A friend of mine was still on win7 and just recently made the switch to linux. In the end the issue was that most of the software stopped working.
They should make a Windows version called Windows 10P which is the same as Windows 10 but only the bare-bones necessities and no extra crap or required online services, and sell it for $59.99 (seeing that Windows is already de facto freeware). That's probably an order of magnitude than what they make from intrusive advertising anyway to a single user over the lifespan of a computer.
This already exists, and it doesn't cost $60. What you want is the Windows 10 IoT LTSC Edition.
(Brought to you by Carl's, Jr.)
I use this on my DJ laptop. It's nice because it doesn't constantly bother you with bullshit, and is extremely stable.
Anyone still stuck on 10 who isn't ready for Linux just yet should give LTSC a try. You'll probably like it. It's not going away anytime soon, either, because it is used in mission critical things like ATMs and cash registers that need to just work without being bothered with constant updates and reboots nor being bombarded with ads.
Computers that are too new for Windows 7 come with Windows 10 preinstalled on them though. Who would buy an extra copy? You can debloat Windows 10 with a debloater tool
People who build their own computers, AKA the group most likely to complain about this
No way they will do that. The value for microsoft these days is in harvesting their victims info and forcing them in to their walled garden.
It would be of lower value to them without the data-gathering and the AI injection.
The data makes them money. The AI helps th justify their investment, but also gives them data to ad to their models.
So more ppl are re-purposing old, legacy win7 machines despite security risk...
Completely clueless about anything linux or floss in that matter wether even if there where lighter distros with better hardware support & enough apps for everyday office needs & more.
Like win7 can't even run any UWP apps, photoshop or steam anymore.
It's great livin' in 2025
Nobody should be using old versions of Windows that no longer get security updates. Either switch to Linux and install all of the latest security updates, or enable the coming year of security updates on Windows 10, or run Windows 11.
Agree for a main computer but there's no risk when using Windows 7 or XP on an offline machine.
If it were offline machines, then they wouldn't be on these statistics
Fair point, I guess some people might want to do that to play old games or something like that.
within the past month? what all these people in Asia suddenly found a stockpile of machines with Win7 on them and all, collectively, decided "yeah lets just use these"?
I don't buy it.
It's almost as if there's a demand for meat and potatoes OS.
But that doesn't make a good headline.
Could it be that something is spoofing a Win7 signature?
I personally just edited the registry to stop my Win10 upgrading to 11. If it fails, it's Manjaro time.
Manjaro might not be the best starting point tbh. So many better choices.
It's not that I'm disagreeing with you. I'm just not agreeing with you.
I personally think that (as unpopular an opinion as it may be) Flatpak's largely make the choice of first distro irrelevant. The weakness in Manjaro is that you either risk using the AUR or stay on old versions of the software. Or with Mint/Ubuntu/etc... you either risk adding random repos to your sources list or you use older versions of the software.
Either way, you run the risk of a new person mucking up their system with a bad repo or a bad aur package.
The alternative, using flatpaks, largely solves both issues for when you need newer versions of a certain software, and are dead simple to install/remove/update, etc...
And I say this as someone who was super skeptical of flatpak's for a very very long time.
If you disable TPM in your bios, W11 won't install, nor update if it is already installed.
FYI if you have disk encryption enabled you need to pause/disable it first (assuming you're using automatic unlock using the TPM, which usually is the default)
Still, it's unusual for that to happen.
Ehh, bots have always presented nonsense UAs to servers. And since modern browsers hard-code the OS version in the UA string, pretending to be an old browser on an old OS could be a (probably ineffectual) way to bypass fingerprinting.
I think that it's a possibility for the rest of the world.
It’s okay, Windows 10 will be the last version of Windows you’ll need!!!
True enough, I changed to LMDE from 10 2 yeaes aho. Started on 3.1 (from MS DOS)
It was. Linux Mint has been beautiful since I switched last year. Certainly nicer than windows.
My laptop runs so much better now with Mint after getting rid of windows
Possibly from people booting up 15 year old laptops to see if they‘re still running so they can install linux on them before trying it on the big machine. Yes, this is my made up narrative but I believe that more than in a Win7 comeback.
Year of the Windows 7 Desktop?!
Don't have a link to the thread on Mastodon, but it was only in Singapore. So it is likely a troll or some glitch.
Tbf proton evolving fast as he doing, soon i won't even will need windows beside my workplace notebook
Switched to Linux a couple years ago and at this point it is rare that a game doesn't "just work" and even rarer when it still won't work after trying other versions of proton in the Steam compatibility settings for the game.
Depending on if there is a specific game you know doesn't work that is a deal breaker for you, it might be fine at this point to switch. Just throwing that out there. You may not need more compatibility than what is available.
How moddings tool like MO2 and the mods from nexus are behaving on Linux ?
Also, PCVR, playing HALF LIFE ALYX, Arizona Sunshine, OpenMW VR are huge deal breakers for me
I don't think I've actually played any of those so I can't speak to them but hopefully someone else can. There is a website you can check compatibility on although I don't know if it includes non-games and/or tools. Arizona Sunshine looks like it's fine: https://www.protondb.com/search?q=arizona+sunshine
If it's gold or higher it'll almost certainly play without issue. Silver will very likely play if you tweak the compatibility settings to change proton versions (go to game options in steam > compatibility > change the version. Bronze is hit or miss, you'll likely be able to get it to work but it might require more work. Borked is of course...borked.
Anyways, someone else can probably answer those games specifically but if not you can use the website to check.
Yeah I think a lot of people don't understand how far it's come. Often even games that Steam lists as "unsupported" will work with some very light tinkering.
Using wine and Proton, I've been able to play old windows games that haven't worked on real windows for over two decades.
This is almost certainly a sampling error.
https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/singapore/#monthly-202408-202509
Win7 grows in Singapore from <2% to 92% within two months. All other asian countries stay the same. Yeah, that's a sampling error.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
