Microsoft will stop selling Windows 10 licenses in a few days

I feel sorry for all of you guys, I use Windows 9 (which only a few select individuals are allowed to obtain and use), and it's the best operating system that mankind has ever made. It was so good that Microsoft chose not to release it, because it made them look competent, like they could actually design an OS worth a damn. That goes against company policy. WIndows is supposed to be infuriating to use, and updates are supposed to break stuff. Win9 sticks a big middle finger up to all of that. Linux is fucking awesome but Win9 blows it outta the water. I thought Win7 was gonna be the last Windows I ever used, but after Win9 was bestowed upon me, I knew I finally truly found the last OS I would ever use.

It's against the rules, but I can hook you guys up with Win9. All I require is a one-time payment of $7,000 to my PayPal account. If you're interested PM me, and don't forget to include the numbers of your bank account and your SSN (if you have one).

Burticus said:
And 7/8 keys still work right?
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I used a Win7 Ultimate key to install Win10 Pro on a PC this past September no problem.
 
LukeTbk said:
Going near 8 years it is a bit crazy to think that the amount of time between Win10 official release and now is about the same than between Xp and Windows 7 (or between 1992 Windows 3.1 and 2000 Windows ME)
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😲😲😲😱😱😱
 
Delicieuxz said:
Vista is Vista, while the confusion surrounding it was a separate matter - just how if someone screws up the explanation of a Ferrari and its delivery to your house, that doesn't mean the Ferrari is a crappy car.

Pre 8.1 Windows 8 is probably ranked lower than 10 on my list of Windows OSes, as the OS wasn't entirely usable until 8.1. But I would rather use 8.1 than 10, if 8.1 was compatible with all the modern programs I use.

For the past almost 4.5 years, I've been using Win 10 LTSC, to avoid dealing with feature updates screwing things up and resetting settings, and telemetry. It's been as good as I think Win 10 can be, and I haven't missed anything from my prior Win 10 Pro and Enterprise installations, other than being able to play Forza Horizon 3, which requires UWP (which LTSC doesn't support). All the FUD people and Microsoft push about using LTSC as 'it isn't meant for regular usage' is complete and utter BS. It's a solid, fully-configurable Windows 10, without UWP, and with only security / no feature updates. That's it. And it does everything any other version of Windows can, except for UWP. It's like the Win 10 version of Windows 7 SP1.

Windows 11 actually looks decent, to me. I'm looking forward to getting it installed on my new PC build and washing my hands of Windows 10 once and for all. Windows 11 reportedly still has some issues, and it will take some tweaking to get set up properly, I'm going to install Win 11 Enterprise (just so I can play FH3, and because there isn't an LTSC version of it yet) and disable updates, if it still allows it. I'll never use an edition below Enterprise / LTSC again. And I think nobody should, either, unless they enjoy not being able to turn off telemetry, updates, and being able to configure their OS to do what they want instead of what Microsoft wants it to do.

And I hope Win 12 will be a smooth update from 11.


Windows Vista is bliss and a happy place. If I can install it on a Zen 4 system, as an alt boot OS, for fun, I just may do that. And I might install a Vista UI mod for Win 11.

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11 Enterprise is good, like I said it solves my long standing issues with 10, it introduces a few new ones but they are UI things that can be mitigated easily enough once you know they exist.
 
I remember quite some time ago Windows 10 was supposed to be "the last one", with perpetual service packs and updates instead adding new features and the like; guess we see how long that lasted! I've not used Win11 yet and I'm very skeptical because of the integration with TPM2.0 as a requirement for full compatibility - not in and of itself necessarily, but I am very concerned about developers taking advantage of such features to control and lockdown your hardware at previously impossible levels because "everyone" has a hardware-module stored secret key that can individually identify a PC. Aside from the "we'll stream everything to you, nothing runs on your machine itself except a thin client" approach which has lot more hardware dependence on their side that, at least for the time being, isn't viable the TPM2.0 compatibility in enough of the populace, happily checked off by Windows 11 and beyond, will add another path less hardware intensive and only slightly less restrictive. Many games have been dealing with increasingly intrusive "anticheat" programs that do more to restrict legitimate user use (ie mods, Linux etc) than just things regarding cheating. Its bad enough with these low level, process scanning, often perpetually in residence programs like EasyAntiCheat and whatever the hell GenshinImpact uses, but we're already seeing those like Valorent (even now one of the most draconian) working on next gen where they'll be able to flag and ban a user by hardware ID not unlike game console hardware bans! Of course this requires the TPM2.0 and a compatible OS like so thus far it hasn't been viable to say "Can't play our game unless you have this hardware" but with modern hardware mixed with Win11 happily checking the box and reporting metrics to show how many users are likely to have it, the clock is ticking until they'll figure enough gamers have the hardware, OS and software that will be compatible...the question is, will users be compliant?

From what I've seen Win11 seems to continue the intrusive elements of Win10 (Enterprise, LTSC and heavily customized enthusiast versions non withstanding) and its a significant concern. In a way I'm hoping that the continued push in this direction from Microsoft as well as the advances (especially in gaming and other enthusiast practices/compatibility, thanks in a big way to Valve Software) in alternatives will push users to Linux. Ideally, this would be enough to carve out a bastion of support where developers think "we either should make sure we support Linux and/or at least be sure that nothing we do will exclude Linux as enough of our users are there" , but we'll have to see. Microsoft has the funding and time to try new things even with their OS and sometimes they'e gotten it wrong leading to the infamous "every other version is crap" meme, but I do wish that one of their new changes would be to try giving up on the whole data mining smorgasbord baked into the OS and just try making a solid, desktop PC OS again and focusing on using/developing open standards and technologies. I know, fat chance.
 
kac77 said:
If you’re interested in building a Windows 10 PC running Windows 10, you’d better hurry — Microsoft will stop directly selling Windows 10 licenses by the end of the month.

According to notices posted to the Windows 10 Home, Pro, and Workstation pages on Microsoft’s site, Microsoft will halt digital downloads of Windows 10 on Jan. 31, 2023. While Microsoft will support Windows 10 for a few more years, Microsoft’s decision means that you won’t be able to buy a Windows 10 license except through existing stores of licenses at third-party retailers.
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...except that Windows 10 and Windows 11 keys are fully interchangeable - the same really. So you should be able to simply buy a "Windows 11 key" and use that key to install Windows 10 if you really want to.
 
Still showing in the $30 range for 10/11 pro keys on Kinguin and Instant Gaming. On Kinguin the 10 pro key is $6 cheaper at $26. Wonder if I should buy one just to have in my pocket for whatever future upgrade may await me.

OTOH the Win 11 keys aren't going away and the price is about the same so maybe not, just see what happens whenever I upgrade and see if my old 7 keys are still kickin' (they work fine on 10)

I consider myself to be pretty technical, and I use linux on one of my laptops, but I am not willing to go down the rabbit hole of shimware/WINE types of things just to get games working that work fine now. And have to deal with updating drivers on linux, etc etc. I swear it is an effort to just keep up with chrome updates on my mint laptop. Nothing "just works", everything takes extra effort and as I become old and crotchety I want to deal with this less and less.
 
Burticus said:
Still showing in the $30 range for 10/11 pro keys on Kinguin and Instant Gaming. On Kinguin the 10 pro key is $6 cheaper at $26. Wonder if I should buy one just to have in my pocket for whatever future upgrade may await me.

OTOH the Win 11 keys aren't going away and the price is about the same so maybe not, just see what happens whenever I upgrade and see if my old 7 keys are still kickin' (they work fine on 10)

I consider myself to be pretty technical, and I use linux on one of my laptops, but I am not willing to go down the rabbit hole of shimware/WINE types of things just to get games working that work fine now. And have to deal with updating drivers on linux, etc etc. I swear it is an effort to just keep up with chrome updates on my mint laptop. Nothing "just works", everything takes extra effort and as I become old and crotchety I want to deal with this less and less.
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Exactly. Pc for games, phone for everything else. My pc is basically a console these days.
 
Lakados said:
I have to disagree there.
Dos through 3 was fine NT was good, 95 was pretty smooth. 98 first edition was garbage they removed dos compatibility and broke most software and drivers out there. ME was garbage throughout
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I want whatever you're smoking, it has to be some good shit.

DOS was NEVER good. It was a dumpster fire of incompatible standards all mashed together with chewing gum, duct tape and hopes and dreams. The only good thing about it is that it forced people to become computer literate, because you were screwed otherwise. I don't miss TSRs, memory management, drivers, having to manually manage limited IRQs and ports and other terrible things. I still remember the first CD-ROM drive I bought for my 486, it took me like a week to get it working with the stupid config.sys lines and driver switches. Then I had to go back and change it to load high because it ate up too much conventional memory and games would error out with insufficient RAM. You had to fight the machine before you could use it.

Windows 3.x wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't great. In an era where memory could be as much as a mortgage payment, it was bloated and served no purpose if you were still running primarily DOS programs. Windows 9x era was just awful, we were making memes about it before memes were a thing. BSODs from garbage VxD drivers, realmode applications misbehaving and taking down the whole system. 16/32 bit mixed Windows code misbehaving and taking down the whole system. Memory leaks, terrible resource management, filesystem fragmentation and viruses.

I also think you're confusing 98 with ME. Windows ME was the OS that "removed" realmode support. It was still technically there because it was based on 9x, which ran on top of DOS. But Microsoft did their best to prevent the use of VxDs and applications that ran in realmode. It was still possible to re-enable those features, but there was no point in even using the OS because it was so bad.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Windows 3.x wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't great. In an era where memory could be as much as a mortgage payment, it was bloated and served no purpose if you were still running primarily DOS programs.
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I think all I ever did on my computer with workstation 3.1 was play paint lol
 
GotNoRice said:
...except that Windows 10 and Windows 11 keys are fully interchangeable - the same really. So you should be able to simply buy a "Windows 11 key" and use that key to install Windows 10 if you really want to.
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Anyone know if this applies to Win 10 Enterprise keys, as well? I have a MAK key for Win 10 Enterprise that I wonder if it will work with Win 11 Enterprise. If it doesn't, I'll use KMS.
 
Lakados said:
I have to disagree there.
Dos through 3 was fine NT was good, 95 was pretty smooth. 98 first edition was garbage they removed dos compatibility and broke most software and drivers out there.
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Maybe your memory is playing tricks on you, but win98 did not break dos compatibility, I ran win98 first edition until I eventually switched to XP after SP1. Win9x drivers made for 95 worked with 98 for most hardware, certainly everything I had at the time. The OS with driver compatibility issues was 2000, the one you are praising. It took until XP for most manufacturers to get their drivers in order for that new architecture that evolved from NT and not 9x. When I tried 2000 50% of my hardware had broken drivers for it, and the other 50% none at all. The only OS I didn't try that period was 98SE, because 98 worked fine for me.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
I want whatever you're smoking, it has to be some good shit.

DOS was NEVER good. It was a dumpster fire of incompatible standards all mashed together with chewing gum, duct tape and hopes and dreams. The only good thing about it is that it forced people to become computer literate, because you were screwed otherwise. I don't miss TSRs, memory management, drivers, having to manually manage limited IRQs and ports and other terrible things. I still remember the first CD-ROM drive I bought for my 486, it took me like a week to get it working with the stupid config.sys lines and driver switches. Then I had to go back and change it to load high because it ate up too much conventional memory and games would error out with insufficient RAM. You had to fight the machine before you could use it.

Windows 3.x wasn't terrible, but it also wasn't great. In an era where memory could be as much as a mortgage payment, it was bloated and served no purpose if you were still running primarily DOS programs. Windows 9x era was just awful, we were making memes about it before memes were a thing. BSODs from garbage VxD drivers, realmode applications misbehaving and taking down the whole system. 16/32 bit mixed Windows code misbehaving and taking down the whole system. Memory leaks, terrible resource management, filesystem fragmentation and viruses.

I also think you're confusing 98 with ME. Windows ME was the OS that "removed" realmode support. It was still technically there because it was based on 9x, which ran on top of DOS. But Microsoft did their best to prevent the use of VxDs and applications that ran in realmode. It was still possible to re-enable those features, but there was no point in even using the OS because it was so bad.
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Jesus does this take me back to memory lane. Dealing with memory management issues and IRQs sucked. Ah good old HIMEM. Good times.
 
DrezKill said:
I used a Win7 Ultimate key to install Win10 Pro on a PC this past September no problem.
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That's good to know. Still on Windows 8.1 right now. Yeah yeah, UI is shit. But hey - this install dates all the way back to 2013. I think that's the longest I've ever used a computer for a single install instance. So that has to count for something right? Machine is still kicking and is still very usable.

EDIT - I'm probably gonna have to pour one out for this install when I upgrade. Seriously - I've never had a Windows instance take me this far.
 
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jbltecnicspro said:
But hey - this install dates all the way back to 2013. I think that's the longest I've ever used a computer for a single install instance. . . .Seriously - I've never had a Windows instance take me this far.
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I had an install of Win7 last me from Fall 2014 to Fall 2022. I've never used an OS install for that long. Technically it still exists, but I took the Win7 drive outta that PC when I switched the PC over to Linux and Win10.
 
M76 said:
Maybe your memory is playing tricks on you, but win98 did not break dos compatibility, I ran win98 first edition until I eventually switched to XP after SP1. Win9x drivers made for 95 worked with 98 for most hardware, certainly everything I had at the time. The OS with driver compatibility issues was 2000, the one you are praising. It took until XP for most manufacturers to get their drivers in order for that new architecture that evolved from NT and not 9x. When I tried 2000 50% of my hardware had broken drivers for it, and the other 50% none at all. The only OS I didn't try that period was 98SE, because 98 worked fine for me.
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Yeah there’s a good chance I’m not remembering it right, I’ve been doing this too long. It’s all blending together.
But I can say with a strong degree of certainty that 10 and 11 have been amongst the least problematic OS instances I have dealt with.
 
Lakados said:
Yeah there’s a good chance I’m not remembering it right, I’ve been doing this too long. It’s all blending together.
But I can say with a strong degree of certainty that 10 and 11 have been amongst the least problematic OS instances I have dealt with.
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From a technical standpoint I agree, they are less problematic. From an UI, ease of use, and customization standpoint they are the worst windows yet outside of 8. Well, actually 11 might give 8 a run for its money as worst Windows UI, it is certainly the worst looking.
 
M76 said:
From a technical standpoint I agree, they are less problematic. From an UI, ease of use, and customization standpoint they are the worst windows yet outside of 8. Well, actually 11 might give 8 a run for its money as worst Windows UI, it is certainly the worst looking.
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I don't know about worst looking, I really hated 8.0 I couldn't use it and found every part of it cumbersome, but 11 may look nice it is inconsistent and awkward, like why did they feel the need to do away with the words Cut, Paste, Rename, Share, and Delete from the left click menu's and replace them with convoluted icons... Who asked for that and why did they think it was needed?
 
HeadRusch said:
Sinc
Oh No, you're one of those Windows 95/ME/Vista/8 sympathizers, eh?? :)
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ME was the 1st OS I had when I 1st bought my PC back in the day, seemed OK. Don't think I remember 95 in tech school on the very few machines they had it on.
By the time I ran Vista, it was ironed out and good. Course the Einstein at MS that said the minimum RAM be 1GB should've been shot! 2GB IMO would've been better because 1GB was a pain, especially if you had shared system RAM with the GPU. Tho IIRC this was during the RAM shortages and prices were high. Heard one Youtuber's PC came with 512MB......
Never touched 8. Don't think I'll update to 11 on this laptop since it's a i7-10750H and 2060RTX. Probably lasts me a few years till Win12?
 
Yeah, it's always been like this. For every Windows 2000, Win XP, Win 7, Win 10 that was well received by users, Microsoft puts out garbage OS's like Win ME, Vista, 8 and now 11. For the last 20 years, at least, it has almost been like clockwork: every second operating system is reasonably popular and accepted by users while the others are complete trash and either hated or just skipped by most people.

My prediction is that Windows 12 will have the start button back and, among other things, will be a more popular OS.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
That's good to know. Still on Windows 8.1 right now. Yeah yeah, UI is shit. But hey - this install dates all the way back to 2013. I think that's the longest I've ever used a computer for a single install instance. So that has to count for something right? Machine is still kicking and is still very usable.

EDIT - I'm probably gonna have to pour one out for this install when I upgrade. Seriously - I've never had a Windows instance take me this far.
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And here I go. Installed Windows 10 today. I didn't need to buy a key, 8.1 pro upgraded to 10 pro just fine. Took maybe an hour? Probably less. Everything is still in place, including Office 2010. :D
 
gvx64 said:
Yeah, it's always been like this. For every Windows 2000, Win XP, Win 7, Win 10 that was well received by users, Microsoft puts out garbage OS's like Win ME, Vista, 8 and now 11. For the last 20 years, at least, it has almost been like clockwork: every second operating system is reasonably popular and accepted by users while the others are complete trash and either hated or just skipped by most people.

My prediction is that Windows 12 will have the start button back and, among other things, will be a more popular OS.
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I have never found that this point was ever spot on, it was just an opinion that some supported and others did not. At this point, in 2023, as long as the OS works, I could not care less what you call it.
 
kac77 said:
I think it was Dos Shell that debuted with 5.0. Loved it.
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Nah, I had it on my Packard Bell Legend IV (80286) with DOS 4.3.

Of course, they removed it some time in 6.2, I think.

I'll be curious to see if I can still install Windows 10 Enterprise with my site license, where activation occurs via my university's central server.
 
ManofGod said:
I have never found that this point was ever spot on, it was just an opinion that some supported and others did not. At this point, in 2023, as long as the OS works, I could not care less what you call it.
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Hmmmm... Let's list the desktop Windowses(eseseses ;- ) starting with what I used. Reference is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Microsoft_Windows_versions

Good / trash is my experience. From Win XP onwards I've used them for work and home use. Vista was so bad that after initial testing, work and myself went back to XP.

Win 3.1 - good
Win 3.11 for workgroups - good
Win 3.2 - didn't know this existed
Win 95 - good
Win 98 - good
Win 98 SE - good
Win ME - trash
Win XP - good
Win Vista - trash
Win 7 - good
Win 8 - good
Win 8.1 - good
Win 10 - good
Win 11 - using on work machine, not loading it onto my machine since it's too old - good

So basically, FOR ME, it was just ME and WinVista that sucked.


(Also, I'd just like to say that Windows Mobile 5 - 6.5 were AMAZINGLY awesome and simple to develop on. The .NET Compact Framework was a work of genius. I wish that they didn't drop it in favour of WinMo.)
 
Unabomber said:
I'll be curious to see if I can still install Windows 10 Enterprise with my site license, where activation occurs via my university's central server.
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Do a search for "windows mass gravel"

@mods: this both legal and publicly available information that was just put together in one place.
 
GDI Lord said:
(Also, I'd just like to say that Windows Mobile 5 - 6.5 were AMAZINGLY awesome and simple to develop on. The .NET Compact Framework was a work of genius. I wish that they didn't drop it in favour of WinMo.)
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Eh, they may have been great for developers, but they were poor from an end-user's perspective. The problem as I see it is that Windows Phone 7 was half-baked; it was a rushed response to the iPhone. And for Microsoft, that meant focusing on a finger-friendly UI (which Windows Mobile desperately lacked) at the expense of... well, just about everything else.
 
GDI Lord said:
*chuckle *
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Vista wasnt even bad. The crying around Vista made zero sense to me at all even when it was happening, and the fact that it has perpetuated for so long remains ridiculous. It was never meant to be installed on the bottom barrel hardware that people were running XP on which seemed to be the cause of most of the gripes at the time.

For all the praise Windows 7 gets, it was basically just a fully patched Vista. I remember going out and doing in-home computer service removing Vista from peoples computers because their brothers friends ex-girlfriends Dad works in IT and he said it was a disaster and to go back to XP. Looking back, it feels like a joke from South Park where people were complaining but didnt actually have any substance to back it up.
 
Tengis said:
It was never meant to be installed on the bottom barrel hardware that people were running XP on which seemed to be the cause of most of the gripes at the time.
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Except that Microsoft let the OEM's get away with giving away free upgrades to Vista in 6+ months near Vista's release date so the OEM's could keep selling those computers that were just fine for XP (and would be for 3-4 years) but would not run Vista well at all. I never did try to install Vista on a 2005 Dell laptop, Pentium M chip that maybe could have run it since I had 1.256 GB of ram in it. XP was just fine for that machine so why bother?

Part of Vista's fault definately lies with manufacturers, their bad or non-existant drivers for a new OS structure and weak hardware specs that couldn't run it but ultimately it is MS's fault here since it is their product and it needed more than the normal 256mb-512mb of system ram that most 1-2 year old computers had at the time.
 
Tengis said:
For all the praise Windows 7 gets, it was basically just a fully patched Vista.
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Which matters a lot because I've almost never worked on a vista machine where the updates weren't completely broken. Just like much of the windows 8 didn't get updated because they did it through the store instead which often broke as well before people got the 8.1 update.
 
Ranulfo said:
Part of Vista's fault definately lies with manufacturers, their bad or non-existant drivers for a new OS structure and weak hardware specs that couldn't run it but ultimately it is MS's fault here since it is their product and it needed more than the normal 256mb-512mb of system ram that most 1-2 year old computers had at the time.
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No, it was manufacturers calling flash drives "memory" to look like their computers met the minimum requirements.

Windows as it runs today is closer to Vista than Vista was to XP.
 
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