News California man sues Microsoft for discontinuing Windows 10 — says company is doing this to “monopolize the generative AI market”

[stonecarver]

I have no issue with Microsoft EOL as each OS hit there life span. Where I feel the injustice comes from is not in the future support and future updates but the removal of all up dates that have secured windows 10 all the way up to there coming up October deadline.

When EOL comes in October every security release ever put out there will be hosted on a dead Microsoft page. Meaning it will be a page that says "Oops something went wrong"

Removing all the past years of updates " If one needed to keep Windows 10 and later needed to reinstall" and not a chance in heck being able to get anything that was already there from Microsoft after EOL.

That's the grey area that bites you in the rear.

Just be fully updated before EOL and have a clone or a disc image as a backup because moving forward is doable keeping Windows 10 on life support for a while but it really is all on you.

And for the record most of the regulars know I run Windows 11 but I run 11 on non supported CPU's.

I have no more love for 10 than Windows 11 but I do have a passions for keeping things running.

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

I have no issue with Microsoft EOL as each OS hit there life span. Where I feel the injustice comes from is not in the future support and future updates but the removal of all up dates that have secured windows 10 all the way up to there coming up October deadline.

When EOL comes in October every security release ever put out there will be hosted on a dead Microsoft page. Meaning it will be a page that says "Oops something went wrong"

Removing all the past years of updates " If one needed to keep Windows 10 and later needed to reinstall" and not a chance in heck being able to get anything that was already there from Microsoft after EOL.

That's the grey area that bites you in the rear.

Just be fully updated before EOL and have a clone or a disc image as a backup because moving forward is doable keeping Windows 10 on life support for a while but it really is all on you.

And for the record most of the regulars know I run Windows 11 but I run 11 on non supported CPU's.

I have no more love for 10 than Windows 11 but I do have a passions for keeping things running.

The Microsoft Update Catalog will continue to house those updates for download.

 

[hotaru251]

Every other OS version, no matter if Windows, Linux, Apple....expires and falls off support after some time.

yes, but this inability to go to 11 is a 100% MS choice.
There is no harm in allowing them to use the OS becasue of lack of TPM2.0They could easily allow peopel to use it and just have a popup saying "we aint responsible if crap happens"

They are purposefully obsoleting thousands to millions of devices for an arbitrary thing.

this isnt like win7 which was too advanced that msot machiens made it awful to run it on...win11 is no worse than 11 performance wise

 

[COLGeek]

This is a frivolous lawsuit, at best.

No one is forcing anyone to upgrade to Win 11. As others have mentioned, you have choices/options.

Whether users like those options, or those options are in their best interest, is really not a MS problem. Now is it?

If this really bothers you as a consumer for whatever the reason, make a different choice. There. Easy.

 

[Exploding PSU]

A valid Win 10 retail license upgrades to Win 11 for free.

In fact....
A valid Win 7 license from 2009 could have upgraded to Win 10, for free.
And then to Win 11, for free.

So 16+ years on the same $100 purchase from 2009....and people have heartburn about that.

My current Windows 11 Pro install started its life as a disc-based Windows 8 Pro I bought circa 2012 when buying a Lenovo laptop. They had this promo where I could get the Pro version for the price of Home version, so I bite.

It already went through like 5 different devices, and several Windows versions (8, 8.1, 10, and now 11), and the fact the license still works... is kind of interesting.

Not siding with MS or anything.

 

[Alex/AT]

A Retail license lets you call MS.

But what really matters is getting 'support' in the case of continuing security updates.

Updates don't stop if you install Win11 without TPM...

 

[Xajel]

The biggest culprit is the TPM requirement.

Usually with major hardware changes, MS will inform all the partners that X is recommended starting next version, and will be required after 3-4 years when another future versions comes. This happened with every major hardware changes like some CPU or GPU feature, it might be 3-4 years and it might be even longer, but there was always a grace period of "recommended, then required" change.

This thing didn't happen with TPM, or it happened but with a very short term that all hardware makers were shocked, they were not prepared. This change basically made modern hardware obsolete because of the software.

 

[Boris88]

Full support man i will also sue linux for not making anticheat kernel too

 

[uplink-svk]

MS needs to keep up the sharade. Every corpo that creates a product doesn't create it for consumer/end-user a.k.a. a person who in the end pays for the product, but for share/stakeholders. And Markets require true or false improvements and constant innovation, so that annual reports can look good. Without at least seeming progress, the stocks would go down. It's a deathloop of so called Stock Market "development" and constant "improvement." In other words, MS has to push for new even if it completely damages and/or destroys integrity, functionality and legacy of their primary product. That's how Markets work.

 

[Questions need answers]

The lawsuit is an interesting development, although I don't think it will pass muster.

As for MS, they really don't care about retail users since the larger user base for desktop is enterprise. Those who Jump to Linux / Apple / whatever will be in the minority, and they know it. As it has been every time in the past.

For the record, I am going to be one of them who jumps. I have several W10 machines and when that goes away, I am porting to Ubuntu or a similar disto. I will only keep 1 Windows machine for those things that absolutely need it.

I want to know if this lawsuit will be a class action? If so how can I join?

 

[USAFRet]

I want to know if this lawsuit will be a class action? If so how can I join?

If this were to become a class action (it won't), and if it were to prevail (it won't)....at the end, you, a singular user of a Windows license, would gain about $3. (my random estimate)

 

[COLGeek]

If this were to become a class action (it won't), and if it were to prevail (it won't)....at the end, you, a singular user of a Windows license, would gain about $3. (my random estimate)

If that.

I agree. This is going nowhere.

No way that a lawsuit regarding obsolescence gets any legal traction.

 

[changemeimfamous]

The TPM (Trusted Platform Module) - Read about it here, without the AI foolishness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module

I love the hypocrisy of using Wikipedia as a reference w/out foolishness..

 

[Moonstick2]

We were told when Windows 10 arrived that it would be the last Windows version, and that users would only receive software updates for it.

No we weren't.
That was a throwaway comment, totally misunderstood over the years.

Well, if the only source ever was that "throwaway comment" by Jerry Nixon, it was misunderstood by a lot of people, including a Microsoft CTO over a year later.

Windows Internals Seventh Edition, Part 1 (also PDF):

Windows 10 and future Windows versions

With Windows 10, Microsoft declared it will update Windows at a faster cadence than before. There will not be an official “Windows 11”; instead, Windows Update (or another enterprise servicing model) will update the existing Windows 10 to a new version. At the time of writing, two such updates have occurred, in November 2015 (also known as version 1511, referring to the year and month of servicing) and July 2016 (version 1607, also known by the marketing name of Anniversary Update).

I agree the lawsuit is stupid. I agree that Microsoft is always an easy target and don't quite deserve all the hate that comes their way, often from those who will never upgrade to 11 from 10 (the 10 that they were never going to upgrade to from 7, the 7 that they were never going to upgrade to from XP, the XP that they were never going to upgrade to from 98SE*) but I disagree that '10 forever' was some big misunderstanding. I'm sure they did have that intention for some years, and at the time it even made a fair amount of sense.


*I remember one of the most passionate complaints by users against XP was the 'bubbly Fisher-Price/Tellytubbies UI'. When Windows 10 came along, lots of users complained about the 'flat monochromatic UI'...

 

[abufrejoval]

I am concerned about TPM. The descriptions say that it increases security. Some say that it reduces privacy. I am concerned that TPM reduces security.

I asked Google Gemini. I might misunderstand what it said but I think it said that cloaked computations and Encrypted Payloads makes it possible for processing done in the TPM to use memory in a manner that makes some data to be unobserved by other software. Those descriptions always clarify the description to imply that only malware would do that but I am suspicious. Combine that with AI in the system; our data could be processed by AI in our system in a manner that we cannot detect and then the processed results could be sent elsewhere, correct? I do not like that even if it is only done for marketing purposes.

Quite simply it can do both.

It's a bit like electronic door handles in a car: they can raise security by not opening the doors in the wrong moment (e.g. until the car is in a position safe for exit), but they can also lower it, by not opening at all (letting you burn extra crisp, but without broken bones).

And like any piece of technology TPM implementations have been found to contain exploitable bugs, which means systems a) can be affected with a much lower chance of discovery or b) even without any means to repair the issue.

In any case their use is a choice owners of personal computers must make, not a software vendor.

In the Fruity Cult domain, owners are evidently happy to have choices removed by default, in the domain of Personal Computers that is eggregious and potentially illegal overreach sold as security, while its true motivation is shifting the balance of control away from the owner.

And where M$ might see themselves as the primary beneficiary of that move, bad actors can use exploitable bugs to take away that control and when any governments ask, no vendor can refuse.

 

[JeffreyP55]

Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 by October 2025, but someone is suing the company to stop it from doing so.

California man sues Microsoft for discontinuing Windows 10 — says company is doing this to “monopolize the generative AI market” : Read more

Gimme back my Windows 7 or I'll sue!

 

[TerryLaze]

The biggest culprit is the TPM requirement.

Usually with major hardware changes, MS will inform all the partners that X is recommended starting next version, and will be required after 3-4 years when another future versions comes. This happened with every major hardware changes like some CPU or GPU feature, it might be 3-4 years and it might be even longer, but there was always a grace period of "recommended, then required" change.

This thing didn't happen with TPM, or it happened but with a very short term that all hardware makers were shocked, they were not prepared. This change basically made modern hardware obsolete because of the software.

Windows 11 was released in 2021 and windows 10 is being discontinued now.
How is 4 years not 3-4 years?!?!?
(Also probably the TPM requirement was widely known long before that but I'm too lazy to look that up)