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Windows 10 support quietly extended until Oct 2027, as users reject Windows 11
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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If you’re too lazy to switch to Linux like me, Windows 10 Enterprise IoT LTSC is supported until 2032 and free to download and permanently license.
As someone who is lazy, I find running Linux to be less work than fighting with Windows.
There's no struggle free OS, every OS has operations and processes that will need more detailed investigation, and hence read as "fighting with the operating system".
No design is intuitive to everyone, all the time, and in all situations. I'm sure Linux is fine, but let's be real, you know what I mean.
I'm glad that Linux is more intuitive to you than Windows. Good job finding it, and setting it all up 👍
Honestly, a lot of desktop environments are designed to feel very similar to Windows. I tried Mint on a laptop and started liking it right away. The setup was put it on a flash drive, and run the installer. It took 20 minutes to nuke Windows.
My OS struggles come from trying to get windows-specific DAWs and CAD Software to work, which will hopefully come around as more people switch to Linux. I have some alternatives that I'm playing with right now.
Fyi, Reaper and Bitwig both have excellent, native Linux support. If you're willing to re-learn a DAW, both of those are great choices. Reaper is by far the best mixing & mastering DAW out there, IMHO. Bitwig is great for composition and has awesome, intuitive modulation features, as well as great stock plugins and MPE support.
The part that takes energy and effort is making the switch.
I'm really familiar with Linux. I've been using it on and off since the days of Slackware. My work computer was Linux-only for several years.
But, even with that, it took weird driver issues with my GPU, combined with the impending death of Windows 10, combined with the ridiculous heavy handed Copilot BS on Windows to finally convince me to switch my main desktop PC to Linux.
It was just the momentum that was so hard to overcome. I knew what worked in Windows, and I knew what didn't. I had already found and installed all the programs I needed. My settings were all how I liked them. I knew the keyboard shortcuts. With Linux I didn't know what would work or what wouldn't. With Linux, there were a lot of things I'd need to install and set up, and I knew that was going to take some effort. But, worst were the unknown unknowns. I didn't know what was going to cause me problems, and didn't know if they were things I could resolve in a couple of hours or if they'd take weeks.
I'm glad I made the switch, and the overall maintenance load is much lower than it was in Windows. The frustration factor is 10x better. But, I did have to make a real effort to make the switch. There were a few weeks where it was pretty frustrating.
I hear you on the unknowns. I just picked up a new direct drive racing wheel, and I spent half the night trying to get it to work. The manufacturer doesn't support Linux, so I have to use Boxflat. The wheel seems to work in there, but it doesn't show up in my device list under Game Controllers and Steam doesn't show it as a controller. However, after more research, it seems like that's all normal and it's probably the game itself not detecting the wheel due to it being plugged into a USB hub (which isn't a Linux issue). Sometimes ime learning the OS is fine, and it's the software that's the issue. With Windows, it was easy to assume things were fine on the OS side, and it just comes from that familiarity.
Yeah exactly. I set up Zorin OS for my family who are not tech savvy at all. It was a bit different at first but they said they felt much "calmer" using Linux. Modern Windows feels like trying to read an article online or watch a YouTube video without an ad blocker.
Linux you fight a bit when setting it up and then its like clockwork. With windows it's easy to setup, but then it starts doing weird shit you never asked for and and undoes your changes making more work forever.
Linux isn't hard to set up anymore
Basic install yes, getting all your favourite apps and network connectivity...well, it's much better than before, but still a short term pain.
I dunno, maybe I've just had good luck when it comes to hardware compatibility, but networking has always just worked for me. Along with audio and pretty much everything else.
Getting the apps you want installed is the same thing you'd have to go through with a fresh Windows install too. And I think Linux package management is way easier once you do the initial install. So I would argue that Linux is actually better in that regard.
No. Network connectivity just works unless you have some really esoteric hardware. I just installed a USB wifi ax 5400, total overkill for my telco router. CachyOS just took it in stride. Most apps, including many Window apps install painlessly. The moment Linux sees an .exe, it launches wine and installs the app.
Right now it's mostly "just works" most people use office and internet apps anyway.
Yeah, it was way less friction than I was expecting. It went smoother than some windows updates do (specifically the ones where they just reset settings to their shitty defaults).
This is part of why I like Mint ... it's like 5 clicks to install
Mint is wonderful though I am considering switching back to a system with GNOME instead of Cinnamon because the screen reader works better under GNOME.
I am thinking about giving NixOS another shot or at least going with an immutable system, but Mint is a great place to start your Linux journey, and hell, it's a great place to end your Linux journey if you don't give a shit about computers and just want the damn thing to work reliably.
I like Mint. Got two boxes. 1 bazzite, one Debian and one Arch for shitz and giggles.
As someone who just installed bazzite today and fucked around with Mint a couple months ago this is very much true. Kinda reminds me of bashing Windows 98 into doing what I wanted.
I installed Bazzite, and I had a bit of trouble!
... Because I pulled out the USB halfway through the install! Like the world's biggest dumbass! Couldn't boot the computer at all! Oh no!
Then I stared at what I'd done for a while, sighed, rebooted and started again.
And it was easy as piss. Bazzite 10/10 for me.
Might not be a bad idea to start learning on a separate device though, so you'll be ready when 2032 hits.
(That's my current setup)
This is my plan. Going to do my first Linux install on my old laptop to learn and then go full Linux once I feel I've got a good idea of what I'm doing.
Can't risk screwing it up as I'm self employed and need everything to work
I'm going to try Steam OS on one of my laptops. See what that's like.
I suggest that you try Bazzite instead. As of now, SteamOS doesn't support Nvidia.
Oh I'm poor my laptop has AMD.
AMD is better than NVidia anyway
Bazzite also has a better package management system. SteamOS is meant for gaming almost exclusively, whereas Bazzite is meant for both.
After using Bazzite, I'm convinced that image based distros are the future for end users. Need to install an app? Flatpak. Need to install command line? Homebrew.
It all installs in user space. And Flatpak at least uses an effective sandbox system.
Distros that maintain their own package spaces are duplicating a. lot. of work.
The downside of Flatpak is the disk space usage. But that doesn't matter as much to me as it used to.
Disk space usage isn't that bad anyway since there's some deduplication going on.
I can chime in for Bazzite. It's imperfect, but I've blown up my fair share of aliens and they make playing your games on Linux really easy compared to anything else I've used. I can even stream the game from my desktop to a laptop in my bedroom via sunshine/moonlight which Bazzite helps you install as SteamLink doesn't play nice with Bazzite.
Upvote for Bazzite - the caveat being how much support the distro gets and how long it lives. That said it turned a truly piece of crap all in one hp to something that was fun in about 30 minutes. it's a good gaming OS but I wouldn't use it as my daily driver.
I don't think steamos is a great choice for a general purpose OS....yet
Probably not but maybe I'll be able to play a game. Old laptop. Old Games. New OS. See what happens.
Both bazzite and CachyOS are built for computers and will likely work better for a laptop than SteamOS. And they both have gaming focused builds. I haven't tried Bazzite in a while, but CachyOS has easy to understand instructions on how to install their gaming package.
Appreciate the suggestions, probs check them out afterwards. I just wanna do it for the shits n gigs
Can confirm Bazzite is incredibly easy to install, and all my steam games work without any tweaking at all so far except Tropico 6. And I haven't even tried to fix that.
(Windows was being a dick fuck, and life means I don't have brainspace right now to fuck around with my laptop, so no-tweaking was the goal. Bazzite has delivered that.)
You won't do this on corporate machines, but converting a Win install into an IoT release and generating a key for it is like a couple of clicks and a reboot.
But, but - the way massgrave is still accessible and not fought against makes you think Microsoft wants the fluctuating users to keep on using their products and ecosystem even if they don't pay the initial sticker price.
So if it's at least slightly feasible for your workflow, it's always better to switch and leave M$ behind.
P.S. I can be wrong, but IoT right now doesn't shield oneself from installing copilot and other garbage, making this edition not better than others, you still need to debloat it.
a full year in here, with regular security updates. 11iot is still unmolested by microsoft shenanigans. nothing installed on it i didn't put on myself, or didn't come with the stripped-down windows, which isn't much at all. there's no store, so all the store-delivered shit is absent.
11 iot is also available, and is void of nearly everything people hate about 11. it's good to 2035.
I have no intentions of going back to Ravenholm anytime soon.
massgrave can activate 3 years ESU on regular Enterprise for people who want things IoT LTSC is missing, like WMR. I've got Enterprise alongside Bazzite and when the updates run out I'll either switch to IoT LTSC or nuke Windows altogether.
Same, I've got a headset on WMR and it's basically trash if I have to update to Win 11.