Most popular OS's from 1981-2025

With Windows 10 going off support in October 2025, I'm seriously considering installing Linux on one or more of my laptops/PCs rather than being forced to buy a new one with Windows 11.
 
RobbieAG said:
With Windows 10 going off support in October 2025, I'm seriously considering installing Linux on one or more of my laptops/PCs rather than being forced to buy a new one with Windows 11.
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As TPadden pointed out, there is an easy way to upgrade to WIN 11 on a machine without the 'new' hardware security requirement.
Google Rufus.
I've used in many times and the machines work just fine and received the necessary updates.
Just upgraded three of mine from Win 11 Pro 23H2 to 24H2 (older hardware).
But Linux is a good alternative if you are tired of fussing with Windows.
The issue for me is that some much of the software I run depends on a Windows 'base' to work.
 
Obo said:
I found this interesting, showing what was out there and the market share.

As Bob Dylan sung in 1964: "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

Wonder what's yet to come.....


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I've been in the 'business' long enough to remember the MS-DOS vs CPM vs Windows vs OS2 'battles'.
OS2 actually did all that Windows was supposed to do before Windows could do it.
IIRC, when IBM developed OS2 it had the same spec as their mainframe OSs - no single point of failure and 90+% uptime.
 
I bought a couple of ThinkPads with win10 installed dirt cheap with the intent to move to Linux before win10 support ended. I've already converted mine and will do the wife's late summer. I actually didn't hate win10, but Linux is less grief to live with and I'm not at all interested in win11.

Interesting how quickly Unix disappeared. The first network our engineering group had was Unix. Worked fine although I was just a user. Later the whole company went windows.
 
Uncle Phil said:
But Linux is a good alternative if you are tired of fussing with Windows.
The issue for me is that some much of the software I run depends on a Windows 'base' to work.
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I am pretty sick of Windows. You can run dual boot fairly easily for the Windows software when needed. My latest issue with Windows is every time it does an update, it keeps all the files in a hidden "Installer" folder and you eventually run out of disk space. There's no way to remove the files outside of a third party utility that's not supported by my company. This is more of an issue with solid state drives that are typically smaller. I've always run Windows because I'm a software developer and that's what I develop on. Now that I'm retiring, I'm ready to try something else.
 
I have always said that if some bright engineer could develop a smooth way of installing/running Windows apps 'natively' on Linux, Windows would slowly disappear. In the old 'mainframe' days there were systems that ran 'interpreters' to do stuff like that. I know you can run 'emulators' but nothing 'native'.
Just wait until Windows 12 comes out ... ;)
 
In the corporate world, Windows is the safe bet for the IT department. If you use something like Linux and there's a hiccup, even if the OS isn't at fault, everyone will point the finger at the guy who made the decision to go with Linux.

Plus, you get people like my wife who knows only Windows. She's using Windows at work, and when she comes home she doesn't want to know a different OS to do what she wants to do.

I worked IT at Boeing for 10 years. Got paid to do my hobby. Yeah, it was sweet. But now, I'm a Luddite at heart. I just want it to work.

I'm also a conspiracy theorist...till the conspiracy theory becomes fact. :) :D I just got the Win 11 24H2 update this morning. What did MS put in there? I know what they said they put in, but what really went inside my laptop? If they are doing the stuff that makes conspiracy theories...then I can't even trust them to tell me the truth about what they put in there. Is the NSA using my laptop to spy on me now? Is that in the list of update features? ;) Wait a sec...I hear someone banging on the front door hollering out FBI!

The nice part about Linux is that it is open source software and if any of that kind of thing were to be added, I'm sure there'd be a bunch of people much smarter than me that would be raising a big stink over it. Hmmm...maybe I should see what distributions are out there???

Chris
 
I worked in IT for 50+ years - and I've see pretty much 'one of everything' during that time.
Most folks don't know about a 'little' company called Ashton-Tate.
Who would have every thought DBase (although recently resurrected) and Word Perfect would have pretty much disappeared.
Or MultiMate or Visicalc or Token Ring or Kaypro or DEC or .... ;)
 
Daboo said:
In the corporate world, Windows is the safe bet for the IT department. If you use something like Linux and there's a hiccup, even if the OS isn't at fault, everyone will point the finger at the guy who made the decision to go with Linux.
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I've been working in the chip design world for the last 35 years and Linux is the only platform used for the actual "work tools". I don't think they even make them in a Windows version, except maybe for some of the simplest tools. We use the "pay to use" corporate versions of Linux, not just each one of us running Ubuntu or Mint on our own PCs. The tools are things people outside the chip design world have never heard of, and are pretty expensive to license.
 
I'm not in the IT business, but ran old Windows versions long after "no longer supported". So you don't get any more updates, who cares, lol........
My tuters don't have the hardware for W11, so I'll just stick with W10 and will carry on in ignorant bliss, lol.
 
When Y2k came along and all of the hyperbole, I had one old desktop running Win 3.0.
At midnight, it changed the date to the wrong year, IIRC, 1900.
It was a 'horribly' expensive fix - just set the year to 2000 and go along your merry way ... ;)
Everything still worked like it was supposed to.
 
RaYzerman said:
I'm not in the IT business, but ran old Windows versions long after "no longer supported". So you don't get any more updates, who cares, lol........
My tuters don't have the hardware for W11, so I'll just stick with W10 and will carry on in ignorant bliss, lol.
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If you wish as I said before, you can use RUFUS to upgrade to W11 on the old hardware and it works just fine.
 
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