People found out about the Win10 IoT LTSC version, which Microsoft alleges to be supporting for 10 more years.

It comes with basically zero of the M$ bloat that everyone hates, as well. It's just Windows.

I just installed it on my father's new (old) laptop, because he is not ready for Linux yet -- possibly ever.

It has no:

• Cortana
• Copilot
• Windows Media Player
• OneDrive
• Office 365 Nag
• Candy crush, Solitaire collection, etc.
• Ads and nags on the lock screen
• "Finish setting up your device and create a Microsoft Account!!!" nag every X number of bootups
• Xbox Game Bar
• Microsoft Store
• Etc.

It does come with Edge.

Because it does not have the Microsoft Store you have to manually install anything that comes as a store app from the command line. I was taken by surprise that the Duckduckgo browser is packaged this way. But you can still do it. Normal programs install just fine.

Yes, you can use it for gaming.

Edit: I guess I forgot to drop the obligatory link to https://massgrave.dev/ , which is how I found out about this and got it running. Also hosted there is a tool that allows you to... license... various Microsoft products including your shiny new Win10 IoT install.

DO NOT PAY FOR WINDOWS 10 UPDATES.

They're pushing this plan to make people pay to continue to get support for 10 very hard.

Don't fucking do it. Make them eat this loss of a shitty invasive OS that nobody asked for. This trend is evidence that we're in control in this situation, not Microsoft.

Force their hand and make it so they have no choice but to keep supporting Windows 10 for free for five more years.

Look, I'm a Linux user primarily, but that doesn't mean you should just let these corporate fuckholes walk all over you. Windows 10 is ride or die. Make Microsoft pay for trying to fuck you out of a cleaner operating system that is less infested with spyware and actually works half the time.

Not everybody has the time or energy to figure out Linux, but either way, the best way to fight Microsoft is by hitting them square in the pocketbook.

I'll uh ... be over here continuing to use an OS that doesn't show me a full-screen ad.

Our old asses are over here learning mint and Ubuntu on new machines. That wasn’t on our 30s-40s disco card.

It’s fun. Everything looks good, then attach the external monitor to the laptop and it won’t detect. There’s a workaround, there’s almost always a workaround, but these basics of windows are in pieces in Linux.

The basic expectations with windows, like monitor detection, aren’t necessarily there.

Spite is a hell of a fuel though. Oh and I still have my win 10 disc and put a fresh install on another machine.

I work at an MSP and a lot of our clients have to follow specific security compliance standards. Because Windows 10 is eol soon, we've been slowly upgrading folks to 11. I die a little each time I do an upgrade. People, including my coworkers and I, are not happy with it overall, but nobody can do anything because ✨compliance standards✨

An ad blitz doesn't matter if your product is junk. Make something that isn't garbage if you want to retain people, people want good products.

Windows 11 is a privacy invasion. It's the worst OS I have ever used for a day and a half.

"But people love getting spammed with advertisements..." -Shareholders

What... How is that even possible? Are new machines being sold with 10 instead of 11?

im forced to use it at work and holy shit. 11 is so heavy for no reason, 8gb of ram is not remotely enough anymore.

the ssd smart says its almost at its end, and i suspect its because its constantly swapping.

The market share for Win 11 has dropped because people are "downgrading" to Win 10, holding on to that for another year before support runs out.

The Windows computers in our house never upgraded to Win 11.

No surprise there.

Some people are also jumping ship to Linux, fed up of Windows BS all together.

Not going to change unless Microsoft does a complete 180 on how they're handling Win11 which I don't think they will do because it's just not in their corporate strategy at the moment. I imagine most people are just going to keep using Win10 after the support period ends.

Microsoft seriously needs an upper management shakeup. They have been dropping the ball badly in numerous areas and have their heads lodged too far up their own asses to see it.

Who thought that puting ridiculous minimum requirements so your spyware can work better would mean that lots of people without newer hardware just won't upgrade.

The main problem is that Win11 can only run in special hardware and Microsoft can pry out my potato computer from my cold, dead hands. I won't change my hardware to update my OS.

I am 21 and have been a windows user since I was 6. Windows 10 was the last windows OS I ever used and after that used linux for a while and eventually switched to Mac, and I am glad I did. Windows 11 has a bunch of visual upgrades which just ruin the experience and makes it difficult to navigate around. Also the fact that I need to purchase a new laptop to be able to use it when my old one is perfectly fine.

well the market share of Windows 11 has risen significantly on my work laptop, and I can wholehearedly say, I understand why its global market share is falling...... random freezes, random restarts, battery life sliced, random starting up from suspend. it's not great.

meanwhile, Manjaro on my personal Lenovo laptop has been cutting edge with consistent updates for years.

Look, I don't trust Statista numbers at all.

People are free to disagree on that one, Statista most of all. But what I think is undeniable is that these sub-percentage point changes are entirely within their margin of error (same goes for Steam, incidentally). You can look at trends over time, -and I think it's pretty undeniable Win11 has struggled to onboard the Win10 userbase-, but I wouldn't overreact to these short term updates.

When games work so well on Linux these days, it seems to me that there is absolutely no reason for Windows to exist anymore. Why does anyone use it?

The fact that any company is able to show you ads after you PAID for their shit is bonkers to me. Don't get me started on repair and being able to unlock the bootloader on your device. No wonder education is very expensive and extremely hard to attain. They love the uneducated, so they can fuck them hard like that. Fuck all of them.

It's simple: Ain't nobody got time for your bullshit, Microsoft.

Microsoft, this is like windows vista all over again. Make it less shitty, get rid of all the crap you're pushing and make it faster. Call it windows 12 and if it's good we'll buy it. Worked for XP, worked for 10. How do you still not get this?

Lol was windows 11 was a scam to make companies pay for future security updates this whole time?

I literally left windows because of the incessant ads for 11. The last straw was them forcing copilot on my windows 10 install, but a lot of other things were bugging me way too much before I kicked the bucket. Thankfully I have the help of a friend that uses Linux daily and my boyfriend who just knows a fuckton about computers, but after finishing the initial setup I haven't really had any issues

I'm now recommending family members and relatives to switch to Macs if they're not willing to install Linux on their PC.

I'm trying really hard to educate them about how intrusive Windows 11 is. But in the end, it's like Facebook or whatever. They just don't care about their online privacy and how their personal information is handled. Sometimes I don't even know why I try.