Installing Linux on Hundreds of Obsolete Computers - Microsoft Windows 10 Support Ending
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Date: 2025-10-11
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Comments and reviews: 20
flybywire5866
My actual PC was built by me in november 2019. I9-9900k, 2080TI, all watercooled. It still works just fine for all the games I want to play, and I was able to upgrade it to Windows 11 without any problems. With all the talk about Windows, AI monitoring users, likely a subscription model and whatnot, I was getting more and more uncomfortable with Windows. What if one day MS says pay up or it wont boot anymore I assume they have the technical means to do so, and the current US government would cheer them on. I don't want to sleepwalk into it, so something had to be done.
I realized my PC has a free SSD slot. At the End of July I bought another SSD and installed Ubuntu on it. So far it has been an adventure to get things running. It's definitely not as polished as windows. However, with some perseverance it is doable. You must enter long cryptic commands, which you have to find on the internet in the first place, into the terminal to make things work. That is not suitable for everyone, and I guess this is what prevents Linux from being more popular. Getting Opera to play every video was another adventure.
However, at the end of the day it does work. The more users Linux has, the more development will be there. The more Linux compatible software will be offered.
I am done with Windows.
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My actual PC was built by me in november 2019. I9-9900k, 2080TI, all watercooled. It still works just fine for all the games I want to play, and I was able to upgrade it to Windows 11 without any problems. With all the talk about Windows, AI monitoring users, likely a subscription model and whatnot, I was getting more and more uncomfortable with Windows. What if one day MS says pay up or it wont boot anymore I assume they have the technical means to do so, and the current US government would cheer them on. I don't want to sleepwalk into it, so something had to be done.
I realized my PC has a free SSD slot. At the End of July I bought another SSD and installed Ubuntu on it. So far it has been an adventure to get things running. It's definitely not as polished as windows. However, with some perseverance it is doable. You must enter long cryptic commands, which you have to find on the internet in the first place, into the terminal to make things work. That is not suitable for everyone, and I guess this is what prevents Linux from being more popular. Getting Opera to play every video was another adventure.
However, at the end of the day it does work. The more users Linux has, the more development will be there. The more Linux compatible software will be offered.
I am done with Windows.
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Lanzetsu
Maybe this comment won't be seen but I read many asking how can PC with a 12700K be E-Waste and the answer is quite simple... but shocking for many. In some corporations they have a Upgrade and Security Policy which forces them to change all their computers after the Warranty has been expired which usually accounts for 3 years and maybe 4 in some cases. Why do they do that Because they can't jeopardize the constant productivity risking to use PC which has a decent time already of use and out of warranty... I know it is insane but I saw it myself and was part of it, then I did the best to recycle all I could and those PC were donated to some organization while the rest was sent as E-Waste.
Even I myself got a Dell Laptop with a i5-10210U running Linux right now, and it still works perfectly! Just needed to change the Battery and saved it from going into E-Waste.
Also when I changed jobs I was in charge this time of all the computers on the new site, recovered a lot of stuff, repaired it and put it again into work just switching some HDD for SSD, cleaning it and optimizing the Win10 installations with ChristitusTech Winutils scripts, sending the irremediable broken or very old stuff like some AMD Sempron as E-Waste.
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Maybe this comment won't be seen but I read many asking how can PC with a 12700K be E-Waste and the answer is quite simple... but shocking for many. In some corporations they have a Upgrade and Security Policy which forces them to change all their computers after the Warranty has been expired which usually accounts for 3 years and maybe 4 in some cases. Why do they do that Because they can't jeopardize the constant productivity risking to use PC which has a decent time already of use and out of warranty... I know it is insane but I saw it myself and was part of it, then I did the best to recycle all I could and those PC were donated to some organization while the rest was sent as E-Waste.
Even I myself got a Dell Laptop with a i5-10210U running Linux right now, and it still works perfectly! Just needed to change the Battery and saved it from going into E-Waste.
Also when I changed jobs I was in charge this time of all the computers on the new site, recovered a lot of stuff, repaired it and put it again into work just switching some HDD for SSD, cleaning it and optimizing the Win10 installations with ChristitusTech Winutils scripts, sending the irremediable broken or very old stuff like some AMD Sempron as E-Waste.
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SkiBumMSP
This is awesome to see. I've done something like that many years ago (back when the Pentium III was still current). We took a bunch of computers and refurbished them like that, which ultimately went to schools or to people that could not otherwise afford a computer. I should look to see if there is still something like that going on here in town, especially as computers have gotten so much more mainstream since those days when I originally did stuff like this. It seems now-a-days, it is almost like you have to have a computer, much like everybody having a telephone and a TV. Personally, I have a couple of machines here that are otherwise perfectly good except that Microsoft now deems them not good enough for Windows 11. One of those machines is just acting as a file server, so I am going to put Linux on that one. This other machine, which is an HP, but I've upgraded it over the years up to an AMD FX-8350, an RX-480 GPU and 24 gigs of RAM, which is the most this machine can take. However, it still is a perfectly good machine and still quite capable of running many games. My gaming rig, which is a Core i9-9900K with RTX-3080ti and 64 gigs of RAM can at least be upgraded to Windows 11.
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This is awesome to see. I've done something like that many years ago (back when the Pentium III was still current). We took a bunch of computers and refurbished them like that, which ultimately went to schools or to people that could not otherwise afford a computer. I should look to see if there is still something like that going on here in town, especially as computers have gotten so much more mainstream since those days when I originally did stuff like this. It seems now-a-days, it is almost like you have to have a computer, much like everybody having a telephone and a TV. Personally, I have a couple of machines here that are otherwise perfectly good except that Microsoft now deems them not good enough for Windows 11. One of those machines is just acting as a file server, so I am going to put Linux on that one. This other machine, which is an HP, but I've upgraded it over the years up to an AMD FX-8350, an RX-480 GPU and 24 gigs of RAM, which is the most this machine can take. However, it still is a perfectly good machine and still quite capable of running many games. My gaming rig, which is a Core i9-9900K with RTX-3080ti and 64 gigs of RAM can at least be upgraded to Windows 11.
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MrPersonatus
Don't link windows to your Microsoft account, please see my story with Microsoft below: I had my hotmail account used for every Microsoft license I have and is my microsoft windows account, which was blocked forever because it was hacked, it was extremely difficult to pass-through Microsoft's useless phone assistant to get to a person that told me that he/she can't do anything or support me be because I had two steps authentication enabled on my account. The hacker used my old password that I had on backup email to hack into my Microsoft account and take hold of it changing my backup email, two steps authentication and my password while I was sleeping at night. Contacting Microsoft took days for me to bypass their phone assistant annoying and proven to lead to nothing as I was directed to a website link that is useless and disappointment took over me even though I was validated to be the original owner of the account. But they blocked the account forever making me loose all my certificates and licenses even my files on onedrive.
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Don't link windows to your Microsoft account, please see my story with Microsoft below: I had my hotmail account used for every Microsoft license I have and is my microsoft windows account, which was blocked forever because it was hacked, it was extremely difficult to pass-through Microsoft's useless phone assistant to get to a person that told me that he/she can't do anything or support me be because I had two steps authentication enabled on my account. The hacker used my old password that I had on backup email to hack into my Microsoft account and take hold of it changing my backup email, two steps authentication and my password while I was sleeping at night. Contacting Microsoft took days for me to bypass their phone assistant annoying and proven to lead to nothing as I was directed to a website link that is useless and disappointment took over me even though I was validated to be the original owner of the account. But they blocked the account forever making me loose all my certificates and licenses even my files on onedrive.
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hhdeng
i'm in IT for my company... we have 3 campuses from different parts of socal and we have almost 1200 users with mix of laptop/desktop... just today our pallets of 70 dell optiplex new desktop came in... with more coming and laptops... the amount of waste W11 has produced is insane... we have 8 pallets of stacked dell/hp mini tower workstations ranging from 6th to 10th gen intel i5 and i7.... seeing how we throw out the 8, 9, and 10th gen like that hurts my heart... even the 7th generation is perfectly usable for most everyday task or office work...
i did ask my ops manager where these are going to... he said we partner with a company that takes old computers and monitors and test, clean and re-purpose and ship them out to places to people who are less fortunate or have no access or financial means to buying a computer... i felt little better after hearing that.... of course there are the computers or monitors with serious physical damages or that person is just filthy disgusting....
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i'm in IT for my company... we have 3 campuses from different parts of socal and we have almost 1200 users with mix of laptop/desktop... just today our pallets of 70 dell optiplex new desktop came in... with more coming and laptops... the amount of waste W11 has produced is insane... we have 8 pallets of stacked dell/hp mini tower workstations ranging from 6th to 10th gen intel i5 and i7.... seeing how we throw out the 8, 9, and 10th gen like that hurts my heart... even the 7th generation is perfectly usable for most everyday task or office work...
i did ask my ops manager where these are going to... he said we partner with a company that takes old computers and monitors and test, clean and re-purpose and ship them out to places to people who are less fortunate or have no access or financial means to buying a computer... i felt little better after hearing that.... of course there are the computers or monitors with serious physical damages or that person is just filthy disgusting....
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SalemTechsperts
Dude, thank you guys so much for making this video. After a rough week of refurbishing hundreds of ThinkPads, I needed this. I closed my repair shop last year to focus on repurposing and selling repairable tech at affordable prices vs trying to fix disposable garbage where the repair costs more than the device. It's been insanely stressful refurbishing hundreds of devices every month with only 3 people, while also trying to pump out content to pay the bills. The entire process from procuring them, testing them, refurbishing them, and providing after-sales support to the user, is a ton of work and I get overwhelmed daily. It's a huge morale booster to see Kramden operating at such a large scale despite going through these same issues without losing their passion for why they're doing it. I'd love to take a trip down there to get a better look at their process. Thanks again.
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Dude, thank you guys so much for making this video. After a rough week of refurbishing hundreds of ThinkPads, I needed this. I closed my repair shop last year to focus on repurposing and selling repairable tech at affordable prices vs trying to fix disposable garbage where the repair costs more than the device. It's been insanely stressful refurbishing hundreds of devices every month with only 3 people, while also trying to pump out content to pay the bills. The entire process from procuring them, testing them, refurbishing them, and providing after-sales support to the user, is a ton of work and I get overwhelmed daily. It's a huge morale booster to see Kramden operating at such a large scale despite going through these same issues without losing their passion for why they're doing it. I'd love to take a trip down there to get a better look at their process. Thanks again.
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reinekewf7987
we have in our LAB / Maker Space a couple PCs too who are pretty old but for most of the tasks there are fine even without running Windows. We a couple special PCs on certain positions Like for the Lasercutter and Engraver more compute power is needed, so this system is obviously using a more modern GPU or GPUs in this case. But for the 3D and 2D Print and plot Center a 10 year old PC can handle multiple machines at once. Just send the file to this PC and select the printer. The system does Sliceing automatically. For the Internet Caffe part of our building, there are the Low Spec systems Equipped with Ubuntu or Mint. All systems using PXE Boot. in case if something goes wrong, just turn it off and reboot. Most user dont really Care.
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we have in our LAB / Maker Space a couple PCs too who are pretty old but for most of the tasks there are fine even without running Windows. We a couple special PCs on certain positions Like for the Lasercutter and Engraver more compute power is needed, so this system is obviously using a more modern GPU or GPUs in this case. But for the 3D and 2D Print and plot Center a 10 year old PC can handle multiple machines at once. Just send the file to this PC and select the printer. The system does Sliceing automatically. For the Internet Caffe part of our building, there are the Low Spec systems Equipped with Ubuntu or Mint. All systems using PXE Boot. in case if something goes wrong, just turn it off and reboot. Most user dont really Care.
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PWingert1966
I worked with Free Geek Toronto and was part of a team that developed a detailed installation process and supporting documentation to install Linux Mint with a separate data partition. That way we could reinstall the OS without putting the owner's data at risk. It accounted for a couple of oddity with IBM laptops and a few other vendor specific issues. Over 1000 machines have been converted to this configuration. We usus DOD Data wipes to clear the hard drives on any machine we were going to repurpose. Machines are sold back to the community through the FGT social business to gain funds to continue repurposing machines.
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I worked with Free Geek Toronto and was part of a team that developed a detailed installation process and supporting documentation to install Linux Mint with a separate data partition. That way we could reinstall the OS without putting the owner's data at risk. It accounted for a couple of oddity with IBM laptops and a few other vendor specific issues. Over 1000 machines have been converted to this configuration. We usus DOD Data wipes to clear the hard drives on any machine we were going to repurpose. Machines are sold back to the community through the FGT social business to gain funds to continue repurposing machines.
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RobBobo-4711
Always remember, Apple only recycles 20% of their products because the US demands it. And Apple had the gall to print out certificates where they proudly pronounce look how green we are as a company... portraying doing the bare minimum as something positive!!
That means 80% of returned Apple products will be shredded by Apple to fine powder, even if just the Screen has a crack, no joke. The device will not be saved what so ever.
And the tiniest metal elements will be lost in the process. They burn to dust and cinder during the shredding and melting process.
Actual finite resources LOST! Thanks Apple
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Always remember, Apple only recycles 20% of their products because the US demands it. And Apple had the gall to print out certificates where they proudly pronounce look how green we are as a company... portraying doing the bare minimum as something positive!!
That means 80% of returned Apple products will be shredded by Apple to fine powder, even if just the Screen has a crack, no joke. The device will not be saved what so ever.
And the tiniest metal elements will be lost in the process. They burn to dust and cinder during the shredding and melting process.
Actual finite resources LOST! Thanks Apple
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countercole1
I've been daily using Linux for about 6 years now and for gaming, it's honestly at the point where it's as jank as windows but in different games. For instance when elden ring came out, people were complaining about performance and I didn't know what they were talking about cause for some reason playing it through proton worked better. Only issue major people should be 100% aware of is if you REALLY wanna play games with crappy anti-cheat it's not gonna work i.e BF6's javelin. Hopefully more people will try Linux now that everyone's being forced to win11, which sucks btw.
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I've been daily using Linux for about 6 years now and for gaming, it's honestly at the point where it's as jank as windows but in different games. For instance when elden ring came out, people were complaining about performance and I didn't know what they were talking about cause for some reason playing it through proton worked better. Only issue major people should be 100% aware of is if you REALLY wanna play games with crappy anti-cheat it's not gonna work i.e BF6's javelin. Hopefully more people will try Linux now that everyone's being forced to win11, which sucks btw.
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cyberwasp3289
For anyone sitting on the the Linux Sidelines. Jump in,
What nobody is mentioning is that any of the LLM's will help tutor your way through any problem you may encounter like a Boss.
Grok solved weird Bios Issues I was having on an old Laptop, when I was Installing Linux. There was no forum or article to refer to with similar issues.
It found me obscure Updated Bios Files and helped me to customize them to get the solution I needed.
Best most underrated use of AI is to help you with PC's - Hardware or Software, esp if you are a newbie.
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For anyone sitting on the the Linux Sidelines. Jump in,
What nobody is mentioning is that any of the LLM's will help tutor your way through any problem you may encounter like a Boss.
Grok solved weird Bios Issues I was having on an old Laptop, when I was Installing Linux. There was no forum or article to refer to with similar issues.
It found me obscure Updated Bios Files and helped me to customize them to get the solution I needed.
Best most underrated use of AI is to help you with PC's - Hardware or Software, esp if you are a newbie.
reply
HedgehogY2K
When I found out about Microsoft trying to remove the oobe bypassnro I felt relieved that I already went through to reverting a CT-2055M AIO PC I bought on sale to Windows 10 with no bitlocker, TPM, or account. I feel sorta guilt for telling my parents to buy a cheap Ryzen 3200U laptop with 4GB RAM in 2019. Heck, 8GB isn't enough for a creator as brilliant as Poptoons Skaff. I will correct that mistake with my brother's Christmas present. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees Windows 10 on an AI 340 NPU.
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When I found out about Microsoft trying to remove the oobe bypassnro I felt relieved that I already went through to reverting a CT-2055M AIO PC I bought on sale to Windows 10 with no bitlocker, TPM, or account. I feel sorta guilt for telling my parents to buy a cheap Ryzen 3200U laptop with 4GB RAM in 2019. Heck, 8GB isn't enough for a creator as brilliant as Poptoons Skaff. I will correct that mistake with my brother's Christmas present. I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees Windows 10 on an AI 340 NPU.
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nikolamihaylov94
Man the nostalgia hit me when you were going through the cpus, my first dual core cpu was a e8400 with an nvidia gt9600 OC, I loved that machine. Funny thing is I swapped that cpu for a q9550 5 years later, and in 2017 when I built my first ryzen pc I gave my old one to my nephew who was using it until last week when I swapped in a new MB and cpu because MMOs are stopping support for the 775 socket. But the mb and cpu still work perfectly fine, I'll probably build a test bench from the parts
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Man the nostalgia hit me when you were going through the cpus, my first dual core cpu was a e8400 with an nvidia gt9600 OC, I loved that machine. Funny thing is I swapped that cpu for a q9550 5 years later, and in 2017 when I built my first ryzen pc I gave my old one to my nephew who was using it until last week when I swapped in a new MB and cpu because MMOs are stopping support for the 775 socket. But the mb and cpu still work perfectly fine, I'll probably build a test bench from the parts
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andrewscott985
It is not the hardware that is obsolete, but the very Windows operating system itself.
And it's not any kind of obsolescence, but an OBSOLETE ON RELEASE kind of obsolescence, planned, deployed and harvested by toxic, bottomless bags of companies working together to milk as much money they could from the client that was never supposed to have something to rely on.
Thank you for the hard work that you are doing and the you have been doing for a long time now.
I wish you all the best.
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It is not the hardware that is obsolete, but the very Windows operating system itself.
And it's not any kind of obsolescence, but an OBSOLETE ON RELEASE kind of obsolescence, planned, deployed and harvested by toxic, bottomless bags of companies working together to milk as much money they could from the client that was never supposed to have something to rely on.
Thank you for the hard work that you are doing and the you have been doing for a long time now.
I wish you all the best.
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gamersnexus
Nah don't care. Too much hassle of learning Linux and its troubleshooting, even more when it comes to teaching others how to install and use them. Also too many Linux distributions, fcking confusing. Ubuntu Bazzite SteamOS Redhat MintOS Arch Gentoo. What the heck, man. Might as well use Apartheid Linux.
Would rather use win10 until my browser and games and drivers are not supported anymore, got hacked, or doing hardware upgrades. And if that happens, I'll just switch to modified win11.
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Nah don't care. Too much hassle of learning Linux and its troubleshooting, even more when it comes to teaching others how to install and use them. Also too many Linux distributions, fcking confusing. Ubuntu Bazzite SteamOS Redhat MintOS Arch Gentoo. What the heck, man. Might as well use Apartheid Linux.
Would rather use win10 until my browser and games and drivers are not supported anymore, got hacked, or doing hardware upgrades. And if that happens, I'll just switch to modified win11.
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djcetra
rofl these hater windows move to linux videos crack me up. look i love linux too and have cent os installed on one of my laptops but it's nowhere near ready for primetime for me. I can't play the games I want, others run like shit. I can't use 90% of my audio gear to produce music or record because it isn't supported in Linux nor are VSTs. Windows 10 is old, 11 is far better. This reeks of retardation just like the ignorant stubborn idiots who didn't want to move off W7.
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rofl these hater windows move to linux videos crack me up. look i love linux too and have cent os installed on one of my laptops but it's nowhere near ready for primetime for me. I can't play the games I want, others run like shit. I can't use 90% of my audio gear to produce music or record because it isn't supported in Linux nor are VSTs. Windows 10 is old, 11 is far better. This reeks of retardation just like the ignorant stubborn idiots who didn't want to move off W7.
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davethefoxmage5797
I learned programming and Linux on old computers nobody wanted back in the late 90's. Nowadays one of my jobs is retiring old computers where I work. My rule is that it only goes in the recycling if I can't get it to work at all.
Quite a few have gone to employees' kids (after a thorough wipe, of course) who want to learn computers, use them to get into writing or art, etc. - I like to think in 20 years, the cycle will repeat for the next generation.
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I learned programming and Linux on old computers nobody wanted back in the late 90's. Nowadays one of my jobs is retiring old computers where I work. My rule is that it only goes in the recycling if I can't get it to work at all.
Quite a few have gone to employees' kids (after a thorough wipe, of course) who want to learn computers, use them to get into writing or art, etc. - I like to think in 20 years, the cycle will repeat for the next generation.
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gamersnexus
I'm finally retiring my i7-3770 system this year. I bought the CPU around 2014 on eBay to replace the i3 I bought for my first personally built system. It's still ok, but the hardware is showing its age.
Replacing it with a spare parts system between me and my little bro. Ryzen R5 2600x. 2x4 GB RAM. RX 5500xt. Kubuntu.
My newer PC is now dual booted to Kubuntu and Win11 (Windows for some software compatibility and game testing; and that it has a license.)
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I'm finally retiring my i7-3770 system this year. I bought the CPU around 2014 on eBay to replace the i3 I bought for my first personally built system. It's still ok, but the hardware is showing its age.
Replacing it with a spare parts system between me and my little bro. Ryzen R5 2600x. 2x4 GB RAM. RX 5500xt. Kubuntu.
My newer PC is now dual booted to Kubuntu and Win11 (Windows for some software compatibility and game testing; and that it has a license.)
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HisCarlnessI
Yeah the issue isn't that there's plenty of perfectly good hardware that magically becomes unusable... you can keep running 10 and just be less secure, which is mostly fine if you don't pirate and only use it on your home network. The BIG thing is that Windows 11 sucks in every way and is making everything that was wrong with Windows even worse, so while Windows 10 was an on the fence moment, windows 11 is the final straw.
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Yeah the issue isn't that there's plenty of perfectly good hardware that magically becomes unusable... you can keep running 10 and just be less secure, which is mostly fine if you don't pirate and only use it on your home network. The BIG thing is that Windows 11 sucks in every way and is making everything that was wrong with Windows even worse, so while Windows 10 was an on the fence moment, windows 11 is the final straw.
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SenileOtaku
Would be nice if they had something like this around her (Mid-Hudson Valley NY), but not only don't they seem to care about refurbishing computers, the e-waste sites don't allow you to pick through and take or even buy used hardware. The region is full of tree-hugging ultra-liberals, but once it comes to their electronics they'll dump anything with no concern of the environment or economic impact.
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Would be nice if they had something like this around her (Mid-Hudson Valley NY), but not only don't they seem to care about refurbishing computers, the e-waste sites don't allow you to pick through and take or even buy used hardware. The region is full of tree-hugging ultra-liberals, but once it comes to their electronics they'll dump anything with no concern of the environment or economic impact.
reply
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