Haven't they always done this for corporate customers with EoL products?

Phrased differently: Microsoft announces the end of support for a product. If you want to pay for it, they will make an exception and continue to support it just for you.

I understand people dislike Windows 11, but complaining about life cycle management isn't going to help that.

Is this news? This is expected, it's what they did with 7 and XP after those reached full EOL, which happened on the day they said it would for 7 at the time 7 launched, and a few years after the date they said when XP launched.

The 2025 date has been known since 2015 when 10 launched and is the standard Microsoft ten year support cycle for operating systems.

And yet, in spite of this, every single time the tech media published these breathless and shocked articles about how horrible it is that Microsoft is suddenly dropping support for their ten year old systems.

These articles are like clockwork. I'd say we'll be getting them for Windows 11 in about seven or eight years, but they have a new "modern" lifestyle they've adopted for it that's more based on last major update release or something and it'll probably come sooner than that this time around.

I live in a 3rd world country and I can promise you that this is going to lead to a large percentage of the population using an insecure version of Windows 10 or just using mobile devices.

I doubt many people here will switch to Linux, but I can only hope. Maybe businesses will do that instead of buying new hardware. Recently, I saw a shop using Banana Pis as their checkout terminal.

So, this has been a standard phase of the Windows product lifecycle for 20+ years now. It doesn't really answer the problem with Windows 10 retirement and unsupported hardware on 11+ but it shouldn't be a shock to anyone.

That's great! Means it won't update randomly without my permission anymore.

Good. That'll be the day I finally update to ~~windows 11~~ Linux

The Microsoft Blogpost keeps mentioning customers and I've seen it mentioned a few times in this thread, but it almost seems like they're gearing this towards businesses and not 100% average consumers. Then again, they do mention 365 subscribers so maybe they are. Either way it's such a waste that an OS would shutter anti-virus support for anyone who doesn't pay a subscription.

Also, a ton of people here keep saying how this will drive users to Linux. No, no it wont. It isn't the first shitty thing that Microsoft has done to their OS, and it won't be the last. Older and average people won't take time out of their day to swap OS's and learn terminals.

I'm going to flip that back on them, Microsoft will have to pay me to update my OS.

This shit contributes to electronic waste.

It would be a REALLY simple thing to implement for longer and get the PR boost/spin. considering there are still so many devices that are working that don't support newer software. BRand loyalty is waning and windows is competing with chrome books. That's the shit k-12 are getting and most basic people. Give yourself at least a bit of an edge ffs!

But nah public hasn't made a big fuss about that so of course they won't elect to make better choices for the environment

Gonna be a lot of unsecured PCs about then, thanks to that ridiculous TPM requirement.

Hasn't this been a standard practice for decades? An absolute nothingburger.

This was supposed to be the "last" windows operating system they'd ever release.

Still not updating until you let me keep my taskbar where it is.

Fuck off Microsoft.

I did not have that on my bingo card, but I realize I should have

Isn’t this what they did with Windows 7/8.1 through ESU?

Man I'm glad i shifted to linux. Not because I'm some open source zealot, but because I don't wanna deal with Microsoft's bullshit and the absolute awful look of windows 11. Given how well linux works these days, I'm very rarely having issues with it, and I only ever really use windows for vr so that i can have a desktop overlay.

prime enshittification.

"subscribe or die" is our future.

yeah no crap they've been doing this for decades now lmao

Arrrrrr?

I mean, that's not exactly news. Windows 10 came out in 2015. It will stop receiving updates after 10 years just like every Windows version has.

They really want everyone on 11 don't they.

Well, I've been putting off switching to Linux for a long time now. I guess Microsoft is going to force my hand.

Next personal GFX update I'm going AMD and installing Linux on my gaming PC no matter what

But I get it, you don't want to maintain old builds forever. And given that certain systems still run Windows XP you have to force people and money is the only thing that talks