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During a Dell earnings call, the company mentioned some staggering numbers regarding the amount of PCs that will not or cannot be upgraded to Windows 11.
"We have about 500 million of them capable of running Windows 11 that haven't been upgraded," said Dell COO Jeffrey Clarke on a Q3 earnings call earlier this week, referring to the overall PC market, not just Dell's slice of machines. "And we have another 500 million that are four years old that can't run Windows 11." He sees this as an opportunity to guide customers towards the latest Windows 11 machines and AI PCs, but warns that the PC market is going to be relatively flat next year.
↫ Tom Warren at The Verge
The monumental scale of the Windows 10 install base that simply won't or cannot upgrade to Windows 11 is massive, and it's absolutely bonkers to me that we're mostly just letting them get away with leaving at least a billion users out in the cold when it comes to security updates and bug fixes. The US government (in better times) and the EU should've 100% forced Microsoft's hand, as leaving this many people on outdated, unsupported operating system installations is several disasters waiting to happen.
Aside from the dangerous position Microsoft is forcing its Windows 10 users into, there's also the massive environmental and public health impact of huge swaths of machines, especially in enterprise environments, becoming obsolete overnight. Many of these will end up in landfills, often shipped to third-world countries so we in the west don't have to deal with our e-waste and its dangerous consequences directly. I can get fined for littering – rightfully so – but when a company like Microsoft makes sweeping decisions which cause untold amounts of dangerous chemicals to be dumped in countless locations all over the globe, governments shrug it off and move on.
At least we will get some cheap eBay hardware out of it, I guess.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:48AM (21 children)
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 is still supported till 2032.
So that's what I'm using and moving other Win 10 stuff to.
Windows 11 is clearly not production ready, at least not by my standards.
https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-admits-major-windows-11-25h2-ui-features-broken-too-alongside-24h2-on-some-pcs/ [neowin.net]
https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-cant-fix-windows-11-wont-stop-breaking-it/ [xda-developers.com]
https://www.windowslatest.com/2025/11/30/microsoft-says-ai-agents-are-risky-but-its-moving-ahead-with-the-plan-on-windows-11/ [windowslatest.com]
"Desktop Linux" isn't ready either - it's about as crap as Win 11 just differently crap. The server stuff is fine/great.
Maybe after 2032 I'd have to use "Desktop Linux".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday December 03 2025, @01:02PM (5 children)
I want to get hold of Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021, but I believe it is made deliberately difficult for private individuals to get a legitimate copy. As far as I can tell, it is for sale to businesses, in minimum bundles of 5 or 10 (I forget which) - at least, in my jurisdiction.
I would like to get it for several of my close relatives but how?
Also, 'upgrading' an existing Windows installation to Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 while keeping programs and data looks less than trivial.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:19PM (2 children)
Does this work for you?
https://digitallicense.shop/windows-10-enterprise-iot-ltsc-2021/ [digitallicense.shop]
https://www.cdw.com/product/ms-win-10-iot-ent-ltsc-2021/7574182 [cdw.com]
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday December 03 2025, @07:08PM (1 child)
Thanks for that. I shall investigate. I need at least 3 licences, possibly 4 or 5, so that link to the Estonian company looks promising.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:19PM
You might want to check this out:
https://www.keysfan.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=windows+iot [keysfan.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by epitaxial on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:20PM
Who cares about legit? Just head over to massgrave.dev and run the activation scripts.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday December 03 2025, @08:43PM
Note the difference between "Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021" and "Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021":
( https://massgrave.dev/windows10_eol [massgrave.dev] along with various cons and pros of the different editions and activation scripts if you can't get a copy legitimately / semi-legitimately through an unlicensed dealer )
compiling...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by turgid on Wednesday December 03 2025, @01:41PM (3 children)
"Desktop Linux" isn't ready either - it's about as crap as Win 11 just differently crap. The server stuff is fine/great.
Itchy chin.
My retired boomer parents are doing just fine with Linux Mint Cinnamon Edition [linuxmint.com]. It's been two years now and I think I've been asked for help about twice since I installed it for them, and then that was just to tell them to what to put into a search engine to find what they needed.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:08PM
The desktop stuff that Windows does better than Linux often doesn't work so well in Windows in a VM (talking to GPUs and other proprietary hardware).
Whereas the stuff that Linux does better than Windows, often works fine in Linux in a VM.
Except perhaps for RAID and SSD caching. I think that one Linux does better than Windows.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aafcac on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:19PM (1 child)
I personally believe that thanks to the idiotic way that MS keeps radically changing the way their GUI works that a Linux distro based on roughly the same paradigm that was used from Win XP to Win 7 would be an easier transition for those sorts than going to a more recent release of Windows where a bunch of stuff was changed for no particular reason with no particular consideration paid for migrating users to newer versions. If you choose something sensible like Linux Mint, the amount of learning needed to do just basic stuff is pretty minimal and you're still able to grow into something more flexible if you really want to.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04 2025, @10:00AM
I put Lubuntu on an old laptop and gave it to my dad about 8 years ago. He fine with it and it's still running. All he needs is a browser, really, and everything has auto-updates turned on and it just keeps working.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snospar on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:08PM (1 child)
I'd argue that Desktop Linux is a huge improvement over any Windows. I started using Linux back in 1998 and things were tough: Lack of hardware support or system constraints often meant compiling a custom kernel; Lack of good package management frequently meant dependency hell; Support for gaming was almost non-existent.
Now in 2025 all those issues have disappeared. Modern hardware comes with Linux support almost out of the factory. PC specs are pushed ever upward by bloated Windows so running Linux on the same hardware is a resource paradise. There are a huge choice of distros and almost all have excellent package management with a vast array of software available (who needs the original Windows software when native tools are available). Gaming has come on leaps and bounds with things like Wine/Proton making it trivial to run most AAA games without any tweaks and they run better on Linux because you're not wasting resources on e.g. telemetry, windows update, anti-malware etc.
I don't see any "crap" there.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:33PM
Linus Torvalds on why desktop Linux sucks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzl1B7nB9Kc [youtube.com]
Still true many years after the video. That's why you still have so many crappy ways of packaging stuff on Linux Flatpak, Snap, etc. Hurray for bloat and trying to compete with Windows Store for crappiness.
And that's just one aspect.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 03 2025, @03:43PM (4 children)
My experience with desktop Linux:
- Install is pretty easy, takes maybe 15-20 minutes which is good enough for OS+bunch of useful applications.
- Everything that comes with your distro Just Works. This includes good alternatives to a lot of expensive Windows applications.
- Snaps handle a lot of stuff that doesn't come with your distro well enough.
- More works well under Wine than you might expect.
So why do you describe it as "isn't ready"? What exactly do you need that doesn't work?
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pTamok on Wednesday December 03 2025, @07:13PM
One of the things that doesn't work are screen readers for people with visual impairments. Windows is just so much better than Linux for this particular niche requirement.
Unless you have long expertise in this area, please don't comment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 03 2025, @09:24PM (1 child)
How well does online meeting software work in Linux?
My customers (giant companies) mostly use MS-Teams and I use the browser version in Firefox ESR (on Win 7 Pro). Once I tried using the Teams download and that caused some instability in Win 7, so I don't do that anymore. It's still possible to login to Teams using 2FA, using a Google Voice account for the text message (I don't have a smart phone). However, more and more customers want MS-Authenticator which has been disastrous for one of my associates--not only did it quit working but all attempts to restore the phone and try a fresh version of Authenticator have failed.
I also use Zoom, again the browser version, which has some limitations (only share browser tabs, not windows opened by other programs.)
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 04 2025, @12:56PM
Zoom [zoom.us] works pretty well on Linux, in my experience.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by Bentonite on Thursday December 04 2025, @05:29AM
The perceived problems are that;
- GNU/Linux isn't 100% proprietary software (GNU rather exists to grant the user freedom by replacing all proprietary software) - although ironically how Linux is in fact proprietary software and all the proprietary software distro's ship, advertised as a feature, works towards that goal.
- Every last proprietary program doesn't run without fail (even though most problems are caused by proprietary sabotage to prevent execution with WINE and how windows often has issues running proprietary programs is ignored) - arguably it is a feature if proprietary software refuses to run, on what should be a free system.
- There's far more GNU than Linux and there are people who dare to say the f word - freedom (no matter how many times an error is repeated doesn't make it the truth - it's mostly the GNU system and Linux is merely the kernel).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Wednesday December 03 2025, @11:22PM (3 children)
"Maybe after 2032 I'd have to use "Desktop Linux"."
Microsoft and their agents in Linux will have completed their systemd subversion by then. Turning Linux into another enshitified OS controlled by them. So good luck with that idea. I am thinking the *BSDs are the way to go here damn soon giving up on my twenty-six years of Linux use.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Wednesday December 03 2025, @11:38PM (2 children)
BSD's are great if your hardware is supported. If not, there are still Linux distributions that use alternatives to systemd, e.g. Void Linux suits my purposes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RedGreen on Thursday December 04 2025, @01:46AM (1 child)
"there are still Linux distributions that use alternatives to systemd, e.g. Void Linux suits my purposes. "
Yes I know this, I tried the Void but could not get past the lack of detail shown in it. Everything you install you have to figure out some sane defaults for the configuration. This lead me back to my favourite of all time Linux distros Debian which does do that for you, I use the Devuan flavour of it to get rid of the garbage systemd problem. I also do not like most other of the systemd less distros as they are all rolling release packages upgraded all of the time/compiling every damn thing in sight to get it done. I really have until 2030 I think it is for Trixie support to run out so plenty of time to figure out what I want to do. That is if them people at Devuan keep it going for that long, been ten years or so now so it should be good. You never know how it will go in the open source world so always nice to have backup plan just in case.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Thursday December 04 2025, @03:57PM
Devuan (and Debian) are solid reliable choices. If what I'm doing were more critically important I'd probably use one of them as a backup.