Microsoft to test “new features and more” for aging, stubbornly popular Windows 10
Support ends next year, but Windows 10 remains the most-used version of the OS.
Please don't. Just keep providing security updates for an extended time and don't make Win 10 worse with these 'features' that are keeping people away from Win 11.
Just switch to Linux, problem solved.
Sure, will you call the it admin where I work and tell him I'm switching?
I want to switch to Linux just as much as you, but at work I have literally zero influence over this. Private OS choice and enterprise / corporate are very different things, and businesses refusing to switch away from Windows is a very big reason why Microsoft's behaviour lately is a big deal.
Some problems:
I'm not a good UX designer, but my first two rules for anything GUI related are:
Linux, alongside with many other projects in the FOSS community, regularly fail both of these, in favor of scripts, which are fine, but have their own issues. Your average user's average usecase does not involve "very repetitive tasks that are just perfect for some shell scripts".
Another great ploy by Microsoft to increase Linux adoption.
I just dual booted Linux Mint yesterday when I was reminded of the Win 10 end of service date, and hope to keep with it as my main system.
Linux has come a long way with compatibility since I last tried it ~10 years ago. The fact that Steam games ran perfectly without an evening of configuring settings blew my mind.
I set up a second SSD with Bazzite for dual booting, but it's not practical for me to use as a daily driver yet. I have a Nvidia GPU, and the drivers just aren't up to par with their Windows counterparts yet. I could tolerate not having HDR, but also not being able to use 2 monitors with different refresh rates at the same time is killing me.
There's an update in the works that should fix at least the multi-monitor problem, but still no HDR.
I just wiped Windows from my drive yesterday and committed to Fedora after dualbooting for 15 years...I've been maining Fedora for a while and always kept Windows around "just in case", but never actually seemed to need it. This recall/AI spyware was it for me though. Gaming has been a breeze for a while on Fedora/Linux due to Steam/Proton...such a great feeling to finally be completely rid of Windows!
Stubborn? Windows 11 does not support my older hardware. With no other reason to upgrade, I'm not dropping that kind of cash just for Windows 11.
Regardless, I fully migrated to Linux last year.
Bring back support for Windows 7 and Windows 10 will die overnight.
TF do they mean stubbornly popular? My windows 10 works perfectly fine and I have absolutely no reason to change anything about it. What is this weird ass 'if you're not upgrading, you're being stubborn' when there is no reason to and windows 11 looks ass on top of it
Agreed, and I would think XP was the stubbornly popular version. People were on there for years after end of support.
A large amount of people still clinging to Win 10 because the only other (Windows) option is upgrading to 11 doesn't mean it's "popular" so much as it means people want 11 even less than they wanted 10.
Umm maybe it’s stubbornly popular because devices running it can’t be updated. My OG surface book (a Microsoft flagship device for awhile) is great hardware, but can’t update to 11. My gaming laptop is even better hardware but doesn’t meet the win11 requirements. Because they are sealed devices. I literally couldn’t if I wanted to.
... said the stubborn person refusing to upgrade.
I was still on Windows 7 until about four months ago when I needed to upgrade to 10 for work. I totally agree and understand your point
For those who are still on Win 7: Firefox (and so Tor Browser) will stop supporting Win 7 soon. Seriously, you better plan to migrate to Linux. Not-so-good privacy issues aside, everyone knows Windows is not very secure/safe/convenient anyway.
said the stubborn person refusing to upgrade.
You sound like you 100% missed their point.
That's why they want to "update" it. What they really mean is break it...
Windows 10 isn't popular. It's just that windows 11 is crap in comparison. Release an OS that isn't predicated on what's good for ad revenue and Microsoft's bottom line and everyone will upgrade.
Good god one drive is so fucking invasive in 11
It's pretty annoying in 10 too. I had a big scratch folder on my desktop and one day it decided to start syncing with one drive after a restart and one of those setup/welcome like screens.
one drive is so fucking invasive in 11
Which one? C? I think you can change it!
Microsoft made a big mistake with Windows 10: it basically works fine.
That's when an operating system is supposed to do. They make mistakes when they make it worse. Usually, the operating system starts worse and eventually gets tolerable. That happened with Windows 10. Initial versions were far inferior to Windows 7, but now it's at a pretty good state. Windows 11 is a pile of fucking garbage. There is no compelling feature in Windows 11 that would make anyone want to upgrade. There are compelling reasons not to upgrade, such as advertising, menus that require more clicks to get the same shit done, forced use of Microsoft account, etc.
There's also the fact that Windows 11 refuses to run unless you have a handful of specific hardware in your computer, such as TPM 2.0, and a relatively modern processor. There is no technical reason for this requirement, it was discovered very early on that if you override the check it will install and run just fine. But Microsoft seems determined to get people to throw away their older but still perfectly good computers.
That is a very big part of why Windows 10 is still so popular. If you have a computer from six or seven years ago that you've upgraded once or twice, it's probably still perfectly good. No reason to throw it away for Windows 11 when you can keep on trucking with Windows 10.
I was at a win 95 launch event for pc sellers back in the msdos era. Microsoft sales pitch was "put windows on the comps you sell and we guarantee your customers will keep coming back for upgrades". Shit hasn't changed 30 years later.
Same was said about Windows 7 as people protested the switch to Windows 10. New telemetry, aggressively forced updates, and other factors made Windows 10 a nightmare for many. Yet now, when Windows 11 is even worse, people start thinking of Windows 10 the way they thought of Windows 7.
Essentially, Microsoft can make Windows worse and worse for as long as the previous iteration is better and people got used to it.
That is exactly how I felt back then. Waited as long as possible to switch to 10 from 7 but then got used to it. Honestly I still think 7 was better. But no fucking way I'm switching to 11 with the way things are going at Microsoft.
Usually Microsoft would have 1 good release then 1 release that is shit. Seems like it'll be straight shit from now on.
That's what they'll try to end now with buggy feature bloat shoehorned in.
They just want to make w10 as bad if not worse than w11. Because they want people say: I might as well use w11.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I can enable some TMP in my bios to give me "windows 11 compatibility" but I have no reason to do so. If I could chill on Windows 7 forever I would
Tamper module proof
Better than a Toilet Paper Module.
So they're ending support but will use the remaining users like test guinea pigs.
Great...
This is called the "RedHat CentOS" strategy
So no change whatsoever then? Ever since it released windows 10 patch testing has been "release to end user and see what the complaints are."
Well it's only Windows that's complaining it can't install Windows 11 on my Windows 10 laptop. I'm not mothballing perfectly good hardware just because Microsoft is having a tantrum.
Remember to switch to Linux once it reaches end of life so you don’t risk your security
win 11 adoption must be pretty bad if they have to do their new features beta testing on win 10 (which should be on a security updates/show-stopper bugfix only policy by now) instead.
Windows 11 adoption to business customers is really bad. Most of the adoption to 11 has been from people purchasing new home computers and being stuck with 11 (I have two win 11 computers now).
Since the bulk of Microsoft's revenue comes from business customers, they have a huge impact on decisions.
At this point the only decision Microsoft can make is to write off win 11 as a failue. Resuming feature upgrades to win 10 makes business sense.
My company basically said they're only going to update if they absolutely have to. IT and management are aligned for the first time in my entire career. There's been talks of switching entirely to Linux and Mac. Microsoft really fucked up.
Its not that 10 is more popular, its that 10 is less jacked up. Start jacking 10 and we'll all go back to 7
Start jacking up 10 and we'll all go to Linux
Millions already have
Not 8?
If you wanna go 8, go ape
Is there a commonly accepted reason why Microsoft makes these big releases so different?
AFAIK macOS has relatively minor changes, in terms of UI/UX, from release to release (look at screenshots of the original OS X vs. the current macOS version). And Linux is entirely dependent on distro, but for me it's just "has i3wm changed drastically? No? Great!"
My guess is that Windows just does it because they need folks to upgrade, and that's the only tool they have to force people's hands...
It's a direct result of their corporate culture.
MS has different teams competing with each other, and keeping something running well for years won't get you noticed for a promotion.
You have to do something new to get ahead, preferably more so than the other team working next to you . So that's what everyone at MS is trying to do.
This is why there are multiple Teams apps, multipe Skype apps, multiple current Office versions and multiple Microsoft login portals side by side now.
It's why Outlook licensing has a different backend than all other Office apps.
It's why there are several Windows development branches running in parallel, and several different systems handling updates.
It's why there's a dozen different overlapping M365 admin portals that keep changing their UI, and settings keep getting moved around between them.
It makes absolutely no sense for the end user, but it makes sense inside MS' internal corporate structure.
For PC gamers Linux is the only alternative but I don't expect a major migration. The last ten years have shown that the average gamer is willing to accept a lot of hostile behaviour from companies as long as they are able to keep playing their games. Microtransactions, Loot boxes, kernel level anticheat, and broken buggy releases haven't killed that industry yet. Windows 11 is just another thing that will be loudly complained about in gamer circles but not much will come of it.
and yes, I know they are both based off Linux.
maybe pedantic, but macos is actually bsd based. chromeos being based off of actual linux(gentoo) is what has allowed them to slowly open it up to the point where you can actually install regular linux apps on it
I thought Google announced Chrome OS is dead. Don't disagree with your other points though. Chrome is fantastic for somebody just needing something to check their email.
What is stopping anyone from selling a laptop with linux on it and as little support as they do for windows ?
Nothing, and so they do. Dell will sell you an XPS 13 with Ubuntu installed. Lenovo will let you select Ubuntu or fedora in some models. System76 and Tuxedo will sell you a bunch of laptops only with Linux. Starlabs sells Linux laptops. KDE sells a laptop. Purism sells Linux laptops.
Did you just assume no one sells a Linux laptop?
Probably a sad attempt at adding “shiny” features to get people to upgrade to 11 once updates are no longer published for 10?
“We’ll get people hooked on these shiny features, 90% of which are not interesting. Then we’ll pull the update rug from under them. And bingo, they’ll upgrade!!”
Probably more like, “we’ll make Windows 10 indistinguishable from Windows 11, at which point people will have no reason to stick with Windows 10” (unless their computers can’t update to Windows 11, like my laptop)
Or maybe I’m just showing that I know nothing about how updates work and that I perhaps shouldn’t be commenting in a technology community…
They're going to add things that make it worse and slower until you finally get fed up with it.
Your last paragraph probably applies to me too.
Can I opt out?
it's Microsoft so probably not unless corporate account. You know the other solution.
I'll just jump ship completely and use my Linux install 100% of the time. If I need to use a more mainstream OS for some stupid reason I'll just use my Mac.
Only reason I need Windows is for Flight Simulator. If it weren’t for that I’d be on Linux for sure.
Linux is still not there for gaming, that's what holds back most of the people who bitch about windows. People who just use windows to browse and do spreadsheets they don't care.
Gaming is absolutely there, if you want to say something about anti cheat and whatnot that's fair, but my gamescope enabled, AMD fsr utilizing arch install is performance parity to Windows 10, if not more performant. I'm not giving up that performance gain for an insanely small handful of games. You do you I guess.
I think PC gamers tend to overestimate their importance in OS distribution these days - gaming on Linux is just as passable these days as on Mac, and there's much more to PC use than only gaming for 90% of users.
I feel that PC use is more complicated than gamers/productivity - but having switched over full time this year, Linux clearly has some work to do so the average user doesn't need to touch the terminal - but even compared to 10 years ago its infinitely more capable and user friendly.
Customers of paid software need to start either voting with their feet meaningfully, or lobbying to get software support on Linux if they want it - complaining that titles aren't available for Linux and then continuing to suffer through windows instead of making that known to the devs is seen exactly the same way - a sale.
I certainly miss some windows only software - but I'm not going to be held captive anymore for programmes I paid for, that refuse to consider my needs, when they are a part of my wider usage and expectations.
It is malware, not software.
How much you wanna bet Recall gets added to Win10 as well?
Oh man, I obviously don't want that, because there's gonna be companies and organizations and whatnot handling my data with a non-hardened Windows 10, but I'd still grab some popcorn and watch all the security and data protection people explode.
Windows 10 as is, was already a massive shitshow. The German Federal Office for Information Security started a guide for hardening Win10 and they very deliberately chose a name that would abbreviate to SySiPHuS, because I imagine, they never expected to see the end of it.
Now, that end would be in order, at the very least, because the worse Win11 should be taking over. And to then have Microsoft chip in a new massive security hole, making them update their guides and all the hardened systems once more, that certainly has some incendiary potential. 🙃
No you shut your whore mouth.
Some of us rely on windows only software and dont have the option to run linux or other OS's
Backporting the ads?
Co pilot? Please leave that garbage off my pc
The "and more" is the worrying part. They're telling us that some of the things they are adding are not 'features'. So then what are they?
Ads, probably. That's the trend these days. More and more ads, in everything, everywhere - just really probing the limits of tolerability.
And AI, screenshots
Is one of those "features" CoPilot? Because I did a search for it on my Windows 10 installation, and found several small bits of it, including a directory called "Microsoft CoPilot." It looks like a placeholder for a full installation, later on. I'm guessing Office 365 put it there.
It's almost like they're trying to make people switch to Linux and kill PC gaming altogether. Luckily gaming on Linux has come pretty far.
I was a late switcher as I had to wait for gaming support. Once I saw what the steam deck was doing and how amazing proton is, I pulled the trigger. It gets better all the time too, sounds like Nvidia users are finally gonna be getting proper Wayland in like less than a month too! It's been so smooth I was able to convince my wife to use it too. She LOVES Minecraft and after I showed her Prism Launcher she was sold.
My set up comfortably plays cyberpunk at dead fancy settings, but doesn't meet the system requirements for windows 11.
Yeah, I'm going to rub out windows 10 as long as I can (although I dual boot Debian anyway).
That's why it is stubbonky popular.
rub out Windows 10
Whatever is your kink, bro.
I mean, I did mean run but also, yes, windows 10 is hot AF.
They're going to make it shit so you're forced to go to 11, or the much better alternative if it's an option for you.
No... we're good...
Windows is not a serious OS anymore.
I'm not stubborn, I'm just not going to accept a worse version of what I've already got.
let's just go back to windows 8
Please no. I didn't upgrade to Windows 11 on purpose. I'm just trying to hold out as long as I can until I'm forced to switch to Linux. I don't want to have to deal with more enshittification in the meantime.
Windows laptops generally get trashy battery life, and if this going to tank it further, I'd just run Linux full-time on my family laptop and call it a day.
The only reason we had windows was my wife's comfortability and sometimes zoom glitches out on linux.
You have any tips? My power consumption on battery is ~30% higher on linux than they were on windows
Buy laptops with better Linux support.
Unfortunately for us, Windows 10 is stubbornly popular because we dont want the new features.
(We also dont want a new CPU just to upgrade).
I recently had to roll back a windows 10 update because as soon as I installed it all of my startup programs stopped starting up at launch. As soon as I removed it, the problem went away.
No Microsoft, you cannot ruin my Win 10 experience to coerce me into migrating. It's gonna be a long annoying fight.
I mean, they kinda already did if you can't update it anymore.
Not really. I haven't looked into why it caused the issue it did. Presumably it is not actually intentional by MS, and there is some conflict going on that's causing it. I'll eventually get around to trying to let it install that update again, but life has been busy :)
What's funny is right at launch I would have seriously considered upgrading, but I'm on second gen Ryzen and that platform was deemed not new enough at the time. Now they've added a bunch of BS and even though I think they've removed the restriction I'm over the new shiny thing and am looking heavily into a full linux setup.
I too considered upgrading but there were months and months of botched updates, so I restraint myself and later found out there's zero benefit for upgrading.
First gen Ryzen user here, switched the TPM flag in the registry and Windows 11 works just fine, updates smoothly too.
Though I'm on Linux most of the time, which strongly limits the exposure I get to the system.
🐧
Hopefully they will at least not shove things into the packages that ship to LTSC updates as well. They did that with a cloud backup app awhile ago and it pissed a ton of people off.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
And last November, Microsoft decided to release a fairly major batch of Windows 10 updates that introduced the Copilot chatbot and other changes to the aging operating system.
Per usual for Windows Insider builds, Microsoft may choose not to release all new features that it tests, and new features will be released for the public version of Windows 10 "when they're ready."
One thing this new beta program doesn't change is the end-of-support date for Windows 10, which Microsoft says is still October 14, 2025.
Microsoft says that joining the beta program doesn't extend support.
Beta program or no, we still wouldn't expect Windows 10 to change dramatically between now and its end-of-support date.
We'd guess that most changes will relate to the Copilot assistant, given how aggressively Microsoft has moved to add generative AI to all of its products.
The original article contains 445 words, the summary contains 140 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I've got Win 10 and it works fine. I have no reason to upgrade to Win 11. If any new 'feature' gets added to Win 10, I will disable it.
windows is now just a joke.
embrace the windows 7
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