This is How They Do It

Windows 10 is being discontinued. Microsoft is working hard to make sure your computer is now useless unless you subscribe to Windows 11. I got an email earlier this month warning me, yet again, that no updates would come after the (I think) October date. You could, however, purchase your own 3rd party security, which I’ve had for sometime.

The problem is that it’s nearly impossible to uninstall Windows Defender. I think I tried, and an update put it back so it could battle with Malware Bytes, and bring my machine to it’s knees.

The other alternative they offered is a subscription, and port your machine to the cloud to use as a remote session. Nope.

Then, I get this:

Nice.

The only reason I haven’t ditched this machine in favor of my Mac was to do taxes, before mothballing it. I’m guessing one by one my apps will bitch about being on Winders 10.

I went through this with Apple, twice. The first was with my Mac Mini. I bought it in 2005, and it had a powerpc chip. They upgraded to Intel soon after, but supported it until 2010, I think. I know it was some time before I had to get rid of it. Mostly because some of the apps I used wouldn’t upgrade. The machine, however, worked well, and my kids mostly used it for the next couple years.

The second was with an iPad, then an iPad mini. Both had the OS capped at some point. But since I mostly used them for web browsing, they worked fine until I wanted to upgrade.

But with Microsoft, it feels more predatory. Like they will absolutely make my life miserable until I purchase Windows 11, preferably a subscription. Something that Office went to sometime ago.

FWIW, I bought this machine in 2021. It’s only 4 years old.

So I’ll download the Mac versions of my multimedia stuff, Quicken, and TurboTax and stuff this thing in the corner. I’ll dual boot it with Ubuntu in case I need to harvest something from it.