Re: [PLUG] Topic for PLUG North tomorrow -- Goodbye Windows 10

[InterLinked via plug <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>]

On 10/13/2025 12:16 PM, Walt Mankowski via plug wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> As it happens, PLUG North tomorrow night coincides with the final
> official day of support for Windows 10. I'm sure many of us have
> Windows boxes at home doing various things. I keep a cheap old Win10
> netbook for doing ham radio stuff on.
>
> So let's have this be our informal topic for tomorrow night. Some ideas:
>
> * Who has old win10 boxes that are about to fall out of support?
> * What are your plans for them?

I won't be at the meeting, but I'll add my somewhat contrarian 
perspective here:

I continue to run Windows 7 on most of my machines at home, and plan to 
do so indefinitely. Like many folks, I think it was "peak Windows", and 
for a number of reasons that go beyond the most often-talked about ones 
like privacy, bloat, etc. I don't think Linux is a good/feasible 
*workstation* OS or ever will be, at least for me, and I never held any 
dislike for Windows until 8/8.1/10/11. I don't keep up with the current 
changes in hardware capabilities, but my main PC is 15 years old (the 
others as old or older) and I'll keep using it until it stops working, 
at which point I have identical spares I can swap in.

So, I think these rather artificial milestones where Microsoft declares 
"end of support" are rather arbitrary outside of the enterprise (which 
is not what this thread seems to be about anyways). With Windows 11 
being even worse than 10, I imagine some folks will stay on 10 if that 
was the limit of their tolerance, just as I'm staying on 7. IMO, it's 
nobody's business but mine what OS I choose to run, including 
Microsoft's. Just like people are free to use Linux if it works for 
them, I think users should feel free and empowered to use whatever 
software they prefer - it's inextricably linked with the principles of 
user choice and user freedom that are behind things like FOSS (even 
though Windows isn't FOSS, I know). I'm a bit disappointed that there 
aren't more people that don't think Microsoft's timelines should dictate 
their lives - the whole idea that people either have to "upgrade" to a 
supported version of Windows or switch to Linux is a false dichotomy - 
there is a third (and often better) way!

I'm sure people will point out downsides of this approach, mostly 
related to potential security risks, but that doesn't negate this point.

P.S. My views on this apply to most software these days, not just 
operating systems. It seems most large desktop software has been getting 
worse since around 2011/2012 or so - Microsoft Office and Acrobat are 
easy examples that come to mind.


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