Windows 10 support doesn't end in 2025 after all, if you pay up

This will go over great with traditional customers who cannot update to 11 because their computer doesn’t have TPM. (edit: to be clear, meaning they’ll be annoyed AF.)

Will 2025 be the year of Linux? :)
- Doubt it, too many jaded people who would still pay up just to not leave what’s familiar. Maybe 2028.
I am annoyed af. My pc does have TPM but it's a bitch to set up and I'm not fighting that fight again. And fuck windows 11 on my current computer
Even though the limitation on TPM is completely arbitrary, and anyone sufficiently savvy can bypass it in a few ways.

But most people are not that, so I guess the Linux crowd will embrace all those computers with open arms.
- If people aren't savvy enough to bypass the TPM requirement, I don't see them being savvy enough to install a whole new OS on their system.
- That’s why I said traditional customers, who, at least for the moment, also aren’t savvy enough for linux.
I've TPM and all other sys specs needed for W11 (my laptop is only 2 Years old), but I can't update (without tricks), because my AMD Graphic card isn't in the MS list. Well, I have no intention of doing so anyway with a well-tamed W10 that works the way I want. In 2025 I'm going with Linux as sometimes before, being online 99.9% of the time, the OS to do it anyway matters very little to me.
- Good grief, I hadn’t heard about this kind of problem yet. Increasing glad my laptop is too old for it and my Windows volume is still on 10.
  
  edit: though I should add that if it becomes necessary to update to 11, that Tiny11 doesn’t require TPM and has problematic things stripped out, and in a VM it seems to be updating properly without issues.

Microsoft in December 2025: "We'll continue to provide important security updates for Windows 10 customers until 2028."

For a low price of $100 per month... /s
- Naa they'll make it free after a few months, better have a percentage of users running an old version of Windows that is safe than having to deal with the blowback of zero days pilling around.
- Don't need the /s, when they did that for windows 7 it had prices like that
Ah yes the Windows XP model.

Yes, and? The same has been true of previous versions of Windows.

Full disclosure: Haven't read the article yet.

Working in corporate IT, this most likely is targeted toward enterprise customers who either take a long time to roll out OS upgrades or can't due to technical limitations within their environment. In those cases, paying the cost of extended support is more palatable to troubleshooting or rushing mass OS upgrades. This is a fairly common practice with enterprise software vendors.

Edit: Okay, just skimmed it. Looks like this is actually a new program for non-enterprise consumers, which is interesting. First I've heard of that.

First I’ve heard of that.

It is indeed a new thing. For the reasons you've mentioned this was an option for enterprise customers for earlier versions of Windows as well, but this time they are making the option available to home consumers too. I can't really see too many people paying for this though. Those who care will move on to Windows 11 (or whatever is out there by then) and others will simply keep running an unsupported / not updated OS. In all likelihood, MS will keep providing security updates for the latter for free in the end.

I think that in 2025 there will be a huge amount of new Lnux users.

A nice system you have there. Would be a shame if something would happen to it.

I think windows 11 is fine. All the weird hardware I use with my computer always seems to not work how I would like with linux. So linux for my servers windows for desktop.

Microsoft: Making Linux more attractive every year

I don't see a problem with this business model. They're doing work maintaining software they don't want to maintain, so charging for it makes sense. It's surprising to me that Windows doesn't already charge a yearly subscription fee for OS upgrades.

Many people aren't going to pay the annual fee and will keep using Windows 10 without the security patches anyhow, so obviously this will weaken a lot of people's security, but, well... Microsoft needs to make money. And it's not like they need to worry about their customers defecting to another operating system. You can't just download and install macOS on an old Dell machine. If they're going to buy a new computer, it makes sense to get a less expensive one than what Apple's offering, ergo they'll get a new Windows 11 computer.

And if they wanted to and could use Linux...well, they'd already be using it. Overall, I'm completely nonplussed about this announcement. If you weren't going to pay Microsoft money, nothing has changed. If you need a longer support period, you now have an easy option. And hey, there's always the chance Microsoft will backtrack and provide free updates anyway. Especially given the lack of details on pricing, it seems like they're sounding out the idea rather than fully committed to deploying it.

Normally I would retort "But we paid money for it - so they need to support it". However I got my Win10 license by upgrading an XP machine to 7, then to 10. So I guess I didn't pay for it. My other Win10 machine was originally an OEM Win7 license.

But whatever. When they rugpull Win10 I will just complete move to Linux. The only thing holding me back is some industrial software that I use for work and they're in the process of multi-platform support.
- Normally I would retort “But we paid money for it - so they need to support it”
  
  For how long? 15 years? 20? 30? Should they still be supporting Windows 95?
  
  Windows has the longest support period of any commercial operating system. iOS's longest support period for a phone was 8 years, Android is now 8 years for the new PIxel, macOS supports computers for anywhere between 5-10 years, averaging about 7, and Windows 10 will support computers for 10 years. Previous Windows operating systems have supported computers for even longer, but 10 years is still longer than anybody else. I've paid for a few Windows 10 licenses in my time, and I don't think I'll ever pay for another one. I don't use it enough to care about the limitations of unlicensed Windows.
  
  Mind you, we wouldn't even need to be having this conversation if Windows was free software and some other organization took on the duty of maintaining it. That would be a lot less work for Microsoft and keep Windows 10 users happy. While I'm at it, I'd also like a pony.
  
  When they rugpull Win10 I will just complete move to Linux. The only thing holding me back is some industrial software that I use for work and they’re in the process of multi-platform support.
  
  I'd love to do that. I already use Linux for most of my work, but Adobe not being there means I need to fall back to macOS or Windows for some projects. While Photoshop is coming to the web (someday), After Effects and inDesign are unlikely to ever end up there. I can hope, but I'll likely be stuck on one of these other operating systems for a long time to come, I suspect.
  
  Maybe Wine will some day support Adobe's terrible DRM...and maybe hell will freeze over, too.

So this is basically confirmation they're moving entirely into a subscription based model

Wouldn't surprise me if pirates like me somehow kept getting the security updates for free

So this is basically confirmation they're moving entirely into a subscription based model

Ahm no. They are just charging for extended support.
- Nope, in 2026 it tooks W11 with an suscription model. Do you know how to boil a frog? That's the M$ business model.
and MS will give you the watermark