- doesn't have the tpm requirement
- no copilot, recall, edge browser, ms store
- allows local setup
- no feature updates, only security
- built-in options to disable telemetry
Keys go for $300 in some stores, or, one can use an activation emulator, or massgrave.
Scripts can be good for one-time use, but it's swimming against the current. As soon as you stop swimming, the current wins. With the LTSC, you don't swim against the current, but rather choose a different current. In its case, it's MS themselves who provide the debloating.
https://tech.yahoo.com/gaming/articles/youre-still-gaming-wi...
https://tech.yahoo.com/gaming/articles/youre-still-gaming-wi...
> Where can one buy a key?
This depends a lot on the person, and their lifestyle, I personally had enough of it. I like to set it, and (mostly) forget it.
For people with more technical background, who are enthusiasts about computers and software - sure. For a lot of casual users who need things to 'just work' the way they always have, asking them to swap to an entirely new OS is nonsense.
I'm considering it myself but even with years of experience on Linux I'm still cautious because of a lot of edge cases where something I use now wouldn't work or wouldn't work well in Linux.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
This is not about "X sucks", but the very first questions from an engineering perspective should be whY? What do you want to accomplish? Is X actually a good approach towards Y?
If it turns out that trying to shoehorn X into kinda accomplishing Y is very hard work, then suggesting to use X2 instead is a perfectly sensible suggestion.
If you have a hard constraint that you must use X, even if it does not fit well to Y, fair enough. Then you add that as a reply or state it in the beginning.
By the way, that 95% is lower actually. If you count ProtonDB's Plat + Gold for the top 1000 played games on Steam, it's 81%. For plat+gold+silver, it's 89%.
I'm using the Windows 11 Enterprise IoT LTSC with activation until 2038 right now.
It's not actively usurping Windows security.
In fact, I've read more than once that Microsoft tech support have been known to use massgrave scripts to help with activation-related issues with clients: Although I should caveat that with saying that it may have been Reddit I found that info so pinch of salt and all that...
So, my take on this is if the massgrave scripts allow activation without breaking any laws then sobeit. I'm talking about doing stuff that, while it appears dodgy, actually just manipulates the ultra-complicated processes under the hood that Microsoft has already built into the OS.
It's like publicising the workarounds for the now-mandatory Microsoft account when installing Windows 11. These involve things like reg hacks and commands: they're already in Windows so publicise them all you want imo.