News Before Windows 10 goes EOL, I'm testing three alternative Linux distros to save my 6-year-old laptop from the landfill

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Or you could use a tool like Rufus and install Windows 11 because TPM 2.0 is the only thing hindering most Windows 10 machines from running 11, or you could redeem 1000 Microsoft reward points for a year of extra upgrades...

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Windows 10 users can get extended security updates using Microsoft points

Microsoft says Windows 10 home users who want to delay switching to Windows 11 can enroll in the Extended Security Updates (ESU) program at no additional cost using Microsoft Rewards points or enabling Windows Backup to sync their data to the cloud.
www.bleepingcomputer.com www.bleepingcomputer.com

Windows 11 is still working just fine on my relatively antique (and underpowered as heck) Surface Pro 3 after installing with Rufus.
 
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Admin said:

to save my 6-year-old laptop from the landfill​

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Articles like this are very valuable. These machines that Microsoft has turned its back to still have plenty of years of good service left in them. Meaning, that's more $ that can remain in your wallet.

Unfortunately, some will insist on using an unsupported version of Windows which is very unwise. That's just asking for viruses and spyware and to turn your personal computer into a bot aggregator that harasses all of us especially when these will turn into bot farms and DDOS attacks.

Please do not go the route of unsupported software turned spyware. Please don't play your part in turning your computer into a bot drone.
 
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All the same things we've been doing to get Win 11 installed on VMs since it came out should also work on most laptops of that era. Rufus makes it into a one-step process.
 
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ezst036 said:
Articles like this are very valuable. These machines that Microsoft has turned its back to still have plenty of years of good service left in them. Meaning, that's more $ that can remain in your wallet.

Unfortunately, some will insist on using an unsupported version of Windows which is very unwise. That's just asking for viruses and spyware and to turn your personal computer into a bot aggregator that harasses all of us especially when these will turn into bot farms and DDOS attacks.

Please do not go the route of unsupported software turned spyware. Don't turn your computer into a bot drone.
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Are you referring to suppressing the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 as "unsupported software"?
 
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phxrider said:
Are you referring to suppressing the TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 as "unsupported software"?
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Microsoft has stated that it will not support any computer that fails to meet requirements; yes, also TPM2.0. It means you still put yourself, and me, at the risk of your computer being an email spam bot or other nefarious bot setup. Here it is right from the mouthpiece:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...irements-0b2dc4a2-5933-4ad4-9c09-ef0a331518f1
If Windows 11 is installed on ineligible hardware, your device won't receive support from Microsoft, and you should be comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.
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Now all of us suspect Microsoft will quietly change its tune and also suspect this doesn't include security-type updates, but keep in mind Microsoft did just this last week take the very aggressive stance of removing all drivers from older hardware. It is plausible that Microsoft is playing for keeps here and they will let you go down with the ship.

At the end of the day the official word is the official word. No support means no support. Proceed with caution. Many people may feel happy risking mine and others well being, well, that's really classy of you. Such wonderful Gentlemen and Ladies around here.

But do you put yourself at risk? Don't risk your own bank accounts and other information. That is, quite frankly, stupid.
 
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ezst036 said:
Microsoft has stated that it will not support any computer that fails to meet requirements; yes, also TPM2.0. It means you still put yourself, and me, at the risk of your computer being an email spam bot or other nefarious bot setup. Here it is right from the mouthpiece:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...irements-0b2dc4a2-5933-4ad4-9c09-ef0a331518f1

Now all of us suspect Microsoft will quietly change its tune and also suspect this doesn't include security-type updates, but keep in mind Microsoft did just this last week take the very aggressive stance of removing all drivers from older hardware. It is plausible that Microsoft is playing for keeps here and they will let you go down with the ship.

At the end of the day the official word is the official word. No support means no support. Proceed with caution. Many people may feel happy risking mine and others well being, well, that's really classy of you. Such wonderful Gentlemen and Ladies around here.

But do you put yourself at risk? Don't risk your own bank accounts and other information. That is, quite frankly, stupid.
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This only means that the device won't get any support....
As in you call microsoft and tell them "I have windows 11 on potato Pc please help" they will tell you "we don't support this device with windows 11"

It has nothing to do with the OS not being secure.
 
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For a Lenovo X390 you can just use Kubuntu which is regular Ubuntu with KDE desktop which is closer to current windows.

There is also a Cinnamon version of Ubuntu if you want official Ubuntu instead of Linux Mint.

Lastly there is also Lubuntu which uses LXQT this UI is closest to old Win9x and is the lightest version of Ubuntu, better suited for quite old PC's.

Zorin is to me is a let down, simply because it claims to be for Windows users but then uses a terrible hacked version of the Gnome interface, Gnome does not behave like Windows at all in any way even if you skin it on the surface to look like it.

Finally KDE and LXQT are both built using the Qt framework, a lot of open source software on Windows also uses Qt so applications with their Linux versions fit together UI wise much better than the GTK Gnome/Cinnamon approach.

The only real downside of the Ubuntu variants is they don't enable Flatpak via Flathub support out of the box but that is easy to change and gives you access to a lot more software.
 
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phxrider said:
All the same things we've been doing to get Win 11 installed on VMs since it came out should also work on most laptops of that era. Rufus makes it into a one-step process.
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Absolutely. Not wanting to use a laptop without security updates, I just used a newer program on GitHub called Flyby that uses scripts to achieve the same thing Rufus does but it's even less hassle than Rufus. Flyby will not proceed if it finds processors so old that they're not capable of SSE4.2, which precludes Intel CPUs made before 2008 and AMD CPUs made before 2011 — i.e., it doesn't waste a user's time trying to upgrade a computer that's not going to work with Windows 11. It told me that my laptop had a "very high chance of success" with the upgrade.
My laptop is 14 years old with an I3 processor of that era, 8GB RAM and a 250GB SSD. It's not used for anything intensive, just email, Web browsing, etc, and it now runs Windows 11 24H2 as fast as it ran Windows 7 and 10. My hardware doesn't provide all the security features of Windows 11, but it IS 100% as secure as it's been for the last 14 years and it's as secure as I need it to be for household use. I see no reason to switch to Linux for computers like this unless one simply wants to play around with Linux and would otherwise trash the older machine.
 
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Purely FWIW...

From my own experience Win11 will run on an old Intel Atom CPU [N3150], 2GB RAM, 32GB storage, & legacy boot. It will be slow, sometimes painfully, but on that old mini-PC Win11 does add a slight performance boost compared to Win10. Of course 4GB RAM is better, 8GB better yet, and I did notice a boost upgrading an i3 laptop from 8 to 16GB RAM.

UEFI/Secure Boot don't need explaining, but at least to date, Win11 supports legacy booting same as Win10. The RAM & storage requirements are completely arbitrary. The TPM is used for BitLocker & with Credential Mgr. etc., but everything works fine without it [I actually have more problems with Adobe sign-in with a TPM]. The CPU requirements reflect an added feature to lessen the performance impact of VBS, which is probably worthwhile for corp. but IMHO not worth the performance hit at home.

That said, there's nothing wrong with switching to Linux if you can run the software you want/need. While a Live USB stick/drive can give you a taste, a Linux V/Box VM running in Windows will let you actually install & try the software you want to use, plus you can have your browser open in Windows to Google for directions on how to do whatever. And if everything's a go, you can boot your Linux VM to a Foxclone ISO, and clone the VM's drive to an external USB SSD. Boot to that and you've got a near equivalent to an installed copy to check performance etc.
 
milleron said:
I see no reason to switch to Linux for computers like this unless one simply wants to play around with Linux
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Depending on the hardware, and assuming you can find software, &/or use Wine/Proton, Linux **may** give a boost in performance. Comparison performance testing I've seen seems to hint that on higher end CPUs there's not a huge difference, but on lower end hardware, specifically gaming handhelds, Linux whips Windows butt.
 
ezst036 said:
Unfortunately, some will insist on using an unsupported version of Windows which is very unwise. That's just asking for viruses and spyware and to turn your personal computer into a bot aggregator that harasses all of us especially when these will turn into bot farms and DDOS attacks.

Please do not go the route of unsupported software turned spyware. Please don't play your part in turning your computer into a bot drone.
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Your point is somewhat valid, except it assumes that "keeping Windows up to date" makes you invulnerable. It decreases the attack surface, but certainly doesn't keep you protected. I know someone who's system has been compromised multiple times despite "being up to date"... because she clicks on every email she gets.

There are also alternatives to keeping your system safer without "being supported by Microsoft". Such as https://0patch.com, which ironically, could easily be safer than using Microsoft Update! This plus 3rd party AV can keep your Win10 machine going a long time past the "officially no longer supported" date.

This is the path I'll likely be taking when MS officially stops supporting Win10, whenever that is. I'm in the never11 camp; MS crossed the line with that release.
 
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ezst036 said:
Microsoft has stated that it will not support any computer that fails to meet requirements;
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Since Win11 came out that's meant two things: 1) you can't normally install it -- you have to use Rufus etc., and 2) if you're corp. and can actually talk to someone at Microsoft, they won't offer tech support. Once you have Win11 installed on non-compliant hardware the Only difference is that when a Windows version update requires a reinstall you'll have to use a Rufus created USB stick to install the new version,, rather than relying on Windows Update to muck things up.
 
SomeoneElse23 said:
I'm in the never11 camp; MS crossed the line with that release.
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NOT judging, I'm lazy & OS agnostic -- the only reason an OS exists is to run the software I want/need -- but the main differences between 10 & 11 is Microsoft removed some stuff, broke some other stuff, and changed some cosmetics. Some stuff, e.g., Notepad & Wordpad, can just be copied over. Some things now require a 3rd party app. And there a small industry developing/selling apps to revert the cosmetics to look & feel like Win10.
 
Windows 11 is no option for this piece of hardware.

I'm using Linux Mint on a 20 years old Thinkpad R51, having a Pentium 4 and 2 GB RAM. And it just works.

So, I believe, you'll reach very promising result.
 
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And here I remind the gallery that none of the security requirements actually have anything to do with security... that are mandatory for bitlocker and bitlocker alone.... so if you don't use bitlocker you wont have any problems if you ignore them.
 
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It actually does surprise me a little that Microsoft is getting this level of kick back about dropping support on these older systems. Apple, who makes you spend 4X more for lesser equipment, and then drops support in around 5 years and no one says a word.

Given the significant advancements in computing power over the last couple of years and the opportunities this creates for more feature rich systems I have come around to embracing the change...well than and alongside not really feeling like being an average know nothing user on Linux Distros. I've been messing around casually with them for a couple of years now and just seem to have some level of mental block where it comes to not needing an internet search to find out how to do anything with it.
 
ezst036 said:
Unfortunately, some will insist on using an unsupported version of Windows which is very unwise. That's just asking for viruses and spyware and to turn your personal computer into a bot aggregator that harasses all of us especially when these will turn into bot farms and DDOS attacks.

Please do not go the route of unsupported software turned spyware. Please don't play your part in turning your computer into a bot drone.
Click to expand...
i have 2 comp here, still running windows 7 just fine, and they STILL get updates on the anti virus side of things...

90% of the problem of comps getting compromised, is the person using the comp, not the software. once people stop clicking on links they shouldnt IE : your " bank " sending you and email saying there is some thing wrong with your account, and you need to click this link to verify things, instead of phoning your bank, or, opening a new window and typing the URL for your bank directly, this will never change

whats more unwise ? using an unsupported version of windows, or clicking a link in an mail that you dont know ?
 
Ogotai said:
i have 2 comp here, still running windows 7 just fine, and they STILL get updates on the anti virus side of things...

90% of the problem of comps getting compromised, is the person using the comp, not the software. once people stop clicking on links they shouldnt IE : your " bank " sending you and email saying there is some thing wrong with your account, and you need to click this link to verify things, instead of phoning your bank, or, opening a new window and typing the URL for your bank directly, this will never change

whats more unwise ? using an unsupported version of windows, or clicking a link in an mail that you dont know ?
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In the same vein "you don't need an AV you just need to be your own AV and conform to best practices".... suddenly that argument is not thrown around quite so vehemently hahahaha
 
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