Newer motherboards have chips for improved security and they have to be present for Windows 11 - I had to replace my old PC because it didn’t have these chips and couldn’t be upgraded to 11. Yes, there is a profit motive, but there is also the issue that older hardware is far less secure.

I just finally had to buy a new Mac.
Because the old one could no longer get updated and programs started to not be able to work on it.

... FOR FREE!

I worked in IT for almost 30 years and know this first hand. People want an appliance they turn on and it works right away. They don’t want to know how it works.

have always been the downfall (WFi, printers, etc.).

... But with a little determination and contempt for microsoft, I was able to teach myself what I needed to know by way of helpful YouTube videos. It's all a matter of determination and motivation.

I hadn’t known about the extended support option. That buys me some time for my dad’s computer that I was assuming we’d have to abandon mid-month.

Still pissed off about it, but since my dad is 96 years old, I’m not about to buy him a new computer, so the $30 will be worth it.

Thanks again for informing me!

More stable, supports most common file types, and smaller distros like Puppy Linux give life to older computers.

When my Win98SE computer became obsolete, Puppy Linux kept me running until the year 2018.

It cost me absolutely nothing.

I've got a 10÷-year-old computer that was already stressed when forced to upgrade to Windows 10. I'd hate to abandon it.

===========

I use 11 pro. (11 home is free and 11 Pro is 'bout 6 bucks) (www.electronicfirst.com)
Plus If you want to keep Windows 10 ..it will cost you 8.3 cents per day. Big deal.

...but, that's the word from the special place..the internet! ..yeah.

75% of the ATM's in America are based on Windows 10.

This will not be pretty.

Another year for free. You have to have a Microsoft account. go to settings and then click on updates and security and you should see enroll for a year of updates free. If not, make sure that all Windows updates have been installed.

this from a PC that is 14 years old and it is running Windows 11
It's just a matter of spending a little time downloading and reading, no problem
As a side note: I can't stand Windows 11 (or 10).

install windows 11 on hardware that does not have the "required" TPM module etc. There are easy ways to bypass the security requirements. any machine within the alst 10 years will happily run it, and many even older than that.
That said, if someones machine is incapable of a 720P video display output and doesn't have a 64bit processor, it was meant for the scrap pile 15 years ago and probably came with Windows 2000 (or older) on it. Time to let that go, MS can't compile operating systems for 20+ year-old architecture, nor will you be able to get drivers from the various manufacturers for the extremely old equipment even if you could install it. Machines that old are not numbered in the tens of millions, not even close. and people who are still using them have not had any patches or support for 20 years already. They wouldn't chuck it in the trash just because Windows 11. They've already skipped over half a dozen major Windows versions and there is no security software that will run on them and there hasn't been for 2 decades.

For the life of me, I can't navigate Windows 10 or 11. So, I'm running Windows 11, but I installed a program that emulates Windows 7, which I always found a breeze to use.

a very popular modification pack that I've seen a lot of people run.
It's very tempting because I despise the OS interface too, but I don't allow 3rd party freeware to have permissions to hooks in my operating system. I don't trust any of it.

Two and a half years ago. It is not like they just let people know... Windows 11 is a FREE upgrade if you have a PC running Windows 10.

Also, most articles fail to explain that the last monthly update will be released October 14th, which will cover the security patching until November 11th, which is the next Patch Tuesday...so you have a bit of extra time to complete the upgrade.

You do need to have at least an 8th Gen Intel (released 2017) processor and a TPM 2.0 chip for security. There are ways to bypass that unofficially, but you do need modern hardware to support protection against modern threats. There is no 32-bit version of Windows 11, but 32-bit limits you to a max of 4GB of RAM which is hard to imagine being very functional running current programs.

Windows 10 ended up having a 10 year lifespan, just like Windows 7.

That's been my rule since I switched from Windows 98SE to Linux.

I like to keep things simple and avoid these sorts of drama in my life.

The last new computer I bought was a 386. Since then all my computers have been someone else's e-waste, with the exception of a Raspberry Pi or two.

So I guess I should be thankful to Microsoft for making all these older Widows machines obsolete.