Windows Woes, or Maybe Not.

I won't go into any speculation on whether liking to use old programmes is somehow linked to being an archaeologist or not (it might just be me being cheap and lazy, after all), but, well... I did the jump from Windows7 to Win10, which should tell you a lot already.

Now the end of support for Win10 is approaching quickly, and I'm here with a still perfectly functional computer that is, as the Win11 evaluation programme tells me, not good enough to run Win11. 

This, as you may have guessed already, irks me quite a bit. And not only for me and my system - after all, I bought this machine refurbished four or so years ago, which can be considered as quite a while in IT terms - but also for all the millions of computers that are now forced into obsoleteness. The amount of unneccessary trash that makes, it's mind-boggling.

For a bit now, I had already decided to draw out any change or upgrade to the OS for as long as possible. Today, I looked into possibilities of extended support, at least for security patching... and found some interesting things.

Firstly, if you have the latest version of Win10 installed, you might even be eligible for free extended-life support by Microsoft. This life extension with security updates was offered on previous versions of Windows, but usually just for companies, and at a price (quite hefty, too). It looks like they are now offering it to everybody, and in some cases for free. The some cases are either using Microsoft Rewards points, or syncing your Windows backup to OneDrive (5 GB are free). I have not found out if the sync option means you have to backup everything there, or just the Windows settings, but either way it's not an option that I personally find attractive. You can read more about the MS extended support here or here. The extension is planned for at maximum three years, although there seems to be a plan to extend Win10 support for some companies until 2032. (Don't ask me how you get this, I have no clue.)

In case that all doesn't sound attractive enough for you, I also learned that there is a company specialising in security support for outdated programmes and operating systems. It's called 0patch (pronounced zeropatch) and they have adopted Win7 before, and still provide it with security patches so the machines are safe to use. Now they will be offering the same for Win10, and their plan is to do that for at least five years.

I will definitely look into this!