Subject: Re: Running Win10 after end of life

From: Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 3 May 2025 15:50:44 -0400

On Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:54:45 -0700
Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I have one app that is windows only.  I am not going to upgrade to 
> win11.

Why not? Is Win11 really that incompatible with Win10? Is this an app
you wrote, or something somebody else sold you? You're a PHP
programmer: Why don't you just make a program that does the same thing?

I'm having trouble understanding this whole thread. First, the old
African proverb: The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the
second best time is now.

I took the punch in the early 00's and went Windows-free. Yeah, it was
tough. Yeah, I still miss my beloved Micrografx Windows Draw program,
because it was better than Inkscape. But now the only thing this
impending Win10 drop does to me is allows me to get a half decent
computer, to use with Linux, at pre-tariff prices.

OK, if you didn't convert 20 years ago, it can still be done now. You
have five months. If the app was written by you, you have 5 months to
adapt it to Win11. It will probably take 48 hours. If it's somebody
else's app, you can probably find a Linux alternative.

I've seen people in this thread speaking as if buying a new computer
was the equivalent of buying your first house. If Windows is important
to you, $3K for a fully loaded desktop isn't unreasonable. Hell, I paid
$4.5K for a 486-10 in 1990, which is probably the equivalent of $9K
now. It seems to me that if Windows is important to you, you pay for
the privilege every 5 years. If it's not, just jam Linux on the Win10
machine and get the performance you would have gotten from a brand new
Win11 machine.

The longer we kick the Win2Lin conversion can down the road, the more
opportunity we give Bill Gates' descendants to uproot our computer
lives at a whim. Kind of like they're doing on October 14, 2025.

Desktop Linux never promised to be as good as Windows in every respect.
It never promised to run every windows app. What Linux *did* promise
was the GNU GPLv2: The ability to modify and pass on the modifications.
The GPLv2 enables you to find new ways to do the workflow formerly
accomplished by Windows and other proprietary software. It might not be
as pretty. It might require me to write shellscripts and make other
accommodations. But the job gets done. And in the majority of cases,
the job gets done much better than it ever did on Windows.

Bottom line: It would have been great to get rid of Windows 20 years
ago, and the second best time is right now. Throw the thing off your
computer, and declare your independence from Gates, Ballmer, and all
those who followed.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Spring 2023 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques

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