I hope that in the next 1-3 years, either Microsoft wakes up and extends 10 service life, or they make 11 tolerable. The likelihood of the latter is virtually zero.

They’re not going to extend Windows 10’s life indefinitely. They didn’t do it with XP, so why would they do it with 10?

The only real options are:

1. Installing a different OS.

2. Running an unsupported OS.

3. Bending the knee and kissing the ring.

Running your debloating Powershell scripts and fiddling around with regedit was never a real solution because even during Windows 8, Microsoft would constantly readd shit back in or introduce more shit that the scrappy debloating Powershell script devs have to account for. Microsoft have been giving warnings about how tampering with the registry means security patches may not go through, which is just them putting their foot down on debloaters.

Installing a different OS

Different OS are, of course, MacOS, Linux, BSD, and ChromeOS (lol) among others. I also lump in people forsaking their desktops for smartphone/tablet OS like iOS, Android, GrapheneOS, and so on. For many reasons, people suggest Linux over other options, but it’s not like Linux is the only option. I would also make a note that a lot of the arguments Windows users have over not adopting Linux completely fall apart when MacOS is considered. For one, the vast majority of enterprise software (Office, Photoshop, Acrobat) run perfectly fine on MacOS. There’s also VMs that could be used if there’s particular software that can only run on Windows. There’s nothing wrong with running a Windows 7 VM while the actual host OS is Linux.

Running an unsupported OS

This has all the pitfalls of running unsupported software. Assuming there isn’t some major malware people cooked up specifically to fuck over unsupported Windows 10 machines, there won’t be a major degradation in user experience until web browsers and popularly used software like Steam drop support. And considering the proliferation of SaaS, I am extremely skeptical that you can get away with running an older version of that software that was still compatible with 10 and not have it automatically update to the current version that is only compatible with 11. At a certain point, the Windows 10 machine can’t run anything modern and can’t even use the Internet without being hit with malware.

Bending the knee and kissing the ring

Pretty self explanatory. They will piss and moan, but they will bend the knee. They will turn their perfectly fine machine into e-waste, spend more money to build a Windows 11-compatible machine, and install that AI-infested trash malware known as Windows 11. Most will not learn a single thing from this experience, and when Windows 12 gets released with bullshit that makes Windows 11 look like Windows 2000, most will piss and moan some more before bending the knee and kissing the ring once again.