Windows 10 quietly gets one more year of support and updates
neowin.net245 points by bundie a day ago
245 points by bundie a day ago
Anyone who still needs to run Windows 10 for whatever reason should switch over to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 (version 21H2) which will continue to receive security updates up through 2032.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/rel...
This is bad advice that is being repeated over and over by the so called tech influencers. You go to an older version that only got security updates so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10. And for the foreseeable future you gain nothing at all. If one day the normal version acctually stops reviving security updates, it almost certainly will be possible to switch the update channel to LTSC and get the LTSC updates that way but for now this is not needed and the switch is unnecessary Also without some trickery, switching to LTSC requires a complete reinstallation, which for most people likely wasting sever hours.
> so you will lack optimizations and features already in the current stable windows 10
Windows gets worse with each update, so this is actually a plus.
There are no update, windows 10 is EOL since months and even before that it did not receive any real updates in a long time. The current version is stable and gets only security updates just like LTSC. There is no point to switch, at best its a waste of time and worst you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.
> you could run into issues with software that expects home/pro and not LTSC.
That's a laughably ignorant statement for how windows app development works. Raymond Chen weeps on reading your comment. Enterprise edition is a strict superset in functionality over Home/Pro, and LTSC just adds longer support.
Enterprise IoT just comes with Windows Store components sitting dormantly, which you can promptly activate with `wsreset -i` and it's then identical with consumer editions (other than TikTok and Candy Crush not being forcibly reinstalled after every "feature update") where you can install apps from the Windows Store as needed or just use winget instead.
Enterprise IoT LTSC is just Enterprise IoT with longer support.
There is literally and strictly no downside with using IoT LTSC, especially with the combination of official Rufus + MAS to install from official ISOs.
Actually, with MAS, you can also just download the IoT LTSC iso to perform an in-place upgrade that keeps all your existing Windows Store apps and program installs etc., just follow https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol#upgrade-windows-10-home-...
If you would acctually read the comment(s) then you'd understand that SWITCHING has no upside, all your arguments are irrelevant there is no point in wasting time to switch the OS version especially not if you need a full reinstallation. And whether you like it or not there are bad coded software out in the real world that do not work on LTSC they will just error out saying this is not a supported version of windows. To fix this you have to regedit your LTSC installation to pretend to be a normal installation. A hassle no sane person would recommend for absolutely zero benefit.
If you would actually read the comment then you'd see the mention of in-place upgrades instead of complete reinstall. There is no drawback of hassle with in-place upgrades as everything on you system is kept as-is, and it takes about the same time as a typical windows cumulative update if not less due to pre-downloading the files.
And instead of unbased hypotheticals perhaps you can point to even a single example of normie software that check for editions of windows as a result of bad coding rather than user-hostile intent? To do so you'd need to go out of your way to hack together undocumented corners instead of the path of least resistance of calling GetVersion() as would be characteristic of lazy coding.
Very untrue for gaming in particular.
For example, if you have an OLED or mini-LED monitor, you really don’t want to be on Windows 10 and miss out on HDR.
And sure, you can say “well nobody has an OLED monitor,” but I’d remind everyone that OLED displays have been pretty much standard on every gaming laptop mid-range and higher for a decent amount of time now.
A lot of the focus for Windows 11 development has been gaming performance and feature improvements. Game developers are also less and less likely over time to bother testing with Windows 10.
Most people are in fact not gamers. Like.. at all. And even those that are probably don't own an OLED or mini-LED monitor.
Most people just want a computer that does the word, the chrome and that's about it.
There are over 900 million PC gamers in the world.
PCs have 43% marketshare in the total game console market. Yes, that includes marketshare against the Nintendo Switch.
There’s a bit of a bubble of non-gaming in this forum, but gaming is definitely a top use case for PCs.
Just walk into your local Best Buy in the laptop section and count up how many of the laptops are marketed as gaming systems. That should give you a rough idea of how many systems are purchased with gaming as the primary intent.
Sure, HDR is a niche at this point in time, but technologies like OLED and mini LED are increasingly common. If you buy a gaming laptop in 2026 at most reasonable price points it’s very likely to have an OLED monitor.
Example: Legion 5a Gen 11 AMD, price on Lenovo’s site is $1500, has an OLED monitor. You can buy OLED gaming monitors below $500 nowadays, so a lot of people upgrading have that as their next upgrade path…if not today, then tomorrow.
On that subject, most people just use the copy of Windows that comes with the computer, so the whole debate about Windows 10 is perhaps not worth having in the first place. Microsoft most likely just misjudged the pace of hardware replacement especially in the AI era where computer sales have slowed.
What is this 7-paragraph OLED talk about?
I can plug an OLED display to a fricking Windows XP system with a Maxwell GPU and it'll work perfectly fine as long as it has a goddamn HDMI port. Has nothing to do with OS support.
I guess you missed the part where they’re talking about HDR?
Yes, the monitor will work but if you want to take full advantage of the panels you enable HDR.
No I didn't. I intentionally only wrote just OLED because it doesn't have anything to do with HDR not it requires any special support and it doesn't make any fucking sense why they included it along with HDR.