The Recent Windows 11 Upgrade and Related Technology Shenanigans That I have Known and not Loved

We have just passed the Day of Doom for Windows 10 computers (Oct 14, 2025), wherein they will no longer be supported by Microsoft, via updates to the operating system. There is the possibility of getting a reprieve for a year, if you pay a $30 shakedown fee and diligently sign on to your MS account (which must now have, even if your system is a standalone one). To compound the high-handed nature of this MS move, EU and UK users will not have to pay the $30 fee.

So, what happens if you just ignore all this and go ahead with using your W10 computer without the benefit of upgrades? There is a potential cost and benefit:

Cost – you may get hacked, as you don’t have the Microsoft updates, which are (in part) meant to block such attacks.
Benefit – You won’t have to pay 30 bucks, be forced to have an MS account or have to suffer through bad upgrades of Windows 10 or 11.

Bad Windows upgrades are a problem. Within the past few months I have lost the Bluetooth drivers for two devices – one a radio/audiobook device and the other a wireless mouse. A Windows 10 update blew away the radio/audiobook drivers and a Windows 11 upgrade blew away the wireless mouse upgrade. I still haven’t got the radio working and I switched to a regular cabled mouse to solve that problem. (I do have a Windows 11 machine in the house as well as my regular Windows 10 machine).

To compound the Windows 11 problem, my HP printer (Laserjet Pro MFP M227 fwd) won’t work with W11, due to driver incompatibility. HP has discontinued this model of printer (its about 7 years old, lightly used, works fine), so there are no drivers available.

A Solution

The most obvious solution to these problems is to just desert the Windows system, in favour of some version of Linux. So that’s what I did with the orphaned Windows 10 machine.

To be precise, I set up a dual boot on that W10 computer that can’t be updated to W11. There seemed to be no point in getting the one-year extension for $30, as Microsoft has said that this is a one-year shot and nothing more. After that, you are on your own, against the hacker ecosystem.

I put Linux Mint on one partition and W10 on the other. The machine has a big hard drive, so space isn’t a problem. It took a while, but it seems to be working. We will see if that continues.

I had a dual boot Windows7/Linux system on a laptop some years back and liked that. But eventually neither Windows nor the version of Linux that I had would recognize the internet. The hardware was too old to upgrade to new version of Linux and/or you needed an internet connection to do so, which of course, I no longer had on that machine. However, at about that time I had to get a new computer to work from home (i.e. Covid lockdowns) so it wasn’t actually an issue anymore. That said, I might try to rescue that old laptop out of curiosity, now that I have more experience with the Linux install. Of course, that might be impossible by now.

Earlier Operating System Computer Shenanigans

This stuff has been going on for a long time. Here are some examples from my past experiences:

My Microsoft Surface tablet quit working after I had attempted to use an aftermarket power supply unit, when replacing the original unit, as the cord had frayed badly. I don’t know if MS even makes these anymore. Besides, had W8 on it, which Microsoft has cast to even farther outer limits than Windows 10.
My Apple iPad quit working, for the most part. Its Amazon app was good for reading books, but it and/or Amazon quit supporting it, so it was no longer useful for that. Then, it went into some weird loop upon opening it up, telling me that "AppleTunes space is full", over and over again. So now, all it is good for is as a clock and alarm. It lets me know when it is 8:00 a.m., since I set up the alarm to do that long ago. Basically it has died (or been killed), with only the ghost of the alarm clock duck remaining (on weekdays). I guess that’s something.
An ink jet printer quit working when I used a recycled ink unit some years back. It (the ink) was sold by the University of Alberta bookstore, so presumably it was not a sketchy ink unit. But it seems as if some of these printers had a way of identifying a non-OEM ink supplies and were programmed to shut down when that happened.

I could add more, but you get the point.

Summary

Big corporations routinely decide that your device is no longer to be supported, regardless of what condition it is in (e.g. the Windows 11 forced transition). Added to that, there is issue of Bluetooth drivers constantly being clobbered by updates (MS has a notoriously poor Bluetooth stack). Consumers have a natural wariness of technology because of these practices.

Consider the so-called "Internet of Things". Imagine that one day you discover that your refrigerator or oven stopped working because it doesn't have the latest software or chip. But, hey, you can just buy another appliance from the company that discontinued your current one. And it will be great because there has been some trivial change that you didn't want or need. Ditto for your furnace, your water heater, your AC, your toaster, your light bulbs, your dishwasher, your wall clock, etc.

So not only is this stuff not needed, it also makes you captive to forced obsolescence on a huge scale. I think most consumers know this explicitly, or at least intuit it. So, they simply don't trust the concept of internet of things.

This feeds into cynicism about corporations and governments. For example, why do governments insist on banning plastic bags and plastic straws, but allow corporations to force people to throw a way hundreds of millions of working computers, printers and other peripherals? From an ecological standpoint, it makes no sense.

Anyway, I could continue the rant, but I will leave it at that (for now). Though I could go on and on about how we are having unwanted AI shoved at us constantly...

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And here is a somewhat related book which I wrote, that deals with what might happen if and when computer companies really take AI to the logical limit:

The Magnetic Anomaly – A Science Fiction Novel

The novel version of The Magnetic Anomaly is now available on Amazon (ebook, print version, also audible version soon to come).

Summary

Two young Earth scientists, Alex and Mary, get caught up in a vast conflict, based on an accidental finding that they make at a diamond exploration camp in the far north. Eventually, this discovery leads them on a perilous quest and involvement in an interstellar war, a conflict of literally cosmic proportions with a rogue AI, which considers itself duty-bound to destroy sentient life (or, from its point of view, liberate sentient life).

During this time, they encounter a variety of enigmatic persons, as well as other entities, all of whom are also engaged in this struggle. With some of them they end up allying; with others, they contend in deadly conflict. The struggle takes them around the world, and eventually into the far reaches of the solar system.

During this time their relationship continues to evolve and deepen. Circumstances demand that they grow in courage and confidence, though within the scope of (mostly) normal people, as has been the case for countless people throughout history.

The story also showcases some historical events, relating to different versions of what went on in Antarctica, shortly after World War 2. Several versions of these events, official and unofficial UFO lore are given. This becomes a springboard to much of the action. Some philosophical and scientific concepts are also explored, though not in such a way as to get in the way of the plot.