I am not a computer tech support agent, but I’m with @What_Exit, and have mentioned the same planned Windows 10 critical security extension for $30.
If you don’t connect to the internet, I’d have few worries - but even safe sites get compromised, or people can just flat out click on the wrong thing.
Potentially you could consider Chrome OS Flex for some older PCs, but that IMHO really only works well for web browsing and email. Then again, it’s been like 3 years since I used it, so check with a real computer expert! And if you want to use Quicken… Really, I’d advise a new cheapo laptop. My parents (86 and 81) are in the same situation with their laptop going out of service and my father and step-mother do taxes and financial transfers on it. I will be driving 630 miles to make sure they install the extension or to setup a new laptop I’ll be buying for them (with their money though) before October, and have been reminding them for about a year now.
Kicking the can down the road, I’ll go ahead and do the extension. Is it available yet? Then I’ll resurrect this almost-a-zombie-by-then thread in Oct 2026.
Proposition: compare the relative danger, risk, tempting-fate, asking-for-trouble levels of:
So far, my work has not forced us to upgrade on their provided laptop and I hope they don’t. From what I have seen and understand Windows 11 really messed up the task bar, and given that it will no longer work in a way that is optimal for how I work, I hope the update is a long ways off. As soon as I am forced to update,I will have get some third party app to get functionality that I have been using for several versions of Windows since it is no longer available natively.
I mentioned in another thread that I used 0patch for security patches for Windows 7 until the PC died and I upgraded to Windows 10. Largely this was because of the bad stuff I heard from early Windows 10 users. I may well do the same while waiting for my Windows 10 PC to die.
Those bastards deep-sixed Wordpad! Now it’s either the pahtetically feeble Notepad or the hideously over-featured Word, dammit! I’ve managed to get the taskbar more or less usefully configured, but pretty much all the button choices I needed in Wordpad for what I do every day are now buried in a menu I have to navigate through another menu to get to, past a bunch of choices I have no use for, with what I want way down near the bottom. There are other changes from 10 that make my life more difficult, too.
I upgraded from Win7 to 10 only when some of my regularly used apps refused to update until I did. That was a good five years at least after 10 was released, so it was a decent run. But I was only two years into 10 when my PC started to break, forcing a full replacement which came with 11. I stay with an OS until its last breath.
Most important thing I see missing on that list is an ad blocker. Most bad stuff is going to come from ad networks, not porn sites.
I don’t recommend using Windows 10 past the expiration date, but if you must, make sure your browser is fully updated. Pick a browser that is going to continue to be supported on Windows 10 and can run uBlock Origin.
Whatever happened to that? What’s the point of such a heavy and bloated OS these days? The new versions haven’t added anything meaningful since 7.
I don’t understand why Windows isn’t free, and just a vehicle to all their office apps and Xbox games and all that the way Android and iOS and macOS and Linux all are.
Android OS may be free, but Google sure charges a royalty for access to Google Services which is paid by the manufacturer and baked into the price. This is not far off the model that Microsoft uses with OEM licensing.
Apple includes the OS on its hardware, but charges a significant premium to do so.
But I have a Surface Go (Win 10) which I use when travelling. It’s about 5 years old now and certainly won’t support Windows 11.
So I’m going to have to make a decision when they retire Win 10 later this year.
Annoying, because the Go still works perfectly well for what I use it for (just browsing and video calls).
For anyone interested, here is a pretty thorough look at 0patch and how it works. The article is 9 years old but the fundamentals are probably still the same. My takeaway from this and other articles is that 0patch is far from a panacea – it doesn’t purport to patch every vulnerability, AIUI it doesn’t patch the OS kernel at all, but only certain system processes and applications, and allowing crowd-sourced patches on your system has the potential of introducing its own security vulnerabilities.
Incidentally, while looking for more info on 0patch, I came across this intriguing post in the Microsoft Community forum by the poster “Canadian Tech”. Keeping in mind that free information randomly found on the internet is often worth exactly what you paid for it, it’s an interesting read from a purported Windows support professional. Also keep in mind that at the time he wrote this, 28 months after Win7 end of full support, it was still getting critical security updates (although he claims “NO patches. No patches period.” for his clients since May 2017) and major browsers were still being supported on the platform, and that’s a significant part of the security infrastructure.
We upgraded at work and it was a complete non-issue. In an organization of 13,000 users no less.
So I upgraded at home, and it’s been much the same- there were a couple of little UI things I had to figure out how to set back the way I wanted them, but that’s trivial stuff. Otherwise I didn’t have to reinstall anything or do anything out of the ordinary whatsoever.
My desktop here at work is Windows 10 because the hardware doesn’t allow for an upgrade to Windows 11. I find no problem with it and don’t mind sticking with it. The fly in the ointment is that they will no longer support Windows 10 as of October 14, 2025, which is only 7 months away. That means no system updates and, more importantly, no security updates. That will make you increasingly vulnerable over time because criminals are quite aware of this and will try to take advantage.
I have a media server (but really just a desktop, it’s not running server software) that I built in 2011 right when Win7 came out. It’s running Win10 now but the hardware won’t support Win11.
I can swap out the motherboard/ram/processor for about $500 and get Win11 but it’s gonna be a whole project. I want to keep the case because it’s cool, and all the hard drives with my media. The sticking point will be my ability to get Plex running again and running nicely. I think it will be fine if I just make sure all of the drives are mapped correctly when I put it back together. But, you know…effort.
I’ve got a Microcenter near me so I think I might actually have them do the rebuild. I have to do a free consult with their nerds to see if they can do it right.
I am planning on getting a laptop with Windows 11 this summer as my 2016 Windows 10 desktop computer is just too old to do much with. It’s running out of space and it will be lucky to survive the rest of the year. It’s been an excellent computer though.
If it is still running OK I might look into buying the extended security. I will have to research how one does that. This is the first I have heard about that option. I hope it’s not to complicated.
I will likely get a new desktop once I move into an apartment. I really don’t want to have to set up a new desktop where I live now and have to move everything so a laptop will do just fine for the interim.
Years ago I was unlucky enough to get a serious virus infection from just doing a google search! That was back in 2009. I had to buy an entire new computer as it wiped out everything. I had the blue screen of death to deal with.
I thought the same thing with my desktop, which used to belong to my in-laws, and was even older. But, Win 11 has a tool that assesses your device to confirm it will accept the update, and sure enough, it gave my pc a green light to upgrade, to my surprise.