Gentle reminder to everyone that support for #windows10 ends in about 90 weeks. Many computers can’t upgrade to Win 11 so here are your options:
- Continue on Win 10 but with higher security risks.
- Buy new and expensive hardware that supports Win11.
- Try a beginner friendly #Linux distro like #linuxmint. It only takes about two months to acclimate.
You can continue using Windows 10 and receive security updates for another three years when the standard 5+5 year support lifecycle ends, but you’ll have pay up. Prices haven’t been made available yet, though.
You can also trivially bypass the TPM and processor requirements and upgrade to Windows 11 (but you’ll probably lack proper Windows Hello support if you do). It’s not something end users will be able to pull off by themselves, but if you’re able to install Linux, you’re able to install Windows 11.
That sounds a hell lot more complicated than installing a linux distro like mint or ubuntu.
I have to explain to my aunt how to navigate to her external hard drive every time she plugs it in to see or save her pictures. That’s with autoplay. Asking her to click on a script I set up to mount it and click the shortcut to that mount point. No way, it would take 45 minutes on the phone every time. I’m telling her to buy the extended support, cause I’m not going through upgrading her computer again. As long as that malware riddled cesspool stays exactly the same she can use it. Some people are just very bad with technology.
I meant in the sense, that if you had to install a new OS on a device, doing a beginner friendly linux distro is easier than bypassing TPM requirements and then dealing with the fallout of that in Windows 11.
I trust you not to ask your aunt to install an OS by herself.
Linux gets awesome when you have at least a the bare simplest minimum of idea what your computer is doing, but when you see it as some kind of magic box it won’t protect you against yourself. I experienced this myself with a friend who wanted to try Linux, giving them as much help as I could, explaining everything down to even make them regular tutorials if they forgot anything…and nope, to my suprise they just never understood their pc even back when it was windows…and even with all my help, it just flew over their head. While doing some overdue maintenance on their machine I just realized they always ended up seriously harming their pc with bad habbits, regardless of the OS, Windows just took it better because of how dumbed down it is for tech iliterate people.
So yeah I completly get it xD
I did that for my desktop because it has an tpm1 chip. Works like a Charme but for example the volume slider is still the windows 10 one. And what would I need windows hello for except for Logging in via faceid or something like that?
Windows Hello isn’t just face ID (though that is where it originated in most consumer laptops). It’s an authentication system that uses the TPM to store credentials, for use with biometric authentication but also password authentication. This is what you’re using if you enable a “PIN” (which accepts letters, thanks Microsoft) to unlock your desktop. Rather than using a simple password, the password is used to unlock a TPM secret, which is then validated. That means it’s nearly impossible to brute force a login screen password without physically altering the device (i.e. opening the chassis and probing the connection between the TPM and the CPU).
It’s also the technology backing WebAuthn/FIDO passkeys that are requested to be stored on-device rather than in an account (the highest level of assurance), similar to how passkeys work on Android and iOS.
I’m not sure if Microsoft implemented all this for TPM 1.2, which most older devices ship with, but there’s a good chance they don’t bother or break support during an update because TPM 2.0 is a requirement for Windows 11
The mechanism behind it is mostly documented on Microsoft’s developer website.
thanks for explanation. I hope my Install doesn’t randomly break because Microsoft decided it should do so. I’d hate to throw windows away for some lightweight foss distro /s
Edit: only reason for not having moved yet is just my lazy ass
I don’t think Microsoft will intentionally break anything, but with the increasing adoption of passkeys you may find that some stuff doesn’t work in the future (probably with vague error messages).
I recognise your laziness, it took me a few years of dual blotting before I switched completely. With WSL2, I’m not sure if I would still go through the effort to dual boot had I started now. On the other hand, Linux has improved a lot since I first installed it, so who knows…
Yeah I have been down that hole too it’s mostly all the online logins and sessions that I have collected over years of using that os(windows) and pc and some old data that I don’t really want to wipe but also don’t really wanna go through the hassle of copying the important stuff off of windows.
Also some of the games that I played used to have such obnoxious anti cheat systems that I couldn’t imagine the hassle to get them to work to be worth it but thanks to the steam deck adoption has increased immensely since I last tried gaming on Linux.
Wsl2 doesn’t quite do the trick for me it just makes me want the whole package but I use it for programming because I don’t know windows shell commands for shit and everything is tied into windows/ms at work^^
For your file transition: there’s a tool out there that will convert an NTFS filesystem into BTRFS, which you can install Linux to. I’m not 100% sure what the risk for data loss is, but for basic data disks it could be a quick and easy solution.
You could on theory install Linux, copy the files from your Windows home to your /home, and then get rid of all the Windows folders. You may even be able to keep some programs installed and run them under Wine if you’re lucky!
That sounds very good I think I’m gonna try that, thank you.