Practical steps to make an aging operating system usable into 2026
Part 1 You can switch to running mostly FOSS without switching to Linux. First, though, give your OS a bit of TLC. We'll come back to what to do next in part two. //
Before you begin, you should grab a copy of Snappy Driver Installer Origin and put it on a clean, empty USB key. Then run it, directly on the new key, and tell it to download all its driver packs. SDIO is the only driver-installer tool we trust and recommend. Don't pay for any alternative: indeed, we suggest you avoid anything else. SDIO is big – it takes quite a few gigabytes with all the driver packs or more – and takes a long time to download all the drivers, but it does the job. We've found it helpful from Windows XP all the way up to Windows 10.
Next, get a clean version of Windows. If you have the license key, you're all set. If you don't have your license key, then you can extract it from the running copy of Windows with Nirsoft ProduKey.
However, if you are willing to change versions, we suggest switching to Windows 10 LTSC. As we explained back in August, the Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 edition will get updates until 2027, and if you don't mind using US English, it'll last until 2032. As an added bonus, it's remarkably uncluttered – it doesn't even have the Windows Store, and so no "Modern" applications. Aside from Notepad, there's very little there at all, which is just how we like it. //
11 hrs
Liam Proven(Written by Reg staff) Silver badge
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Re: Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 edition?
This doesn't work on machines running Windows 10 Home though, does it?
Yes it does.
Read ALL OF https://massgrave.dev/ carefully. It is not a large site. //
11 hrs
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward
The trick I find is to simply keep them offline (from installation, onwards).
This doesn't mean you can't use them to connect to the internet, but the OS as a whole must never be online. What I mean by this is i.e SOCKS5h proxy which only Firefox knows about. //
hrs
Jou (Mxyzptlk)Silver badge
Thanks for the article!
Snappy Driver and Ventoy were unknown to me, never needed them, but good to know and have those tools at hand.
As for my usual 10th-bazillion times repeated hint: Server 2022 and 2025, keys which activate are cheap, or use your favourite graveyard tool. Does not need a hacked-installer to not-annoy you. And has some nice features. like dedup, or setting a quota in a directory, or limit the file type / sizes, disconnected RDP sessions don't stop like on workstation Windows, they just work on, SMB Bandwidth control (nice for LAN parties, 'cause your game play is more important than those copy jobs). Well, and that's it, the rest of the server features/capabilities/roles are too esoteric for a workstaton install, or are already the same on normal Windows, except mins the crap you get on normal Windows.
If you want to install something from the store (manually, without account, like the Windows-Camera) or need bluetooth audio (read, never tested self on S2022) you are better off with Server 2025.
And you get updates long enough
