This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Hah. Good luck trying to make me dispose of the computer I built almost a decade ago and that I just upgraded. Neither my laptops nor my phones have outlived this baby.
I put Linux on my mom's laptop which is nearing two decades old at this point. It was the pragmatic choice even though I personally use Windows.
Windows security updates only last a few years. Would be annoying to keep reinstalling and re explaining the changed UI every few years.
Users to microsoft: "You're creating a huge pile of garbage out of perfectly fine devices because of unneeded hardware requirement"
microsoft: "It's ok, just buy a new one"
Rarely have a message gone through so bad.
Funny because people still use Windows 7 in large quantities across the world.
Windows 7 is such a nice user experience today, if you use it in 2025 you really get an idea of how far windows has fallen off.
Can you believe this company has a Chief Sustainability Officer? What the fuck do they do all day?
Always wandering why it isn' t possible for Microsoft to maintain their version and update all along. Linux can do it, Android can do it. I' m not sure about Apple. I switched to Linux years ago and I'm still most satisfied about my choice. My current laptop is from 2009 and can still go on for years. That is what you call sustainability
But then the People wouldnt pay for it over and over again?
People are way less willing to pay for updates than for whole new versions.
Apple and companies using Android are selling hardware, not software like Microsoft.
Updates should be incorparated in the subscription of your software. True that Apple and companies using Android are selling hardware. But Microsoft is also selling hardware. At my work we use Microsoft Surface laptops and my son in law has a X-Box. They even start selling advertisements.
They make most of their money from pro licenses and telemety data anyway, I'm sure.
Sustainable products are not profitable products. Look at what happened to Tupperware.
True. But the real problem is that we want too much profit and the companies are getting to big. My guess is that if the tax plans are changed and we settle for less money, it will be much better for many things. It should be added that prices would then also have to be much lower
Can MS be sued by EU for this? There was the thing with USB-C, because E-waste, and now the most used Desktop-OS says "just throw your PC away" for a not really needed (and artifically defined) requirement.
I don't think there would be any legal standing for it. The computers being dropped won't be losing their functionality since users could just switch to something different or keep using Windows 10 without security patches. The
The?
You heard 'em, "The."
If you have a new WINDOWS ELEVEN11! PC you can read the rest of the text.
End.
I'm not using windows, but apple does the same thing. My OS is 9 versions old because they won't let me upgrade without buying a new computer.
That's apple wanting to control their closed hardware ecosystem. Windows is built to run on a significantly wider range of hardware, so isn't really comparable in that way.
True, microsoft is a wehrmacht nazi soldier where as apple is full on gestapo.
Trading in a PC.... in 2025? To who? Where? What time period, even? They must be thinking it's still 1985, and you can trade in your IBM Compatible to your nearest IBM Distributor.
The addage to people who ask if I buy PCs is: You want to get rid of it. How am I going to convince someone to not only take it, but pay money for it?
I never liked Windows 10, I had way too many issues with it. However, so many companies rely on old versions of Windows and it takes them years to upgrade to the latest version. The machines I use at work still have Windows 10 installed because the software we rely on isn't compatible with Windows 11 yet. This whole "trade in your old PC for a new one" is ridiculous. Thankfully there's many Linux distros that work with older hardware so you don't need Windows!
When management doesn’t want to upgrade from XP because it still works
Linux users tell Microsoft to just get over it, dump your parasitic software and start over, because how hard can it be?
Actually you can get the IoT Enterprise LTSC here and do your windows thing until 2032
Trade in to whom, to Linux users?.. Actually a good idea, not sure MS understood which almost logically complete advice they gave.
W10 wouldn't get past the pin screen (type pin, then black screen forever, nothing else), so I used a live boot disk of fedora to rescue my files (turns out you can just bypass windows pins and mount the drive), then installed fedora on my old toshiba satellite and never looked back. Few years in I upgraded with linux in mind and now am cruising with a Framework 16. No regrets.
Join us! Cast off your shackles! Microsoft has no power over you beyond what you willingly give them!
Linux/BSD blah blah blah
Bring on the cheap non windows 11 computers. I've already told everyone i know if they didn't want to have to buy another computer for years they just had to start using linux. Then I show them what that looks like if they are interested. I show them that they can put menu/start button at the bottom left if thats what they want. That they can have a the same browser they use and many of the same applications. I've had two people willing to try. Most insist that they don't want to learn anything new. Its depressing but its a boon for me when people start getting rid of their perfectly usable gear.
I switched to Linux on my laptops years ago. Recently, I retired and started playing video games like Skyrim. I play on a Nintendo Switch. I considered playing Skyrim on a laptop so I could use/build mods. I bought a laptop with Windows 11 and spent forty minutes removing the bloat, ads, spyware, ai nonsense, and other dross, fixing it so it did not 'update' to restore everything I deleted, and installing my preferred alternatives (browser, search, email etc). It reminded me why I hate Windows almost as much as Mac OS (which is even more controlling). Microsoft have hundreds of engineers 'enshitifying' everything. It is more than a full-time job trying to stop them and block their 'improvements'. I am retired. I have better things to do.
I did not enjoy playing games with a laptop (hurts my arthritis, I prefer using a console and an easy chair) and resented having to reverse engineer everything I installed to keep it running but without sacrificing my privacy so the laptop now just sits in a drawer. It amazes me that anyone still tolerates Microsoft products, or any of the monopolists stuff. Why is anyone still using google search or chrome browser, why bing or any of it? Why is anyone still seeing adverts? Why is everyone still being fed by algorithms? You must chose this - but why? I always sought out better and if it did not exist, I built it, and if I could not build it, I did without. There is a lot of dumbing-down around technology. Back in C20th, we used to build our own hardware, write our own software. We were skilled hobbyists (later I got an M.Sc. to reinforce my hobby skills with theory and even ran a business for a while as an engineer). Around 2000 +/- five years, the monopolists offered 'help' in the form of WYSIWYG editors to write code for us or 'click buttons to register your account' platforms to host content for us instead of us running our own websites (blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter etc). They dumbed us all down, farmed us like animals for data and used clickbait to get ad revenue and undermined our politics, culture, even changed our sense of being human. Now old folk can build resources but younger people can only consume. We have to re-skill and resist the seduction of the easy and free-to-use. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Never trust a tech bro, whether USA or any nationality.
Personally, I want to 'jail break' my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim. I can't do that now as it is illegal but when they bring out the Switch 2 and the old console is 'obsolete' and they stop trying to get money for Skyrim, I reckon we tinkerers will get a chance to re-purpose the old console to play the old games in our own way. I reckon some exciting engineering is happening amongst the recyclers and re-purposers rather than amongst the corporates. I only buy second-hand for ethical reasons and to save money. I always install my own software based on AOSP or use a more ethical distro or alternative to the commercial options. I always debloat or degoogle or remove unwanted stuff. I wish that kind of personalisation were more common. There is a zero sum relationship with tech: either the technology controls you, or you control it. I urge you to control your own tech. Don't be enslaved by it. I feel I am in a minority in wanting sovereignty over my damn phone. It makes me sad.
Personally, I want to 'jail break' my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim.
Why not just get a steam deck?
