I got an email about support ending in October 2025; isn't this still extremely early? Aren't they usually about two or three versions of windows down the line before they end updates?
I don't want windows 11 (and no I don't want Linux either, knock it off); this is ridiculous.
Without Win 11 or Linux (you really should... no no nevermind...) I think you fall into the category of "fucked." macOS exists but it's hugely overpriced (of course I won't argue their hardware is usually very high end, feels and look great. Software is ok, although I never feel like macs are "built to do anything" other than iMessage (which I have a phone for) and browse the internet in a visually appealing way (which isn't worth $2K). I also refuse to buy one for access to full Apple development. That's monopolistic bullshit that should've been crushed a decade ago.
Anyway, Win 11 and 10 are effectively the same. I don't know why people started acting like 11 was so dogshit and 10 was fine. They're both kinda dogshit. Overbloated, poorly optimized dogshit. MS crammed BING! into every corner of it along with their "straight to the NSA" cloud shit which I would never use even if it was 100TB for free. Ok, maybe then...
people always retcon versions of windows into being fine or even "good" as they gain market share and then get discontinued in favor of an even more enshittified version. The trajectory is mostly just towards bad, but people hyperfocus on relatively small annoyances in the new version, or performance issues when they updated their old PC to the new version, and then deem the new one as absolute trash. holdouts will skip a version but then eventually be forced to upgrade, and the consensus ends up being "every other windows release is dogshit" but really they're all bad, it's just frog-in-boiling-pot strategy from microsoft slowly making the shitty parts more intrusive and locked down and spying more.
Linux otoh despite occasional blunders here and there by different distros and developers of software components is mostly trending upwards
Windows peaked with 2000 and it has been downhill since then.
GNU/Linux is a long struggle session after the other in rapid succession that never ends and lasts for years at a time. But at least we get to speak.