Used Windows NT but not Windows 2000??? I remember dual booting between Win98 (only if necessary) and Windows 2000 until XP came out. Win2K was just plain awesome for someone used to installing Win98 too much and getting all sorts of exception errors and blue screens. The first ever rock solid Windows I ever experienced.
Twenty-five years later, and I’m supposed to remember EVERY version of M$ Windows in my long-running experience?! OF COURSE I ran systems with Windows 2000. I kept one of them running — probably with the server version, while we upgraded to XP.
This roll-out of the WIN 10 ESU seems “parsimonious”. With only a reprieve of an extra year, I’ve enrolled one of three almost-identical (SKY-KABY- Z170) PCs. I was starting to search for solutions to the other two, but I figured I would use one to experiment with Win 11 (successful), Win 10 IoT . . LTSC (successful) — keeping the Win 11 to monitor it. I put W11 on a second system — knowing I could “wait” until October 2026 to upgrade the ESU system one way or the other.
But we need to take stock of our hardware. My systems use 8-year-old hardware technology. One would think that “it’s about time” to replace CPUs and chipsets. I just grew complacent with the PCs I’d built and cultivated, while other life-duties commanding my attention.
The machinations and hacks I would probably pursue to put the other two ( now Win 11 machines) on an ESU subscription with Windows 10 are too much trouble just to get a 1-year extension. So in addition to experimenting with Win 11 and marginally “ineligible” hardware or following the LTSC path, I am acquiring “new” hardware with which I can use “old” RAM kits. With that, I buy myself two or three generations of CPU which are “inside the Windows 11 umbrella of certainty”. It has so far cost me less than my annual $1000 hardware/software budget just to acquire some of that hardware. And for the last five years, I had only spent a TOTAL of $600.
To my experience, these last eight years were the first time I ever felt totally comfortable with the same aging hardware for that length of time.
There seems to be “Hope in the Air” looking toward the Win 11 25H2 update/upgrade. If I begin to sense trouble, the hardware-swap option will get earlier attention.
But I may move to swap MOBO/CPU for one of my three boxes — within a couple months of today. So I need to formulate a smooth transition of the Win 11 boot disk to the new hardware, and provide for successful activations as they may be needed. I probably need to read up on SYSPREP and other topics.