then.

 

[Dadam]

Much better to use an independent application like Chrome anyway.

This is quite amusing. You're worried about what data Microsoft is sending back and forth from Edge, but not what Google is doing with Chrome? If you're very concerned with this there are far better browsers for privacy.

 

[Yellow Fang]

My mother was having trouble with her laptop. It was nagging her to upgrade to Windows 11, so I upgraded it. It became so slow as to be unusable. I thought it might be a RAM problem, but it has more RAM than my laptop, although a slower processor. I wonder whether she could have used virus checkers, e.g. Norton or McAfee, and not worry about the MS patches and updates. In my last job we deactivated all the MS updates, as much as we could. The PCs were not used for browsing the internet. My experience is these MS updates gradually slow your computer down. Although my mother does not visit any dodgy websites, her email account was compromised a while back. Unless her email password was leaked I don't know how they did it. Whoever hacked her email account was not very bright, yet they got into her email account. On YouTube I used to keep seeing all these adverts for VPNs. They would stop nasties getting downloaded to your PC, stop anyone snooping on your computer accounts, and disguise your location so you could watch programmes not available in the UK. I am guessing this would take up quite a bit of your processing power. In the end my Mum bought a new laptop with Windows 11. I could not persuade her to buy a Chromebook. I bought one myself. It seems pretty good to me, although getting it to work with mum's printer was not that easy. That's an issue with Linux too. Installing the right drivers is not always easy.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

This is quite amusing. You're worried about what data Microsoft is sending back and forth from Edge, but not what Google is doing with Chrome? If you're very concerned with this there are far better browsers for privacy.

What would be a better option please? Not a fan of Google, Microsoft or any of the big tech companies really, would like to avoid them if possible. Is it Firefox or something else?