Microsoft not changing its stance on windows 10 support is dangerous

The Water Cooler
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Sorry if this is not related to linux, but its so dangerous.

Many pc’s can’t upgrade to WIndows 11. Sure, we can convince some people to switch to linux instead, but many don’t know how to.

And, with an estimated 400 million windows 10 pc’s inelligible(also older windows versions), this could create a huge landfill of computers that will make the environment worse than before.

Yes, i know there is this non-profit organization that sent a petition, but microsoft just replied today(or yesterday or tommorow in your time zone depending on where you live), that the WIndows 10 support cycle will be unchanged.

So, we can do two things: Promote Linux in developing countries, as that is where the biggest source of e-waste is suspected to come from, or we collect many pc’s that can’t run Windows 11 that don’t have an owner anymore.

I would go for the first option, as we are already seeing the rise of Linux in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, India and Greece.

If you need a spare pc, then you can go with the second option.

Overall, Microsft’s decision with windows 10 is a very, very dangerous decision.

What will you do in 2025? Will you convince your family and friends to switch to linux? Or will you decide to rescue those pc’s on your own?

Please share your opinions.

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In first, please if you’re going to spread news, do it with sources. Taking the news from Microsoft’s learn website there is still 2 years before the Windows 10’s EOS.

And for us, there is nothing to do, we continue promoting Fedora Linux as the great distribution it is. It’s a great option for people coming from Windows, but we also have other competitors (in the marketing sense), but at the end, we are all linux.

In my personal case, I will do nothing extraordinary, I will continue as I am now.

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Here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-we-are-maximizing-value-in-windows-10-7dca25fa-be2f-492d-b99c-bf3342be7037

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Unpopular opinion: By requiring TPM 2.0 in Windows 11, Microsoft is doing the Linux community a solid favour as many people will now consider installing Linux on systems that cannot upgrade. They get to push good security posture in their OS while boosting Linux market share. Win win.

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Like your perspective there.

What i can say is like i said before is linux will continue to increase in developing countries.

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And as they said, that’s still 2 years away yet. Doesn’t remotely impact us here, outside of more Windows users using more suitable operating systems for them.

What i can say is like i said before is linux will continue to increase in developing countries

That’s always been the case and always will be, regardless of what choices Microsoft make.

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Pretty much, but I can guarantee at some point they’ll backtrack and a percentage will sadly sprint back.

But every day Linux gets more and more average user friendly, so who knows where we’ll be in 2 years.

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You can always inform your friends and family, that Microsoft, themselves, now provide instructions on how to install Linux

While you’re having this conversation, explain to them that old Windows is the only non-unix-like system left (Apple macOS, Apple iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and of course, Linux, are all unix or unix-like OS’s), and that it makes sense to make the switch, considering even Microsoft themselves have.

Lastly, you can inform them that Microsoft 365 (Office 365) now supports Linux (and Firefox too, by the way) and that they can even keep their Microsoft Edge browser, which also now has Linux edition.

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Some linux user groups used to hold events to introduce linux and show participants how to create and use a Live Linux distro. I think COVID-19 put an end to such events, so we need new ways to get people to try Linux without installing it on their current Windows systems.

WSL2 is another way current Windows 10 users can try linux (WSL2 can now run Wayland GUI apps). There are many online guides and You Tube videos on WSL2 installation, but most are aimed users already familiar with the Linux command-line. Good examples: The Complete WSL 2 Beginner Guide, Windows Subsystem for Linux setup WSL2 Systemd, Ansible, and Kubernetes.

Fedora is not in the list of distros, but Linux for Devices: install Fedora on WSL2.

There is now wslg that supports Wayland.

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That sounds like nothing compared to number of systems still runnning all between Win ME to win and number of IoT devices world-wide, connected to internet, that won’t ever receive an update or security fix (most are even unable to do so)

While unfortunate for the users (as majority of steps Windows took in the past decade, in my opinion) I’d argue that most of the hardware will become unusable before (or shortly after) that time, if it continues to run Windows.
Sadly, today’s laptops and phones have expected life-span of just a few years.

Without abilities that Linux offers - selecting lightweight distro + DE that suits the hardware - the end users were doomed one way or another.

It would be impossible to decently run 15 laptops that are 5-15 years old with Windows. (half of the machines has: intel duo / intel pentium / intel core 2 CPUs) I do it easily with Fedora, and I even can afford to run heavy DE like Cinnamon, instead of lightweight ones, on most of them. Thanks to the core system being slim and fast on its own.

So the only difference is IMO that somebody is talking about this - at least for a moment. (while IoT devices being ignored, despite many people trying to spread awareness, on conferences etc.)

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There are a very large percentage of industrial use HMI screens and industrial PC’s currently part of manufacturing and processes around the world that use Win ME. A number of the large OEM manufacturers of Industrial Controls use Win ME as the OS for some of their OI offerings.

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I followed those instrustions and installed fedora-39 on wsl.
Did a bunch of dnf installs and a bit of admin to add a non-root user.

I was delighted to see that when I install my Barry’s Emacs it just-worked and the GUI Window poped up.

Pity there is no systemd available in the WSL setup.

However it is great to have all the fedora user tools when I do have to do dev work on Windows.

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Systemd is available in WSL2 – I’m using it in Debian. I did have Fedora in WSL1 for a while, but ran out of space (my projects need 90GB for the WSL “disk”).

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Having read more background I see that it is possible, as you found, to have systemd working in WSL.
But the instructions at WSL2 - Install Fedora on Windows 10/11 - LinuxForDevices do not do enough to setup systemd.

There is the Fedora remix for WSL in the Microsoft Windows App Store (£8.39) that has systemd working.
The code for that App is on github with readme’s and build instructions.
Which is here GitHub - WhitewaterFoundry/Fedora-Remix-for-WSL: Fedora Remix for Windows Subsystem for Linux.

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This link reinforce my message: October 2025 it the EOL. And again, we don’t have to do nothing

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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake

Not that Microsoft is an enemy, per se :wink:

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Yes. I have a friend who works for a pharmaceutical company. They have an old PC that runs some mission critical application on an old computer on Windows 3.11. Basically if anyone reboots it, they’re immediately fired.