https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/rel...
Windows gets worse with each update, so this is actually a plus.
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-...
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.
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 just want a computer that does the word, the chrome and that's about it.
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.
And how much does that cutting edge tech truly matter for the core game experience. I think the steam hardware survey might have some answers there and can tell us for which level of hardware currently developed games are being optimized for.
And that's just the currently developed ones. Not the massive backlog that existed before OLED or microLED HDR screens.
Tiny group. Tiny.
___
Btw, super lame to try to improve your argument after the fact with edits, but, well. Anyway.
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
The cutting edge tech does improve the core experience. Quite a lot. You do have to have the money for it, though, and like anything else, diminishing returns on investment.
Steam hardware survey shows Windows 11 gained 2% this month over Windows 10. That’s a significant rate of change.
I recognize that you don’t like my use of edits, however, they are part of this platform and I’m not using them to diss anyone or engage in any kind of negative conversation. Just trying to make my point and support it.
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.
Yes, the monitor will work but if you want to take full advantage of the panels you enable HDR.
https://www.demandsage.com/most-played-games-right-now/
Some of it is unclear about multi-platform splits and mobile gaming but I don’t think I’m incredibly far off.
Gamers across all platform estimated at over 3 billion: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/number-of-gamers
I think my mom playing Wordle on her smartphone does indeed make her a gamer.
It's a lot more useful though when words have meaning and we take them seriously, otherwise nothing really makes sense.
Humans by their very nature use games to pass time and stimulate their mind and body, it's one of the most universal things about us.
That game of Wordle my mom plays once per day is probably what keeps her paying a subscription to NYT. That's real money. She'd probably drop the subscription otherwise.
NYT sells a games-only subscription for $50/year, $80/year per family. I think NYT executives would be happy to consider someone who plays games for 5 minutes per day or even 5 minutes per week a gamer.
I actually left Windows to fix driver stability, which worked and did the trick. I couldn’t play Indiana Jones without crashing.
I should have maybe been more clear (grandparent to your comment) that I didn’t mean to be out defending Windows or anything like that. I migrated away from Windows this year.
I just find that the arguments for sticking to Windows 10 are super weak and overstated. Windows 11 is a decent OS and a clear improvement over 10, in my opinion. It’s just that for me, Linux is now better.
Makes sense, yeah. Nice talking to you.
I don’t personally own a monitor capable of HDR but if I had one I would prioritize it a little more, and in my case, I migrated to Linux to resolve specific graphics driver problems. Getting my games to work at all was more important than HDR.
I also recognize that laptops are generally more popular than desktops and OLED is far more common in that form factor. So when I talked about what gamers in general should prioritize regarding running windows 10 versus 11, I figure that many of them have laptops that therefore have OLED monitors capable of HDR.
Also, I was only using HDR as a single example of the gaming enhancements that Windows 11 has, we don’t have to dwell on that one in particular. We could talk about support for enhanced polling rate mice, or better windowed fullscreen, or better VRR.
Letting people get away with that has led to the unpleasant state of the internet we have now and mild correction simply doesn't work.
Hence I've pointed at the exact holes/fault lines. Nothing personal. I wish you a lot of fun gaming on linux.
It seems like you’ve been mostly focused on proving me wrong and that’s why the conversation didn’t go the way you wanted it to go. I actually even agreed with you about some stuff, like the fact that most gamers don’t have cutting edge hardware.
I suggest that there are ways in which you contributed to the negative aspects of this interaction. Conversations are a two way street!
My HDR monitor is connected to my Windows 10 machine and the HDR switch in settings is on and my monitor reports it is getting HDR
What am I supposedly missing?
Not that Windows 10 is wildly deficient in these areas, but it has a lot of improvements with display settings and capabilities in general. In my experience with the Windows 11 display settings, it’s an overall big improvement, and I do kind of miss it now that I’m on Linux (e.g., setting up virtual displays with Apollo streaming so that client game stream devices have their own separate display settings per-device was a breeze thanks to the excellent way Windows handles and configures unique sets of attached displays.)
Unlike high refresh rates, 1440p resolution, and variable refresh rates that all were so clearly steps above my previous, 60hz basic HD display that I regretted not being an early adopter, HDR has been an immense letdown.
I can't even tell if it's on or not, even while my monitor and GPU assure me it is. As far as I can tell, the most obvious feature was shabbier looking colors, because they are de-saturated for some reason.
I played with the settings tab shared here[0], but the stupid "Brightness" slider is not obvious at all. Is bright good? Is bright bad? WTF?
That post has some other things to look into though, maybe I need a calibrated color profile? Will that get me colors that actually look better than an SDR display? Who knows.... It doesn't make any sense to me that improved brightness space should somehow result in less saturated colors...
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/OLED_Gaming/comments/1h30brf/finall...
I’d have upgraded to it just for the screenshot tool to be honest.
A shinier notepad with builtin AI.
Ads, more ads.
A BSOD that's got 99% more black.
The "recall" spyware.
Mandatory Microslop account.
I could go on, but I use Linux
Good.
This is exactly why people recommend it.
That's some very confident sounding bullshit.
Latest LTSC is 21H2, which exactly the same build as the (non-LTSC) 22H2. The only difference is the feature enablement package. Which means you aren't lacking any optimizations.
I'm not even sure if it's missing any "features", but even if it does, I'm 101% sure it some BS "feature".
Like improved animations, more wasted space and rounded windows corners ?
Yea I don't think you understand who uses windows and for what..
libEGL warning: pci id for fd 31: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
pci id for fd 33: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
pci id for fd 34: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen
libEGL warning: pci id for fd 31: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
pci id for fd 33: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
pci id for fd 34: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
libEGL warning: egl: failed to create dri2 screen
libEGL warning: pci id for fd 31: 10de:1ff0, driver (null)
0124:fixme:nls:RtlGetThreadPreferredUILanguages 00000034, 0313F66C, 0313F6DC 0313F674
0124:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x34 0x1009 0313F66C 0313F6DC 0313F674) returning a dummy value (current locale)
0124:fixme:heap:RtlSetHeapInformation HEAP_INFORMATION_CLASS 1 not implemented!
0124:fixme:nls:RtlGetThreadPreferredUILanguages 00000034, 0313F9D4, 0313FA44 0313F9DC
0124:fixme:nls:get_dummy_preferred_ui_language (0x34 0x1009 0313F9D4 0313FA44 0313F9DC) returning a dummy value (current locale)
0124:fixme:shell:InitNetworkAddressControl stub
0124:fixme:richedit:editor_handle_message EM_GETLANGOPTIONS: stub
0124:fixme:richedit:editor_handle_message EM_SETLANGOPTIONS: stub
0124:fixme:ntdll:NtQuerySystemInformation info_class SYSTEM_PERFORMANCE_INFORMATION
0124:fixme:win:RegisterTouchWindow hwnd 000100E0, flags 0 stub!
0124:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (7853A300) stub
0124:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (7B4F6BE4) stub
0124:fixme:msvcrt:__clean_type_info_names_internal (79410E54) stubYou could even go as far as suggesting SteamOS once they release the OS to more devices. Gaming themed sure but it's a flavor of Arch and you have full control over what gets installed.
They can actually do that. They may not like it, but they can.
Certainly not unattended, but no AI should ever be unattended.
But if you closely guide it, support it with tools like Ghidra and force force force force force a process with many sanity checks and quintuple-checks, it's possible.
What previously needed a whole team and months might be one guy, a lot of tokens and 1-3 weeks. Doable, fun, and interesting.
__
Judging by the downvotes, I guess people mistook the initial comment for HN VC fueled AI delusions and I can't blame them for that. That's not what it was tho.
Why and how do people hand work to juniors?
You have a rough idea where you want to go, you have a rough idea what needs to be done, and then you iterate.
For example, you think "okay, I need some way of validating this" and then you tell it to run the software to generate test data.
While errors may creep in, you should be able to validate that step.
And then you use that test data to validate whatever next steps it should be doing.
It's essentially the same workflow as any mapping out of something new, but with the individual mapping steps being done by a drone. You do still draw the actual map, do logistics and strategize.
It's not easy work, but it's also not difficult work. What it is is laborious, and that's where LLMs help.
__
To stick with your database format question:
If the software uses that data, it also needs code to parse and interact (with) it.
This code resides within it, and you can forcefully pull it out.
That step of "write me a spec for this data format based on this code. Build a parser in python and build test cases using this DB file" can be done agentically (when sliced into small logical blocks of work orders).
Well then using wine was the correct solution to begin with?
> This code resides within it, and you can forcefully pull it out.
What code? If you had the code you could port it.
Whereas the person you're responding to is adding value, for me at least. I am in what might be an edge-case position where I need to run software specific to Windows and, much more importantly run hardware that uses drivers which seemingly don't work on Windows 11 (I only learnt recently, whilst planning to finally 'upgrade').
I couldn't even begin to do what I do, ably and competently at least, in a Linux environment.
And I've had at least one laptop for general use running some flavour of Linux for about 16 years now.
Condolences on your hardware problem btw. Give the windows 10 iot version a shot - it's a fairly quick install anyway.
I did that for someone (after jumping through QUITE some hoops) and apparently the next days some popup made the person click the upgrade button anyway.
So yeah, probably just dark pattern + non-technical user but still.
The cost to Microsoft is essentially zero if they ate already committed to these security updates (and they are, at least for the LTSC branch and some government contracts)
It was probably something that could have been worked around, but workarounds tend to pile up and become difficult to track. I avoided the problem by putting a more-pedestrian version of Windows 10 on it instead.
I think Microsoft just wanted to be in on the "Internet of Things" hype train. The Windows IoT Core is the cut back version of Windows designed explicitly for headless, IoT stuff.
Yes, the games themselves are proprietary, but that’s because they’re primarily art pieces, and proprietary licenses makes some logical sense in that case.
Be derisive as you want, but your advice is awful. The IoT enterprise release is for IoT use cases. The types of things people do on consumer OSes are not fully supported.
Not having Store login sounds bad, but it also means the system cannot trick you into linking your account to a Microsoft account, which is a plus (though accidental login is reversible IIRC). (I am not sure if Minecraft, which is the only game I know to require such login, actually worked or not).
Using not-for-purpose OS for gaming does lead to some hiccups, but to me those hiccups are preferable to the constant fight against your OS trying to shove things down your throat or disregarding your choices (of not wanting copilot, of wanting a local account, of not wanting ad-like stuff in the OS).
(Fedora would be easier to setup at that point, but anticheats...)
I also tried the IoT LTSC evaluation which generally worked better (basically, it has all the drivers the Server version is missing, plus QoL features like Win+V are enabled by default) but buying legitimate keys was not possible as a regular consumer.
I am not necessarily a Microsoft hater per se, but to insinuate that Linux is on the same level as the Microsoft operating system is really strange to me. Whenever I, for instance, have to copy files to windows, I am getting annoyed at how slow it is compared to Linux. And that's just one issue I have. Another one is how slow e. g. ruby is on windows, compared to linux. The windows operating system is simply not good. Linux also has issues, in particular the main GUIs (both qt and gtk suck).
Meanwhile, on Linux, my emacs session has a longer uptime than Windows.
For me a bigger concern is that Windows 11 requires MS account, and making harder and harder to bypass it. This is a disrespect for my freedom and privacy. The hardware is not the biggest issue because it might catch up eventually. https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-...
Can you elaborate on the "or pay them $30 a year not to spy on you" part?
Ctrl-F isn't finding any mention of that in either https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-quietly-gets-one-more... or https://waspdev.com/articles/2026-03-12/i-ll-probably-never-....
Now you have system level events tied to a user, that might also purchase an office product and pump out more events.
This is not a new concept. What's new is that microsoft is enforcing it. But making it less obvious on how to disable the requirement when you install the OS. Or in most cases require hacks to do so.
iOS is worse than MacOS. I was only talking about MacOS.
It’s creepy as fuck, and for no real benefit to me that I can tell.
The privacy-destroying "telemetry" continues to transmute from a theoretical problem to a realistic concern too.
For example, many printers puts forensic marks onto pages identifying their serial number, while MS/Apple log all your device serial numbers, which in turn is subject to seizure/threats/theft.
The upshot is you can't print an "anonymous" flyer stating I Dislike The Regime without the risk that thugs of said regime will be outside your door later.
> memory ‘live sampling’
"Citizen, the signature of a Wrongthink picture was detected in your telescreen..."
What is stopping similar authoritarians from cracking down using these kind of features and registrations?
https://newrepublic.com/post/212340/ice-poll-worker-election...
You can obviously send a lot of personal data through Microsoft services that use that account, but merely logging in that way doesn’t seem to just upload your life to Microsoft, either.
It's a simple example of how the arcane telemetry they demand is actually far more dangerous to you than it first appears.
This is incredibly common when it comes to security and privacy issues, where it's not immediately obvious how things can be abused. (The truly obvious things tend to get fixed, after all.)
> I don’t think [...] your Microsoft account has anything to do with telemetry
My brother in tech, I think you're blinding yourself out of forlorn hope here.
Microsoft has spent over a decade increasing the mandatory "telemetry", which contains a complete profile all your computer hardware with serial numbers plus all the software you run and when you run it [0]. The same company has consistently made it harder and harder for anyone to not sign up for an account in order to even install the OS.
They already collect the data in a very deliberate and strategic way. What you ought to be seeking is evidence they don't keep it.
After reading it, I am still not sure I see how this is particularly alarming information. I can see how it would help a forensic investigator who has physical access to the device.
The most personal aspect seems to be the list of installed and removed programs, which I would agree is stepping across boundaries of privacy.
The paper notes that this whole studied telemetry package is part of the telemetry service you can opt out of.
The rest seems to be device identifiers and connected devices. They mention that the device identifiers could lead to having part of an encryption key but that part of the paper seemed really vague. My takeaway from that section was that maybe it could lead an investigator to knowing which specific piece of hardware to use in order to decrypt something, but they’d likely need physical access to that hardware.
I get the impression is that the intent here is for an IT department or Windows developers to be able to respond to cyberattacks and deal with malware and the like. The paper you linked made that aspect pretty clear.
The printer thing is a good example, but again, just too unrelated to this particular subject. At least, in my opinion.
Now they could prove it was your printer (and that has happened multiple times in prosecutions!), even if you printed it years ago.
You don’t see how that is a problem?
Nobody can come in my house without a judicial warrant. And, hopefully, someday there are better privacy laws in the US that mean that Microsoft must handle its collected data more responsibly.
If your society has succumbed to serious oppression, does evidence really matter anyway? If the cartel is knocking on your door, do they need evidence to do what they want to do?
Evidence itself is just evidence. It can condemn you and it can exonerate you. If it can be proved that something came from my printer, that means my lawyer can also prove something didn't come from my printer.
I am by no means saying that I would personally willingly sign up for telemetry, or that I think it's better to have than not. I'm just not in alarm over it because I think that response is disproportional.
I really don’t know how a no-brainer security implement like that became such a lighting rod.
As far as React being used in the OS, well, if we are arguing about underlying technology there are plenty of flawed implementations to be found on a number of platforms. I don’t think the end user is concerned.
I say all this as someone who does not recommend Windows and no longer uses it, to be clear.
Their goal is to help their OEM buddies sell new computers despite the fact that PCs have been “good enough” for a decade or longer, because those new PCs will come with Windows and the cycle is what keeps each one relevant.
Otherwise they'd risk being usurped, which almost happened circa 2006 with the one-two-three-four punch of GNOME2 (great UI), Compiz (‘wow’ factor that gets people to jump in and try it), OpenOffice-dot-org 2.0 (when OpenDocument Format was getting a ton of press), and Windows Longhorn/Vista being famously late-and-then-hated. Luckily for Microsoft, the Desktop Linux community decided to throw all that out with Wayland (which is Fine but set us back two decades) and GNOME3 which is irredeemable — *James Rolfe voice* what were they thinking??
Windows has to be just functional enough to keep businesses that use it from raising a stink about it.
Some old versions of windows also had newer hardware requirements (95 dropped support for 16 bit systems, Vista required a DirectX9 GPU).
There's nothing really new here.
The people I've switched from windows to Mageia since win11 all love it.
(As great as Mageia is, it does have small repos compared to Debian or fedora.)
I doubt they've even heard of Mageia.
Even aside from issues with W10 specifically, I'm so tired of having to download GBs of updates and then figure out which launch params to use to trick $GAME into launching when I find a few spare minutes to play games using Steam.
Contrast that with my Miyoo Mini+ handheld which lets me dip into games immediately whenever I have a few spare minutes (around the house, waiting for an appointment, waiting for kids, etc.). There are _thousands_ of games I've missed over the years and I've pretty much decided that I don't need to (i.e. can't) keep up with AAA releases or new consoles.
'Linux on the desktop runs Steam games better than ever. Join us, brother.' I installed Fedora Workstation 43, played my games (albeit with a few quirks), but then as a side effect started all these little Linux and Claude projects after I got home from work, which I hadn't done since my 20s.
Thank you, brother!
But I wonder if components would have been stripped out due to AI. I heard even older RAM and SDD/HDD are getting expensive.
The new windows 11 laptop was slower, weirder, and got stuck on some update. So back to Costco it went after 75 days of the 90 day return Policy.
I installed Linux Mint Mate on the old windows 10 laptop and they're happy.
1. Endless security issues
2. Companies have to spend millions of dollars to make it secure, and fail
3. Everything is SaaS nowadays, you just need a browser and fast internet
4. Linux distros can easily replace Windows, no licensing, no dramas, no subscriptions
My guesses is that companies still have Windows because of the support, they can burn money monthly for some other company to provide support when things go bad.
You do not need that for Linux distros, it just works, faster, no matter the hardware age, it just works.
If you are end user, you have even less excuses to use Windows period. Everything from gaming to banking, from coding to 3D editing, work just fine on Linux.
Games that require kernel level spyware installed???
Good luck getting a Linux user to do make such stupid choice. Giving you a company kernel level aka full access to your operating system just to play a game. Yeah mate, normal people won't do that.
Fortnite?? Couldn't give half care about this game.
The point is that "normal people won't do that" is objectively false. Fortnite is just a good example because it's so popular.
At any given moment there are tens or hundreds of thousands of normal people playing Fortnite, on windows, with anti cheat on.
What does it spy on? I can only assume you’ve fully devirtualized and reversed Easy Anti-Cheat to be making such statements
> full access to your operating system
Man Epic Games must be cooking if they can poke at VTL1
So 10 needs more support.
How do they offer it, according to AI?
Quietly,
quietly,
quiet... L-Y!
The install base is just too high. Microsoft has to support it, or find a way to convince more people to upgrade.
The big issue is that my bios doesn't have a way to switch to what is needed to meet Windows 11 requirements, and I would have to wipe my machine.
I was looking for all these hacks, but I need to use my machine for work so I have to stay on Windows 10 for now.
The resulting image can remove telemetry, bypass hardware requirement checks, and enable local account setup out of the box.
Use an autounattend.xml, the mass graves, and a WinGet JSON to customise an online image.
[1]: https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
[2]: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/package-manager/wi...
> to get a NEW ISO which you then install
This is not good.
I don't see the issue.
Why would people put themselves through the painful process of keeping themselves safe from their own computer?
Though I do agree, if your workflow is supported by any non-NT based OS, that's probably a better option
TBH many volume licensors do actually want to use Windows as a service and just pay a negotiated fee per license.
Stability is basically same too..
If a piece of software is specialized enough that people maintain it for decades, if it has nice detailed and complicated GUIs to handle complex tasks, it will be on Windows. It will rely on Windows' stable API. Those software goes back to 80s and 90s. They have organically grown. Linux kernel requires thousands of developers to keep alive. Linux kernel is much simpler than profession-specific software. Windows Stable ABI allows much fewer people (low 100s) to maintain much more complex software than the kernel.
Even without the stable ABI, Linux is hostile to the closed source software unless that software is served via a TCP socket.
Web can challenge this with Web Assembly and some combination of edge / datacenter computing now. Still quite the way out for demanding things like local simulation and CAD/CAM. There should also be strong economic reasons to throw actually trillions (unlike AI and other SV bullshit balloons) worth of software and entire systems out, not just to spite MS.
For me it's MS Office. Sorry, but OpenOffice.org and the Google apps still don't come close. (And of course Office file formats are their own lock in, very analogously to the programs that run on Windows.)
If you want to talk about why not macOS or Chrome, there are different reasons, but of the people buying PCs, that's why they're on Windows.
I decided I won't change to Win11, so Win10 will be last Windows version to use. It's no issue in that I am using Linux since late ~2004 anyway, but I am also unwilling to cater to Microsoft anylonger. I think it is time that governments no longer force people to use Windows in general. For similar reasons I reject the upcoming mandatory age sniffing that lobbyists are pushing for (together with their attempt to kill off VPNs).
I hate Microsoft, I was very happy with Windows 10 but Windows 11 is different for no reason except to be different.
If you get rid of the control panel applets, you break the drivers.
This is also an old and out-of-date complaint. Almost all of the settings are now inside the Settings application and only inside the Settings application, with the related control panel applets gone.