Good bye old friend, you will be remembered for your start menu bloated with candy crush saga and the uninterruptible update whenever the computer felt like.
I'm a big fan of reinstalling all of the default Microsoft online services and resetting your user preferences every time they feel like updating your computer.
If you want to feel real madness try reinstalling Win10 from even the latest installation media, checking for updates, finding none, and then finding your computer restarted the next day with a new iteration of the Bing search box on your taskbar, and repeating this experience at least 4 times.
That's what the corporate propaganda does to people.
IMHO if you're behind a NAT, not running random binaries, and not visiting untrustworthy pages with JS on, that already gets rid of 99.99% of the attack surface. Keep RDP and SMB off the Internet and shut off the other listening ports too.
For a gaming desktop are there any realistic options I'm overlooking besides:
- acquiesce to everything Win11 entails
- be a weirdo and run a server SKU
- run insecure EOL OS on hardware
- run insecure EOL OS on some less-begrudged hypervisor
- fully migrate to preferred Linux distro and sacrifice some amount of game compatibility, though less than I'm conditioned to believe per https://www.protondb.com/
I have no Windows-specific software other than games.
I'll probably just move to Win11 because I don't have to worry too much about it. It's in virtual machine. And I can keep snapshots of the virtual disk in case I come back to an update I don't like.
Kinda sucks that the only fully correct way to play games is on an OS that continues to suck more and more, and that I have to wear a virtual condom to do so.
I just put Windows 11 on its own little VLAN/WiFi island called "RebootRift." It lives alone, endlessly restarting, hoping one day it will be trustworthy enough to join the others—but deep down, it knows it never will.
If I can just hold out until some new local-maxima of Microsoft's wavering quality...
Between them removing administrative controls and the lowest-common-denominator tabletization of the UI, I need to look harder at putting it in a VM or doing plain old dual-boot. (For a gaming machine, so that imposes some minimal ties to the ecosystem.)
It really doesn’t, absent a few key games. I’ve just built a new gaming PC and I’ve gone straight with Arch. I was worried the compatibility I experienced with the steam deck may be isolated to the steam deck but it’s shocking how far it’s come.
Is it perfect? No, of course not. But my god it definitely is good enough to cut myself free of MS’s terrible decision-making the last 5ish years.
Just not if you’re interested in HDR and have an NVIDIA card :( (yep it’s improved heaps, I’m just impatiently waiting for the next new feature branch release past 560.35.02 that hopefully fixes colour desaturation in HDR).
Also, I’m really curious how Big Picture can be so broken on NVIDIA. It’s a webview driven by Chromium AFAIK, does general Chrome suffer the same?
In all seriousness though, everything else is pretty amazing. Proton is awesome.
Strong agree, I also used to double boot or just add wsl in windows but permanently moved to linux since microsoft is more and more insulting. I don’t get 100% the gaming I get on windows but it the difference is not worth installing malware on my computer at all
Its so disappointing to see Win 10 getting sunsetted. It's been hands down the best Windows OS experience for mem, and I've been onboard since 3.1. I've had the displeasure of having to interact with Windows 11, both pro and home, recently, and it feels half baked in so many ways.
Windows 10 was a bit shit at launch too. They hadn't quite figured out how to orchestrate forced updates (e.g. no active hours or pausing updates for a week). The Start Menu was a bit of a mess for the first 5 years. Cortana was shoved down your throat. Dark mode wasn't even a thing. HDR support was basically non-existent and DPI support was ass. "Precision touchpad" support wasn't a thing, the Settings vs Control Panel split was way worse, things like WSL weren't a thing, notifications in Action Center were horrible to manage. The new Windows Terminal app hadn't been made yet... ssh/sftp wasn't built in.
What I 100% expect with every new release of Windows is that they'll have some genuinely good ideas, remove or break a ton of existing workflows trying to implement those changes but only getting them halfway to where they need to go, and then fix it over the coming years. E.g. with Windows 11 they rewrote the taskbar and it was missing drag and drop, positioning, clocks on multiple monitors, useful right click shortcuts on the taskbar, "Never Combine" to not group windows, the smaller taskbar, showing the text label next to things in the taskbar, and probably more I'm forgetting. At this point nearly all of those are fixed (small taskbar is about to be, position is still unthinkable for now apparently).
Typically I'll just move to the latest. Yeah, it'll suck to adjust at first, but quickly it'll improve and start to have features beyond the first. Some prefer to hang on to the previous one until it drops so the next one is already pretty fixed up. Either way, most folks end up liking the older versions even though most folks hate them at the start. Part of that is also rose colored glasses too though.
Microsoft expects a large number of Windows 10 users to abandon their computer and purchase a new one. "Having a PC" versus "not having a PC" is a pretty big difference.
The others have provided the link - I'll add it's the activation/licenses are the part you really pay to get but you can do that after install (or not at all, it's just nagware outside of some personalization settings).
Windows Server 2019 is going to have some wonky defaults and components out of the box. Some apps will report not being compatible but it's not usually a problem. That said, Windows Server 2019 is neither the oldest or newest version of Windows Server based on the Windows 10 codebase so I'm not sure why you'd bother with it in particular.
You can get ISOs from the following link for Home and Pro edition but you have to visit the site from a non-Windows device (a different user-agent might also work)
Good bye old friend, you will be remembered for your start menu bloated with candy crush saga and the uninterruptible update whenever the computer felt like.
I'm a big fan of reinstalling all of the default Microsoft online services and resetting your user preferences every time they feel like updating your computer.
If you want to feel real madness try reinstalling Win10 from even the latest installation media, checking for updates, finding none, and then finding your computer restarted the next day with a new iteration of the Bing search box on your taskbar, and repeating this experience at least 4 times.
Still missing XP with the classic 98 theme
Windows 7 with tighter handcuffs
Remember, just because it's no longer supported doesn't mean it no longer works. If it's within your risk tolerance, you can keep using it.
Too often, people everywhere, even on HN, talk as if end-of-support means you can't use it anywhere anymore.
That's what the corporate propaganda does to people.
IMHO if you're behind a NAT, not running random binaries, and not visiting untrustworthy pages with JS on, that already gets rid of 99.99% of the attack surface. Keep RDP and SMB off the Internet and shut off the other listening ports too.
For a gaming desktop are there any realistic options I'm overlooking besides:
- acquiesce to everything Win11 entails
- be a weirdo and run a server SKU
- run insecure EOL OS on hardware
- run insecure EOL OS on some less-begrudged hypervisor
- fully migrate to preferred Linux distro and sacrifice some amount of game compatibility, though less than I'm conditioned to believe per https://www.protondb.com/
I have no Windows-specific software other than games.
I'll probably just move to Win11 because I don't have to worry too much about it. It's in virtual machine. And I can keep snapshots of the virtual disk in case I come back to an update I don't like.
Kinda sucks that the only fully correct way to play games is on an OS that continues to suck more and more, and that I have to wear a virtual condom to do so.
I just put Windows 11 on its own little VLAN/WiFi island called "RebootRift." It lives alone, endlessly restarting, hoping one day it will be trustworthy enough to join the others—but deep down, it knows it never will.
A local IT shop still has a poster up urging people to hire them to update their PCs from Windows 7 to 10 when its EOL was around the corner...
If I can just hold out until some new local-maxima of Microsoft's wavering quality...
Between them removing administrative controls and the lowest-common-denominator tabletization of the UI, I need to look harder at putting it in a VM or doing plain old dual-boot. (For a gaming machine, so that imposes some minimal ties to the ecosystem.)
It really doesn’t, absent a few key games. I’ve just built a new gaming PC and I’ve gone straight with Arch. I was worried the compatibility I experienced with the steam deck may be isolated to the steam deck but it’s shocking how far it’s come.
Is it perfect? No, of course not. But my god it definitely is good enough to cut myself free of MS’s terrible decision-making the last 5ish years.
Just not if you’re interested in HDR and have an NVIDIA card :( (yep it’s improved heaps, I’m just impatiently waiting for the next new feature branch release past 560.35.02 that hopefully fixes colour desaturation in HDR).
Also, I’m really curious how Big Picture can be so broken on NVIDIA. It’s a webview driven by Chromium AFAIK, does general Chrome suffer the same?
In all seriousness though, everything else is pretty amazing. Proton is awesome.
Strong agree, I also used to double boot or just add wsl in windows but permanently moved to linux since microsoft is more and more insulting. I don’t get 100% the gaming I get on windows but it the difference is not worth installing malware on my computer at all
Just wait a few more years for Windows 11.1 and hope the pattern of every other release being good holds true
Its so disappointing to see Win 10 getting sunsetted. It's been hands down the best Windows OS experience for mem, and I've been onboard since 3.1. I've had the displeasure of having to interact with Windows 11, both pro and home, recently, and it feels half baked in so many ways.
Windows 10 was a bit shit at launch too. They hadn't quite figured out how to orchestrate forced updates (e.g. no active hours or pausing updates for a week). The Start Menu was a bit of a mess for the first 5 years. Cortana was shoved down your throat. Dark mode wasn't even a thing. HDR support was basically non-existent and DPI support was ass. "Precision touchpad" support wasn't a thing, the Settings vs Control Panel split was way worse, things like WSL weren't a thing, notifications in Action Center were horrible to manage. The new Windows Terminal app hadn't been made yet... ssh/sftp wasn't built in.
What I 100% expect with every new release of Windows is that they'll have some genuinely good ideas, remove or break a ton of existing workflows trying to implement those changes but only getting them halfway to where they need to go, and then fix it over the coming years. E.g. with Windows 11 they rewrote the taskbar and it was missing drag and drop, positioning, clocks on multiple monitors, useful right click shortcuts on the taskbar, "Never Combine" to not group windows, the smaller taskbar, showing the text label next to things in the taskbar, and probably more I'm forgetting. At this point nearly all of those are fixed (small taskbar is about to be, position is still unthinkable for now apparently).
Typically I'll just move to the latest. Yeah, it'll suck to adjust at first, but quickly it'll improve and start to have features beyond the first. Some prefer to hang on to the previous one until it drops so the next one is already pretty fixed up. Either way, most folks end up liking the older versions even though most folks hate them at the start. Part of that is also rose colored glasses too though.
Well, you will always feel it with most software out there - we no longer track development cycles on specific large releases.
Seriously?
Except having to revert right click context menu and worse task bar I don't see bigger differences except more beautiful UI
Microsoft expects a large number of Windows 10 users to abandon their computer and purchase a new one. "Having a PC" versus "not having a PC" is a pretty big difference.
They will force laptop refresh cycle
Looking forward to Linux for my gaming box
Minecraft Bedrock is one of the main things holding me back from doing that.
Have you checked luanti (ex minetest)? It might be a good replacement.
Steam OS can't come soon enough
Linux in my near future...
Why not byte the bullet and just go Linux now?
Hopefully we get SteamOS by then.
Where can I get the Windows 10 ISO or whatever so that I can install it?? I'll pay!!
Also, what might I not like about Windows Server 2019????
You'd be surprised to know the actual answer: Microsoft
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...
Fine print: You need a non-windows user agent, otherwise you get redirected to a windows-specific page with no ISOs.
As an aside, you might want to install Ventoy to your flashdrive:
https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html
That way you just need to copy the ISO to the flashdrive.
The others have provided the link - I'll add it's the activation/licenses are the part you really pay to get but you can do that after install (or not at all, it's just nagware outside of some personalization settings).
Windows Server 2019 is going to have some wonky defaults and components out of the box. Some apps will report not being compatible but it's not usually a problem. That said, Windows Server 2019 is neither the oldest or newest version of Windows Server based on the Windows 10 codebase so I'm not sure why you'd bother with it in particular.
You can get ISOs from the following link for Home and Pro edition but you have to visit the site from a non-Windows device (a different user-agent might also work)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10I...
This might be a joke I'm missing about the Windows 10 installation, but this page allows download of the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
I think visiting it on Linux (I assume anything non-Windows) shows a download link for the ISO instead.
There is still windows 2019 LTSC with 5 year support.