IMPORTANT NEWS FOR WINDOWS 10 USERS
So, official support for Windows 10 ends on October 14th 2025. But Microsoft apparently lost a court case and now they have to offer an extra year of security updates--which was an option previously only available to their Business customers--to everyone. But you have to manually enroll. If you want to know how to do it, go to the link below
As the end of official support for Windows 10 approaches on October 14, 2025, many users are seeking ways to maintain their system's securit
You've got to do it before October 14th if you want the extra year. Otherwise support will end for you and you'll probably have to "upgrade" to Windows 11.
So that link, imo, sucks and is written by chatgpt. Here is the official Microsoft link with information (explained far more clearly and succinctly): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/extended-security-updates
Here are some key elements taken straight from that page
[screenshots are directly from the above link, and since im on mobile i won't be transcribing the text for screen Readers - please refer to the above link for screen Reader usage]
Edit: I want to highlight that op is wrong- you do not have to enroll by October 14, 2025! As seen in the first screenshot I posted, you can enroll ANYTIME before the program ends (it ends October 14, 2026) meaning you can enroll until October 13, 2026!!!
So this is a bit misleading.
The 3 methods listed above were there before the lawsuit, but none of them are "free".
You can pay $30 per year (up to 3 years)/1,000 Microsoft rewards points, or sync to OneDrive, which is not free. OneDrive is a cloud storage subscription service that only gives you 5GB for free.
While technically "free", being tied to a subscription service is the gotcha. It is virtually impossible for anyone to stay below 5GB, meaning you will need to purchase more storage.
Additionally, along with trusting Microsoft to rummage through your files, this requires you to have a Microsoft account linked (to better track and serve you ads), meaning you cannot have a local account.
The only way for non-business-class users to get updates for free is if they live in Europe, which is where the lawsuit applies. In that region, you simply have to sign into your Microsoft account at least once every 60 days to get one year of free security updates. Outside of that area, you still have to pay (in one way or another) for extended security updates.
The first news segment of this video breaks it down:
Personally, if your PC meets the requirements, I think you should update to 11 and install WinaeroTweaker (it's essentially a registry editor with a user-friendly interface) to disable things like telemetry and ads.
There are ways to jank around the install and get Windows 11 on a PC that doesn't meet the requirements (like secure boot and TPM 2.0), though I have no experience with that.
Otherwise, I suggest moving to Linux. Mint is heralded as a very user friendly distro, many programs have Linux versions now and the community has gotten loads of Windows-exclusive programs to run under Wine (it's not just for games).
