Microsoft has announced they will discontinue support for Windows 10 on Oct. 14, 2025.  Will your PC explode into flames or even worse?

The answer is no, but what will happen isn’t much better.  Microsoft explains the details in their announcement – Windows End of Support.  I will include a few relevant snippets here.

As of October 14, 2025, PCs running Windows 10 will still function, but Microsoft will no longer provide the following:

• • • Technical support
    • Feature updates
    • Security updates or fixes

While your Windows 10 PC will continue to function, it will be at greater risk for viruses and malware when Windows 10 reaches end of support. We recommend you transition to a version of Windows that is still supported. If your existing device cannot run Windows 11, a new PC that can run Windows 11 makes for an easy transition and great experience.

While you may believe that most vulnerabilities have already been found and patched and that you can just continue to run as normal, this is unfortunately false.  New vulnerabilities are found frequently and the bad guys look for vulnerable systems to exploit with them.

You may start to do the upgrade to Windows 11 as recommended by Microsoft, however, if your PC is more than just a few years old you may find that the Windows 11 requirements exceed your PC’s abilities.  I won’t go into the details here, but you can find the specs and computer requirements here – Windows 11 Specifications and Computer Requirements.

Many Microsoft users have already discovered that Windows 11 will not install if your PC does not meet these requirements.   Microsoft’s recommendation is to “Buy a New PC”.  Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to just replace a piece of equipment that is running adequately for me.

What are your options?

My recommended solution is to replace Microsoft Windows with Linux.  Whoa, What?  You say that you don’t know Linux.  You’ve heard that Linux is hard to learn and that you have to learn all of these commands that execute at the command line.

Linux has grown up.  There are many varieties of Linux available to suit most every need that you might have in an Operating System.  Linux has numerous desktop environments to choose from.  Most are fully configurable and many even resemble the Windows 10 desktop, so that you don’t get that “lost” feeling staring at a strange new setup.

Along with the desktop changes, Linux has a GUI (graphical user interface) tool for almost everything that you might need to do to your system.  It is rare that a Linux user has to type an archaic command into a command line. Yes, it does happen occasionally, but it also happened on Windows 10 occasionally that you would find Microsoft documentation or a step by step tutorial requiring opening a Power Shell and typing commands.

And if you do run into one of these occasions, KCB Services is here to help.  We can come to you, or assist remotely as the situation requires.

I am typing this article on a Linux laptop. I’ll put a screenshot below the article.

Linux runs the vast majority of computer servers in the world and during my years of experience in the corporate world, I have installed, configured and maintained many Linux and Unix based servers.  Of course the vast majority of those servers didn’t have pretty desktops and GUI apps, so I was forced to learn command line.  I am very comfortable using command line.

The nice new GUI desktops that I mentioned earlier didn’t used to exist and I was ok with using the command line, so I was very surprised when I discovered the changes that Linux had made over the last 5-10 years.  I switched my personal laptop to Linux last year after attempting to upgrade it to Windows 11.

My system actually met the base requirements, but it had become even more sluggish and difficult to tolerate over time.  I also had an incident where a Microsoft update corrupted some of my data and I had to restore from a backup.

So here I am typing away on a Linux laptop.

There are a few other issues with Linux that you may or may not have heard.  Microsoft Office does not run on Linux.  Adobe Photoshop does not run on Linux.

The Office issue is easy to solve.  There are several choices of Linux office suite apps that replace the functionality of office. And of course, Microsoft is pushing their online version, Office 365, to replace the local versions of Office.

Linux has several alternative solutions to Adobe Photoshop.  The leading choice is GIMP.  It will satisfy the needs of most except the Photoshop users with the most detailed requirements.  Personally, I was never a Photoshop guru and GIMP satisfies my needs well, though I do tend to look for online alternatives to do most of my photo edits.

I have another blog post on the benefits of Linux.  Be sure to check it out.  Linux Operating System Benefits.

One of the biggest benefits is that Linux is free (Open Source) and the vast majority of apps are free as well. A few other major benefits are that Linux is much leaner (no bloated apps that you don’t need or want) and it is easy to control security & app updates either automatically or manually at a time of your choosing. Once you try linux on your PC, you may even feel like you did “Buy A New PC”.  The sluggishness that you have become used to over time may just be gone.

If you want to switch to Linux, but just can’t give up that one or two Microsoft Windows apps, then KCB Services can add Linux in a dual boot setup. You will simply choose from a menu, which Operating System to boot into.

Another advantage, is that if you just aren’t sure, contact KCB Services and we will be happy to help with a demo of Linux on your system without disturbing your existing Windows installation.  Most Linux versions (called distributions) have “Live Demos” that boot from a USB drive.  I have over 50 versions available on my personal USB drive and of course can download any that you might want to try.