Windows 10 EOL 14 October 2025

[sapphirescales]

I kind of hope it is a new version, because it'll drive new machine sales.

Does anyone actually buy a new PC just because they want the new version of Windows? I mean, I can see large businesses replacing aging Windows 7 systems in 2018-2020 when Windows 7 support was ending, but those would have had to have been replaced anyways.

It's 2021. Nobody waits in lines for the release of a new Windows operating system like they did in the 90's. Frankly, nobody cares. So long as it does what they need it to, why change? Just like nobody is going to buy Office 2021 just because it's a new version. They'll buy it if they buy a new computer and need another copy of Office, or if they can't figure out how to reinstall their original 2016/2019 version after a nuke n' pave.

EDIT: Though I admit, I do buy a single physical copy of Windows every time a new version comes out. I still have my original Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Professional, and Windows 10 Professional boxes/media and it still brings me joy when I buy a new version of Windows. If/when Windows 11 comes out I'll go down to Microcenter and purchase a physical copy. I wonder if they'll still include an install USB?

 

[britechguy]

buy Office 2021 just because it's a new version.

I think the primary driver for Office 2021 will be "future proofing" by those who do not want to enter the world of Microsoft 365. Office 2019 was "supposed to be" the last standalone installable version of office, but clearly there remains enough demand that the relentless march to only Microsoft 365 was given one more small diversion.

 

[Sky-Knight]

To be clear, I know people don't line up for a new windows. But, businesses are forced to keep up, which they really already are.

The part that I'm not clear on is exactly when "old stuff" falls off. They can't keep supporting everything indefinitely, or perhaps they can... I don't know. I just want to know where the line is so I can keep my clients from falling off.

 

[britechguy]

The part that I'm not clear on is exactly when "old stuff" falls off.

Serious question: What are you calling "old stuff" in this context?

Windows 10 (11, whatever) still appears to be handled by Windows As A Service. What's unclear to you right now as far as "drop dead" dates?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Serious question: What are you calling "old stuff" in this context?

Windows 10 (11, whatever) still appears to be handled by Windows As A Service. What's unclear to you right now as far as "drop dead" dates?

Hardware.

Intel drew a line in the sand in the early days of Windows 10 and said that only iSeries onward would be supported.

But we're at a point now where Dell is only supporting generation 6th gen iSeries onward, leaving massive security holes in older hardware. I've got Windows 10 still running on Core 2 era Intel systems.

Most of us at least won't like working on anything older than 4th Generation iSeries due to the lack of USB 3.0, and the endlessly annoying half complete EFIs that existed prior.

So... with Windows being eternal, when do you retire hardware? SSD equipped 1st generation iSeries machines still run well enough for data entry work. The desktop I'm typing on is a 4th gen, and showing no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

So when do you phase things out? Wait until a feature release breaks a box and roll it back? Wait until you're two feature releases behind and in a mad panic to replace before the 3rd hits and you're out of support?

These platforms can't last forever... and age isn't going to kill them! Software not supporting them will. I'm trying to determine what's "too old to support".

 

[britechguy]

That's a different issue, and Microsoft has never been particularly good about indicating a "drop dead" date for old hardware, as so very little has "dropped dead."

The longer Windows goes on as a service, the more that's eventually going to have to change, as even trying to maintain "perpetual backward compatibility" is not an effort worth making.

But your comment regarding "well enough" is the actual metric I've always used as far as hardware replacement. If the machine, no matter how old, is working well enough for the intended purpose by the user/entity in question, it does not yet need to be replaced.

Businesses over the decades have been insanely wasteful as far as hardware replacement has gone. When I worked at AT&T we were changing out PCs probably every two years, which was utterly unnecessary for the kind of work being done, which was using these particular PCs, for the most part, as e-mail and word processing machines with all "serious work" being as terminals to various Unix minicomputers or an IBM mainframe. They did not need to be replaced and "the old machines" would have remained suitable for their uses then, and for years afterward.

I'm sure the same can be said these days, but the specific uses would be, shall we say, different.

I have been able to update a machine with an Intel Core 2 Duo up through at least Windows 10, version 2004, although I don't use the machine at all anymore. This is an exercise to see if/when an actual drop dead date occurs for really ancient hardware.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Businesses over the decades have been insanely wasteful as far as hardware replacement has gone. When I worked at AT&T we were changing out PCs probably every two years, which was utterly unnecessary for the kind of work being done, which was using these particular PCs, for the most part, as e-mail and word processing machines

One of the things that drives that metric is the desire for fixed costs for computer equipment. Most big companies, like AT&T, lease their PCs. Repairs are covered by warranty or leasing terms, when the lease expires they hand them back to the leasing company, often a financial subsidiary, who sells them to refurbishing companies and they start the cycle all over again. The firm gets a steady budget line on PC hardware and the leasing company makes an insane profit 2 to 3 times the original costs of the equipment. HaaS.

 

[britechguy]

To paraphrase Twain: There are lies, damned lies, and accounting!

Most of accounting has always struck me as a racket meant to hide rather than shed light.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Hey, I love those big companies replacing junk out of warranty, it leaves a wonderful secondary market full of good equipment I can get on the cheap to keep my clients going!

I'm just trying to give said clients some heads up, because even as cheap as $400 / machine... it's expensive to do all of them at once in a mad panic because we found out we're no longer getting security updates after the fact.

P.S. Any Core 2 Duo machine still works, if and only if it doesn't rely on the Intel graphics. Those things have wonky drivers that will just give out at random! But everything else is fine... so far.

But yeah, I don't like "new" for the sake of new. But I do like gen8+ because they use less power, that means less heat, which in this desert translates into very real power savings.