windows 10 panic setting in?

I talked about this at the beginning of the year but want to revisit it. At the time I write this, Microsoft Windows 10 is almost 10 years old, and the time is drawing closer to where 10 will become officially unsupported.

And oh yeah, I'm seeing some panic.

In mid-2023, I had the thought of, I'd better switch to Linux now, and did. Been using it ever since as my daily driver. But I still read forums where people talk about Windows 10. Why? I was waiting to see when The Panic would set in.

It's been well known for a long while that official Windows 10 support ends on 14-Oct-2025. When this was first announced, of course there were people all over saying they would "stay on 10 forever". Yeah. Well... back when 10 was first released, people said they would stay on Windows 7 forever. And before that when 7 was first released, people said they would stay on XP forever. We all know how that turned out.

At the beginning of '25, people thought.. for some reason.. that 10 could somehow be "saved". I don't know why anybody thought this, but they did. Now it's to the point where the boom is going to be dropped in 6 months for 10, and oh yes, The Panic is now setting in. Talk is going on of, "Uh-oh.. what happens in 6 months?" Truly not that far away from now.

When Windows 10 was first released, forum nerds hated it. And I mean really hated it, swearing up and down they'd never use it as their daily driver. Fast-forward to now, and those same nerds did a complete 180, use it all the time, and say they not only like 10 but want to stay with it.

So... did 10 just magically get better? Not really. Yes, many bugfixes and patches have been released in the decade 10 has existed. But if you install a bone stock 10 even now, it's basically still the same experience as it was in 2015.

Since history has a tendency to repeat itself, here's what I'm pretty sure is going to happen:

It's going to be just like what happened with 7. The no-more-support date will hit, forum nerds will be loud and proud about staying with 10 forever, and say, "Ha! See? My PC still works fine!"

I give that about 6 months. Maybe a year. Then they'll switch to Windows 11. It will most likely be because some new PC game "requires" 11. Or maybe their old clunker PC will finally give up the ghost, they'll buy a new one, 11 will be on it and they'll just begrudgingly keep it just because 10 won't work on that computer properly since it wasn't designed for it.

It's real easy to be on the "stay on X version of OS forever" wagon when everything is working. But once stuff stops working, be it hardware or software or both, that's when your tune changes.

If you're using 10 now, you'll soon either go with Win11 or Linux, your choice. And I suppose Mac is also an option if you like spending money.

Published 2025 Apr 15