2024 April
Do you really need to upgrade to Windows 11 ?
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Windows 11 is the next major version of Windows by Microsoft, which they want everyone using Windows 10 to change to.
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Almost all legal users of Windows 10 are eligible (if their hardware supports it) to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11.
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Unfortunately, Microsoft seriously restricted the hardware that Windows 11 officially supports.
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Almost no computers that were manufactured before 2018 have the needed hardware (including CPU versions, enough memory, and a device called a TPM) to support Windows 11.
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Many computers manufactured between 2018 and 2022 will support an upgrade to Windows 11.
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Almost all computers that were delivered with Windows 10 after 2022, are up-gradable to Windows 11.
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The final version of Windows 10 is version 22H2, which will reach end of servicing on October 14, 2025.
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After that date, there will be no more security updates available for Windows itself.
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However, it will continue to work. And some Major software (like Firefox, Chrome) will still be supported (with security and feature updates) for probably a couple years after that date. So people will not be suddenly rushing to replace their Windows 10 computers (even if they are too old for Windows 11).
Future of old machines:
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If all you use is Email and a Web browser (Like Firefox, or Chrome) on your Windows machine, there are free alternative Operating Systems (OSes) that older computers are still able to run (and probably will be for many years).
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The change to using one of these OSes, is probably similar to the change from Windows XP to Windows 10, or from Windows to MacOS.
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Many are fully supported by Firefox, Chrome, and Thunderbird (so you can run the same programs, with the same user interface).
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Below is some information about the most popular of those alternatives.
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Linux is a Free OS, with many distributions to choose from (In 2023 4% of the Desktop/Laptop computers in the world are running Linux, if you include ChromeBooks - that goes up to 6%, it is also the primary operating system used by computing clusters - the current "super computers").
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Some of those distributions are actually from IBM (Redhat Linux, Fedora Linux, CentOS Linux).
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Every Android Phone/Tablet is running a distribution of Linux (Android OS).
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ROKU boxes run a Linux OS (Roku OS - see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roku_OS ).
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ChromeBooks are running a Linux OS (Chrome OS).
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For more information about Linux, I recommend you start with the links here:
www.uum.org/links
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