News Microsoft 365 users still on Windows 10 will be out of luck when Windows 10 is retired in October

[jlake3]

I assume you just mean your department or team but that your org's IT department has some kind of PC lifecycle program? I guess I fail to see how this late in the game (Windows 11 was released Oct 2021 and requirements were solidified at that time, so we knew what had to happen by W10's death date of 14 Oct 2025) that there will still be enterprise hardware that hasn't been budgeted for replacement. I say that realizing that plenty of orgs don't have deep pockets, but Microsoft forced everyone's hand; what else can be done besides switch to Linus or Mac??

Looks like the answer is spending a bunch of money on Windows 10 ESU's. :/

It's absolutely horrific what Microsoft has done, but some kind of action has to be taken -- IT burying their heads in the sand isn't the answer.

I'm not sure if we have a formal lifecycle program (we didn't even have a full-time IT position until 2024) but it's just the engineering department that's still on old hardware and Win10.

I'm baffled as to what exactly our budget situation is, since we spend money on some dumb stuff while getting cheap elsewhere... but we came out of the pandemic seemingly a lot weaker than we went in, and pricing out the current-gen equivalent to our current systems on Dell's site, I'm getting somewhere between $4k and $5.6k per person for hardware, plus whatever value they assign to the time spent migrating a bunch of PITA licenses and re-configuring multiple custom environments. At least after 2023's decision to not backfill departures and 2024's layoffs there's a lot less systems to replace?

As long as Office365 still runs, extended support makes a kind of sense; stick with what works, and buy time for the business to improve... or it implodes and renders the whole situation moot.

 

[dimar]

I thought Windows 11 has the same core as Windows 10. Even the drivers are the same. What's the deal with Microsoft?

 

[palladin9479]

I thought Windows 11 has the same core as Windows 10. Even the drivers are the same. What's the deal with Microsoft?

They are just trying to drive more adoption to Win 11 using the same strat they did to drive people from Win 7 to Win 10.

You can still get support for Windows 10, you just have to pay more for it. People can even chose to just ignore MS and keep running Win 10, I know many who still have Windows 7 with zero issues. Eventually drivers are going to start being a problem, but usually not for several product cycles after the OS EOL.

My suggestion to everyone is to move off MS Office for your home computers. Business's can have IT shops that can budget this sort of stuff and account for it as a legitimate business expense, but home users should not be paying money to be treated this way. I switched to Libre Office when MS started pushing subscription products over pay once lifetime products.

https://www.libreoffice.org

It's not quite the same and will require adjustments, it also won't cut you off if you don't pay them more money.

 

[palladin9479]

Me too. I'm no looking for alternative cloud storage options and will switch to regular office even if I do run Windows 11, I'm done with 365 and that was also made an easy decision now they've forced copilot BS onto 365 and increased prices as a result.

Most cloud storage providers have some sort of desktop service that lets you represent that storage as a local drive or folder. Then use whatever software you want to read and write from it. I try to stay away from MS products for important stuff because they love to adopt the Apple model and use it to wall users into their eco systems.