Microsoft will stop selling Windows 10 licenses in a few days

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Microsoft will stop selling Windows 10 licenses in a few days

By Mark Hachman
Senior Editor, PCWorld JAN 18, 2023 12:20 PM PST

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.
 
It was only a matter of time.

You already need Win 11 for proper CPU support for the latest CPU's anyway, so I'd imagine eventually the demand would drop one way or another.

They'll likely still be available on the likes of Kinguin for a while longer, but eventually that will dry up too.

The only thing I keep windows around for these days is games. I'm hopeful that some day tje performance hit from running with various compatibility layers under Linux will vanish, but we are not there yet...

I would absolutely love to never have to install Windows on my machine ever again.
 
Windows 11 feels exactly like Windows 10 with some of the UI elements just being... abrasive to me. Its the first Windows Ive ever used that I purposely avoided installing on my main computer.
 
What irks me with windows 11 are the control panel menus, any of you with Windows 11 feel free to try this one too and just shake your head in amazement.
Go to the control panel, and click on "devices and printers" it will open a new window and you will notice some of the features you have come to expect from there are missing, you can close that window.
Now on that same Devices and Printers icon, instead of right-clicking to open it, left-click it and choose open, it will open up a different and far more familiar window that has the options you probably went there initially looking for.
This isn't the only one that exhibits this behavior and it is that sort of stuff that just pisses me off, printers already give me enough trouble without Microsoft adding to the mix.
 
Windows 11 feels exactly like Windows 10 with some of the UI elements just being... abrasive to me. Its the first Windows Ive ever used that I purposely avoided installing on my main computer.
I don't have many options, 11 does full disk encryption much better than 10 does and you don't have nearly the amount of perceived lag when operating systems in that state, it also does a nicer job of integrating Azure SSO features so overall it saves me a lot of headaches, but there are just so many elements to it that I can only shake my head at and wonder what underpaid inturn did you force to do this job.
 
Windows 11 feels exactly like Windows 10 with some of the UI elements just being... abrasive to me. Its the first Windows Ive ever used that I purposely avoided installing on my main computer.
Windows 10 is abrasive, 11 is outright garbage just as 8 was. I outlasted Winidows ME, Windows Vista, and Windows 8, I'll outlast windows 11.
 
So, the question to ask now is, Will you be able to install and activate Windows 10 with a Windows 11 license?
 
Damn.. it's already been this long. It feels like Windows 10 just came out recently....
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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Damn.. it's already been this long. It feels like Windows 10 just came out recently....

I think part of that is how wonky 10 was for the first 2 years or so. Almost 3 years ago now I was upgrading my laptop that had been stuck on a 2017 win10 build and the difference even then between 2017 and 2020 was noticable. Just the little improvements they made to get around easier in the control panel and win10 was 5 years old at that point.
 
Mostly it is how subjective passing of time feel faster has you get older I would imagine but also how smooth it went since Windows 8, windows release melt with each other without anything obvious that disctint them enough to start rumors or never new Windows release with a new name to come up.
 
Windows 11 feels exactly like Windows 10 with some of the UI elements just being... abrasive to me. Its the first Windows Ive ever used that I purposely avoided installing on my main computer.

Never combine task bar option not being there is a huge work flow killer. Even if you're just doing something like switching between folders and files quickly. They are hinting at an update that will allow it but it won't show text, so it only a half fix. The whole point of text is so you can tell what folder you are going to open without having to hover over it and then look for and then click again on the right folder.

All of the "start is back" options are either paid or look like crap. We just need a proper never combine task bar that doesn't break with updates (which is impossible).
 
All of the "start is back" options are either paid or look like crap. We just need a proper never combine task bar that doesn't break with updates (which is impossible).

Not impossible, it's called Linux. XFCE, LXDE, Cinnamon, KDE, Mate. Pick one, and you'll have a never combine by default.

I dumped the last vestiges of Windows on my main workstation back in 2019, never been happier. It's great not having to worry about forced updates in perpetuity with the real threat that the whole OS gets cratered because MS doesn't QC anything they push down the pipeline. It's always "teehee oops sorry we broke your machine, but that's a you problem, not a we problem".
 
Nah it’s way behind 98FE, Millennium, XP prior to SP3, Vista, and 8.0. So not even in the running for top 5 worst.
I strongly disagree and think that, relative to their day, 98, XP, Vista, and 8 were all better Windows. Vista was a fantastic Windows, and I'd call it one of the top 3, or perhaps even my favourite of all time. I had not a single issue with it. The issue of people not having powerful enough PCs to run it and Microsoft failure to communicate that matter properly, and the issue of people not knowing what drivers are and how to install them (though, how did they use XP, Win 98, Win 95 without that knowledge?), and the then-new UAC (which has persisted through subsequent Windows), are what make people say Vista was a bad OS. But, other than UAC, those things don't actually speak to the quality of Vista itself. I had no problem with those things, other than very brief struggling to figure out what UAC was, and how to turn it off, and Vista was the most rock-solid, fun, and beautiful Windows experience I've had.

The only Windows version in those you listed that I haven't said is better than 10 is ME, and due to bugs. It still had a better design concept behind it in its day than 10. Windows 10 has been a shitty, ugly, incoherent, bloated, interfering, violating, and buggy mess at every stage since its release, and is where Microsoft went full rape culture against its customers and is also where Microsoft fired its traditional QA teams to instead rely on telemetry from its customers, using them as lab rats at the expense of the stability of Windows and the experience of the customers.
 
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I strongly disagree and think that, relative to their day, 98, XP, Vista, and 8 were all better Windows. Vista was a fantastic Windows, and I'd call it one of the top 3, or perhaps even my favourite of all time. I had not a single issue with it. The issue of people not having powerful enough PCs to run it and Microsoft failure to communicate that matter properly, and the issue of people not knowing what drivers are and how to install them (though, how did they use XP, Win 98, Win 95 without that knowledge?), and the then-new UAC (which has persisted through subsequent Windows), are what make people say Vista was a bad OS. But, other than UAC, those things don't actually speak to the quality of Vista itself. I had no problem with those things, other than very brief struggling to figure out what UAC was, and how to turn it off, and Vista was the most rock-solid, fun, and beautiful Windows experience I've had.

The only Windows version in those you listed that I haven't said is better than 10 is ME, and due to bugs. It still had a better design concept behind it in its day than 10. Windows 10 has been a shitty, ugly, incoherent, bloated, interfering, violating, and buggy mess at every stage since its release, and is where Microsoft went full rape culture against its customers and is also where Microsoft fired its traditional QA teams to instead rely on telemetry from its customers, using them as lab rats at the expense of the stability of Windows and the experience of the customers.
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, 2000 was solid, XP was a downgrade in every way from 2000 until service pack 2 where it was comparable but XP didn’t get good until service pack 3. Regardless of the reasons Microsoft bungled Vista’s launch that led to the worst loss of backwards compatibility since 98, and their attempts at securing things broke their own server compatibility for GPOs and Network shares. It was a nightmare. Windows 7’s initial saving grace from making this list was its inclusion of the XP compatibility mode that ran the XP VM inside windows 7. 8.0 was clunky and bad and wasn’t really improved until 8.1 when they phased out much of that Metro interface and made huge improvements to the MDL language library. 10 I didn’t have any problems on launch because anything that worked in 8 worked fine in 10, 11 actually has solved most of my long standing issues with 10 regarding disk encryption and telemetry as disk encryption works better with almost no noticeable performance penalty and 11 implements proper application IDs to their telemetry packets so they can be identified and redirected to a sinkhole accordingly. 11’s only issues I have is it’s UI is incomplete like their developers just forgot to update parts or if those decisions are intentional then who ever came up with that plan needs to be retrained.
 
Damn.. it's already been this long. It feels like Windows 10 just came out recently....

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)
I'm thinking it feels like a lot less because a lot of us didn't upgrade from win7 till we had to. so really only been on it full time for a couple/few years now
 
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not that i plan on moving to win11 anytime soon, but i was just looking to see if there were any free start menu replacements and i found this https://windowsreport.com/windows-11-free-start-menu-replacement/

there's 5 of them on that page but "open shell" looks interesting, wondering if anyone has tried it out?
Doesn't work very well on Win 11. I do use it for Win 10 and it works fine.

Just like Win 10, I purchased "Start is Back", which is now "StartAllBack", used it for my personal computer. Until the free ones are out then ill upgrade the other computer/laptops in the house.
 
I personally find that Windows 11, as of 22H2, works quite well. I have been using the Windows 7 keys from my Technet days, that I purchased the subscription from, so I have not needed to buy a key in ages.
 
It could be bad vs good luck but I remember having to reinstall Windows for NHL 98 to work, reboot after reboot to get Gravis gamepad controller work in 10 buttons frequent bluescreen versus not a single reboot for 64 days now with modern windows machine.
 
Sinc
Oh No, you're one of those Windows 95/ME/Vista/8 sympathizers, eh?? :)
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One imagines the cdkeys and kinguins of the world have a pretty deep supply of keys.

And 7/8 keys still work right?
 
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, 2000 was solid, XP was a downgrade in every way from 2000 until service pack 2 where it was comparable but XP didn’t get good until service pack 3. Regardless of the reasons Microsoft bungled Vista’s launch that led to the worst loss of backwards compatibility since 98, and their attempts at securing things broke their own server compatibility for GPOs and Network shares. It was a nightmare. Windows 7’s initial saving grace from making this list was its inclusion of the XP compatibility mode that ran the XP VM inside windows 7. 8.0 was clunky and bad and wasn’t really improved until 8.1 when they phased out much of that Metro interface and made huge improvements to the MDL language library. 10 I didn’t have any problems on launch because anything that worked in 8 worked fine in 10, 11 actually has solved most of my long standing issues with 10 regarding disk encryption and telemetry as disk encryption works better with almost no noticeable performance penalty and 11 implements proper application IDs to their telemetry packets so they can be identified and redirected to a sinkhole accordingly. 11’s only issues I have is it’s UI is incomplete like their developers just forgot to update parts or if those decisions are intentional then who ever came up with that plan needs to be retrained.
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 Ultimate 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, but I know what I want to do there. 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.

Sinc
Oh No, you're one of those Windows 95/ME/Vista/8 sympathizers, eh?? :)
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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