Valve's monthly survey reveals that almost 45% of Steam users on PC are still using Windows 10 even with the sword of Damocles hanging over them
Valve's monthly survey reveals that almost 45% of Steam users on PC are still using Windows 10 even with the sword of Damocles hanging over them
Sword of Linuxcles.
Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last version I'd ever use. They didn't know how right they were. I've been gradually switching to Linux, and will absolutely never use Windows 11 or any other version they put out.
I built a new gaming PC and installed Linux on it. After years of threatening to do it, I finally followed through and made the switch.
I just bought a laptop last year (portability and space constraints, I'd love to build a pc when I have the space for it) and it was supposed to come with windows 10.
I got a windows 11 model shipped to me. I didn't ask for this. And I have to say.... I fucking hate it. Why does the start menu need to change locations...
My next computer will absolutely be Linux, and it's Microsoft's own stupid fault. Windows 10 WAS supposed to be my last windows OS...
Good luck and godspeed
under the marketing it’s still 10.x.
Marketing is 11, I think you're referring to the kernel version, which can't change due to stupid legacy software.
I upgraded to Windows 11 on my gaming rig two days ago, and at the same time I switched the default boot option to Linux. Let's see how this pans out.
I'll still need Windows around for specific games, but the ones I usually play seem to work on Linux.
Just like a Linux user to tell everyone they use Linux. Classic.
"How do you know [thing you only learn if people tell you]? don't worry, they'll tell you"
The whole point of the Sword of Damocles was that the threat was always looming and Damocles didn't know when it might fall. We know exactly when Microsoft says they are going to drop support. There's a decent chance that they'll push that date back due to slow adoption at least once.
This is more about rats not fleeing the sinking ship until the sea has reached the bow.
Well, the real moment it becomes an issue is when a significant vulnerability is found after EOS. So I guess after EOS is when the sword of damocles starts hanging above every win 10 user..
Personally I'm on the edge of the ship just waiting to jump off once i have my new pc (probably next week).
More like rats not joining a leaking ship. I've been through enough windows upgrades to know: Don't be the first! You'll only end up paying to be a software tester for a product MS had to ship before it's ready to keep the shareholders happy.
Don't be the first one in the water after the shark warning ...
With the shit they built into 10 I really would not be surprised if they put in a kill switch
This is the third time today that I have seen a reference to the sword of Damocles. Almost as if the entire fucking world feels like it’s only a thread away from destruction…
I've been seeing it a lot more recently, too. IRL even.
Did it get used by sometime famous recently or something?
There was a king once named Damocles that had a sword suspended over his throne that could come crashing down at any random moment and kill him, to remind himself of the fragility of his power, and human life.
I have no idea how that anecdote might apply to people in power in this day and age, or why people would reference the anecdote.
Glares at the fraying rope
I just swapped to Ubuntu on my straggler/media server Windows 10 desktop. Have been running Gentoo on another PC for years but never had so much trouble as trying to setup bumblebee with a GTX960 - holy crap nvidia suck so hard. The other PC is all AMD so I was living in blissful ignorance.
They are gonna have to pry windows 10 from my cold dead hands. I was sold 10 on the premise that it was going to be "the last windows OS I would need".
Fuck you Microsoft.
I tried to switch to Linux several days ago, but there were clear issues regarding games that weren't tied to Steam. Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, Bottles, and so forth all had shortcomings regarding compatibility, handling of DLC, or lack of user-friendliness. Then I tried to use a VM, which was a frustrating rabbit hole. Virt-Manager supports GPU passthru, but you have to jump through hoops to identify PCI addresses and to configure correctly. Boxes initially seemed promising, but had no apparent way of storing the VM on my gaming drive. (Linux terminal commands are beyond my understanding.) Considering how big games are getting, and the size of my collection, that is a bad combo. Virtualbox doesn't have GPU passthru, so the performance sucked.
As a gamer, I currently find Linux to be insufficient. I was wanting to switch due to security concerns regarding Microsoft, especially in light of the Trump Regime's willingness to ignore law and norms. My concern is that they could use Windows as a spy, or to seal up my computer to punish those who go against Dogey America. As it is, I will have to use some scripts from Github to break Windows Update if I hear of Richmond being infiltrated by the Xitler Youth.
Here's hoping that Gabe decides to invest much more heavily in Linux to make it casual friendly - I want my mods, cheats, Japanese locale games, emulators, and so forth to all work seamlessly and without compromise. I would seriously pay $400 smackers to have an OS that is capable, flexible, compatible, friendly, and most importantly, MINE.
The days of just buying Windows 7 Ultimate and not thinking about Microsoft was glorious.
Sorry it didn’t work out for you like Linux Mint works for me (I switched full time to LM in December 2024).
If you haven’t already, switch to Windows 10 LTSC in the interim. I have a feeling Linux will only improve over time with greater compatibility with Proton. Since Win 10 LTSC is supported until 2029, that’s plenty of time for for more kinks to be worked out and you can potentially try Linux again.
I am already on a Internet of Things edition, which is the debloated version of Windows. However, that still leaves the possibility of Microsoft going fascist and sending out a Big Brother update.
Regarding Linux, it was indeed Mint that I tried to use - it seemed similar to Windows, at least visually. Getting standard software was easy enough, and things seemed promising until I started to migrate my gaming. I mod my games a fair bit of the time, or play niche stuff that hardly has support on Windows. It became very apparent that Linux can't handle that, not yet. In a couple of years I will revisit Linux.
You should definately look at PlayOnLinux for those game. It is an app to help leverage all Wine setup and configuration. Normally with Steam and this would should be able to run almost everything.
tried to use a VM
Yeah, this is where you went wrong. It's possible, but it really doesn't solve anything IMO, has the possibility of getting detected (so anticheat bans), and can often run worse. It's possible to get a sane setup, but what are you really gaining over just dual booting? You're still running Windows, after all, but now you have drawbacks (and some benefits) of a VM.
Can you be more specific about what didn't work? As in, games, platforms, etc. If it's a game with anticheat, you're probably SOL on Linux, but I have Heroic working just fine on both my Linux desktop (openSUSE) and Steam Deck. I usually launch through Steam to use Steam input and manage Proton versions, and it seems to work fine for GOG and EGS. Some games have issues, so check protondb.com if that's the case, but most work just fine.
The idea here with the VM is two-fold: First, to keep a potential Windows Big Brother update from spying on my documents and whatnot, while also preventing it from tampering with the security of my PC. Secondly, to maximize compatibility, since I lost trust in Linux to not have technical issues with my gaming. That means mods, Japanese games, emulators, and so forth. Windows is simply more reliable and documented, unlike Linux. If something goes wrong with a game playing on Windows, there is decent odds of me troubleshooting. My hardware should be able to handle a VM, it being a 5950x with a RTX 4090+3060, and 128gb of RAM.
Anyhow, I don't really remember the specifics regarding how my efforts with Lutris, Heroic Game Launcher, and so forth went: I don't like remembering unpleasant things. All that I recall is assorted errors or lack of features that rattled my willingness to trust Linux for gaming. I will try again some years for now, if I hear Linux has become more suitable to the task.
What distro did you try?
I’ve been on bazzite for some time now and haven’t had any of those problems
I switched to Nobara Linux at the end of last year, and for the most part when I consider how often I'd have to fix Windows stuff, it's not that much more work. Still not the same though, and I keep a Windows partition around for certain stuff even though I groan having to load into it
At the moment I’m 50/50 between switching over to Linux full-time, or full booting Windows 10 LTSC.
But having had to use it for work, I am adamant in saying that Windows 11 will never touch my home system drive.
Linux
One of us, one of us, one of us.
I enjoy this headline writing style. Imagine if we turned "try these 7 tricks" headlines into "Dionysius I of Syracuse would like you to try these"
Windows 10 LTSC is supported until 2032 or so. I’ll be avoiding upgrading for a long time.
How do you get a copy of that? I tried poking around but MS has the shittiest docs.
Found a copy on archive.org.
After that, you just need a KMS activator. Massgrave's is typically the recommended one.
I'm pretty sure the final version of Windows 10 LTSC 2021 had its window of support shortened to five years to align with the end of support. Only windows 10 LTSC 2019 has 10 years of support. If you're using LTSC 2019 for gaming please be aware you will be missing any features released for windows 10 that were released after version 1809. This will harm game performance for a lot of newer titles and hardware.
LTSC 2021 - until 2027 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-enterprise-ltsc-2021
But...
IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 - until 2032 - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-iot-enterprise-ltsc-2021
I’m on IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021. As far as I’m aware it’s up to date, and if not I don’t really use my PC for modern games anyway. Still good to know though.
I enjoyed the visual design of Win 11, but the bloatware, spyware, and AI slop it started to install was just too much. The Steam Deck has proven 99% of Steam games run fine on Linux, so I made the switch and killed my Windows partition a few months ago.
Feels so clean and light running Linux - my god I never knew my PC could run so fast! Windows was really truly awful and I had no idea until I removed it from my life completely. Games run flawlessly on it - I'm using Elementary OS because it's clean and user friendly.
Welcome to the club!
Hmmm never had an issue with bloatware/spyware in Win11. I just turn things off if they ask me after and upgrade and away I go. Everything just works properly and the best part is all my devices work as expected.
Shhh, people don't want to hear that they can change things they don't like. They just want to complain about things they've never used.
Sword of Damocles? More like the sword of Microsoft can go fuck itself!
If I did anything other than use my PC as a glorified gaming console, I might care about w10 not being updated anymore. Until games literally can't work on the OS, I'll stay on it. And when they do stop working, I'll probably just install Linux.
Linux
Join us, you know you want to.
Pry it from my cold dead hands. I have linux on multiple computers, but it still can’t play all the games and give me my 5.1 surround. Despite all the claims, it’s still not ready for primetime to do all the things windows does.
What's the issue with sound? I thought that was solved since... 15 years or so.
Can't help with the games though, must anti cheat games won't work without developer support. Do what you gotta do, but I'm interested in any issues that should be solvable with some config or swapping out a cheap card or something.
I finally upgraded to 11 last week by accident. Apparently one misclick means straight to next version with no cancel. So after the upgrade first thing I did was get o&o shutup10 to kill the spywares.
P.s. I know I can revert. But that's also effort.
Hadn’t heard of shutup10, I’ll be digging into this tonight
Have you succeeded in making things less crappy? I've been debating the upgrade for a while and I'm basically hoping this is possible by the time I do it. I already use shutup10 on win10, but I wasn't if win11 kneecaps it somehow or not.
Get a copy of Win 11 Pro
Install with English (UK) as your language (doesn't prevent you from using whatever keyboard layout you want or setting your clock to your timezone)
Activate using tools that can easily be found on the interwebs
Deactivate the privacy infringing stuff
Tada, none of the problems people complain about
Miss click? You could've read what it said though.
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age. My intuition says most people will be able to use Windows 10 for at least one more decade with minimal issues, after that it will gradually become trickier, but it will still be usable even in 20-30 years with advanced hacks if humanity doesn't go extinct by then.
"Powerful" probably wouldn't be the word I'd use given that security updates have stopped. Maybe "foolhardy"?
Yeah, I don't use critical software that doesn't get security updates, and an OS is super critical.
If you're going to stick with ancient software, at least throw it in a VM so it can't screw up everything else (and don't let it touch the rest of your network).
There are still people so powerful they manage to use Windows XP in this day and age
Those people are called doctors and they deserve your respect!
For the curious I’ve found bazzite to be the best and easiest Linux distro for gaming
Installed Bazzite this weekend, most the games I've tested run fine and the OS is quite pretty. Microsoft forcing everyone to Spware OS after Steam released several versions or Proton are the one-two punch that will help tons of people move to Linux. 🐧
Bazzite is amazing. Pretty much all Ublue based distros have been the most painless Linux experience I've had in years. The biggest problem I think most users have is the Dominance of Nvidia graphics hardware. Nvidia does "work" but it's much more unstable than the much more stable AMD driver. I bought an AMD 7800xt and I'm pretty much problem free now.
Since I have so many Nvidia cards I'm regularly testing Nvidia under Bazzite on a spare 2070super. It's impressive but it's not ready for average users.
About to install it on my new rig. I am using Mint, which is fantastic and it stays on my other PC, just wanted to try the nice baked in gaming features.
Yup bazzite with KDE plasma for my gaming rig now, thing works very well for use case!
nobara is looking good too for games ;-)
I didn’t like it as much personally
Does Bazzite (or any other distro) support HDR?
According to their page it does. Haven't tested myself tho
Bazzite is designed for Linux newcomers and enthusiasts alike with Steam pre-installed, HDR & VRR support, improved CPU schedulers ...
I mean, I tried for about a week...
Got a larger SSD and I wanted to reinstalled Windows, so I went through the whole getting Win11 thing, and it wouldn't let me install it. Although I have a full blown paid for Home Edition Win 10 linked to my microsoft account.
It said I had to install Win 10 first, so I did.. AFter all that, I went into windows update like is said, looked for the Win 11 update option... Doesn't exist...
My AMD 5800X and everything else on my PC supports Win 11. It's just not giving me the option.
So I gave up...
I'll likely use Win10 until SteamOS is released...
They recently made changes so that you can't easily upgrade anymore. I think you still can if you find the right hoops to jump through but this exact issue came up recently
There's ways to force the upgrade without doing it via Windows update
I'm one of them. My 6th generation processor means that Windows 10 will be the last version of windows that this machine runs.
This, to me, is the worst sin of Windows 11. One of the greatest benefits Windows had compared to macOS was that it used to be backward compatible with really old hardware. Real pro move to get rid of that.
Edit: I bought a cheap micro form factor PC that I thought would support Windows 11 natively. Haha, no, the 6 year old CPU on that was not supported.
Once EOL hits I'm switching to Linux.
If I was you I'd start now. Spend some time dual booting or using Linux on a side machine.There is a learning curve.
I recommend buying a separate drive instead of repartitioning your current one. You'll have more space, no nonsense with bootloaders (just switch the drive in UEFI), etc. Configure Linux to know about the Windows drive and then you can boot into either really easily.
When you're ready to ditch windows, just remove/reformat the other drive. I still keep windows around for the 1-2x/year that I want to test something out.
Only one computer left on Windows in my household and only because of gaming. Everything else is on either Linux Mint or Bazzite as I finalize testing. Windows is dead to me.
Yeah, but this happens with every version. Windows 7 still had a big market share up until MSFT cut off support. Users are going to bitch and complain and talk about switching to Linux, but eventually just install the next Windows version.
I'm a lifetime Windows user. I used to have to type run win3.exe on my first computer. I installed Linux mint on my new pc build a couple weeks ago and have been moving in and getting everything set up. Some people absolutely will make the change.
I remember those days, playing games with DOS4GW or whatever it was called. Man, I don't miss that.
I think most users just get a new device eventually. So as long the OEM have to get Ms licenses. Windows will still be around.
I held onto Windows 7 even a year or two past so-called the EOL. I had a pretty powerful rig and I wasn't going to pay money to upgrade. Then I think Microsoft just gave Windows 8 for free?
I finally got on Windows 10 when I bought a premade gaming computer. Still not upgrading.
I would switch to Linux but I have yet to find a distro that recognizes my 5K monitor
Wow, I didn't know that was an option, I thought we did 4k, then skipped to 6k and 8k. What's the actual resolution on that thing?
5120x2880, it’s the same panel as the Apple Studio Display made by LG, just in a much cheaper chassis.
general distrust that subsequent windows and platform releases have even more insidious spyware and data havesting capability than before... don't even need to get started on the bloat and resource requirements
I went to 11 and have gone back to 10. The only thing it does is mine crypto coins (I need a heater in that room anyway - whatever). Everything else works better in Linux.
11 was fine until they repeatedly kept breaking their updates. Next time I have to reload that os on that drive it’ll be hiveos. It won’t be as convenient as the auto switchers like nicehash and their alternatives. But ya, windows sux these days.
Crypto mining works better in windows!?
GPU compute is usually a Linux forte. By a huge margin, for me.
No, but it’s a set it and forget it thing. I pay zero attention to it and it just runs. Easy means it runs more if I had to check what to mine and switch and blah blah, well I’m lazy…. So for me - ya it’s better. ;)
Windows 10??? I’m still using windows 8.1 lmao