Revive your PC

What happened to you

On 14 October 2025 Microsoft stopped maintaining Windows 10 for free. There was a paid patch that ran until 13 October 2026, and that was that. Your Windows still boots, still opens your programs, still looks the same. What it no longer has is anyone plugging the security holes as they turn up.

Windows 11 asks for three things: a chip called TPM 2.0, secure boot, and a processor on its list. That last requirement is what cut most people out. Every Intel 7th-generation chip and older was left behind, including the ones inside millions of laptops sold between 2016 and 2018 — the i5-7200U, the i7-7500U, the i7-7700HQ, the i7-7700K — along with first-generation AMD Ryzen. These are processors that still handle everything a normal person does.

Your machine didn't get slower and it didn't break. It simply isn't on a list.

It didn't happen only to you. When hardware researchers measured this in 2022, they found that 43% of every computer running Windows 10 couldn't make the jump — around 400 million machines. Canalys put out a more conservative figure, 240 million, roughly 20% of the installed base. Either number is enormous.

That's why End of 10 exists: an international campaign backing more than forty organisations — Mozilla, the Linux Foundation, Debian, Fedora, KDE — with a single goal, which is that people stop throwing away computers that work.

You don't have to buy a computer. The only thing being replaced is the system.

The environmental bill

This section isn't here to guilt you. It's here because of one figure almost nobody knows, and it turns everything you assume about recycling gadgets upside down.

81% of it is already spent

When people think about a computer's environmental cost, they think about the electricity it draws. It's the other way round. Life-cycle studies agree with uncomfortable consistency: manufacturing accounts for roughly 81% of a laptop's entire carbon footprint. Use — every year you had it switched on — comes to about 14%. Transport adds 4%, and what happens at the end of its life, less than 1%.

Translated: your computer's environmental damage already happened, in full, before you unboxed it. It was spent pulling lithium, cobalt and rare earths out of a mine, smelting aluminium, making the motherboard and the screen, and shipping it half way round the world. Building a laptop costs between 215 and 400 kg of CO₂ depending on the model; Dell puts one of its typical work machines at 322 kg, HP at around 275.

Which is why “recycle it and buy a new one” sounds right and doesn't add up. Replacing a working computer doesn't save emissions: it pays them again, in full, from zero. Extending the life of the device that already exists is by far the greenest thing you can do with it. Which is exactly what this guide does.

The size of the pile

PIRG estimated that the end of Windows 10 could send up to 1.6 billion pounds of hardware to the dump — some 725,000 tonnes. For scale: it is the largest software-obsolescence event that group has documented since it started counting in 2014.

And it lands on a problem that was already growing on its own. The world generated 62 million tonnes of electronic waste in 2022, adding 2.6 million every year, on track for 82 million by 2030. Of all that, barely 22.3% is collected and recycled in any documented way. The rest is lost, and with it around 62 billion dollars in materials that could have been recovered.

If you decide to do nothing

Plenty of people will carry on using Windows 10 as if nothing happened, and that's a legitimate decision you should be able to make with the facts. This section is for that. Not to frighten you: so you know exactly what switched off and what didn't.

What still works, which is more than people say

• The Windows antivirus. Microsoft Defender keeps receiving virus definition updates until October 2028. It still recognises new malware.
• The browser. Microsoft Edge has confirmed support on Windows 10 until October 2028. Chrome hasn't committed, but when the same thing happened with Windows 7 it stayed to the end. Firefox carries on too.
• Office. Still works, though since August 2026 it no longer gets new features on Windows 10 — security fixes only.

This matters because it means you aren't naked tomorrow. You have time to do this calmly.

What switched off and isn't coming back

The system itself. Every security hole found in Windows 10 from here on stays open forever. Microsoft ships patches on the second Tuesday of every month; in 2025 it closed more than 1,100 flaws, and in 2026 the numbers jumped — 198 in June, 570 in July, 421 in August.

It happened before, and we know what it looks like

In May 2017 WannaCry was let loose. It exploited a flaw in the protocol Windows uses to share files over a network, and it spread on its own, machine to machine, with nobody having to open or click anything.

It took down hospitals in the British health service, Renault-Nissan plants and FedEx operations. Global damage was put at 4 to 8 billion dollars, and most of that wasn't ransom paid but paralysis and the cost of getting everything back up.

The detail worth holding on to: Microsoft had published the patch two months earlier. More than 95% of infected machines were Windows 7 boxes that simply hadn't applied it. With Windows 10 today the situation is worse in one way and better in another. Worse, because now the patch won't even exist. Better, because you're one person at home, not a hospital with thousands of machines wired to each other.

If you decide to stay, at least do this

What you're going to install

Zorin OS 18.1 Core. It's an operating system — the same thing Windows was: the base your programs run on. It's free, it's legal, and it's maintained by a team that has been at this for more than ten years.

There are about forty similar options and every one of them has someone defending it online. I picked this one for four reasons you can check.

First, it looks like Windows on purpose. Start button bottom left, taskbar, clock and tray in the usual corner. It ships with four desktop layouts and you switch between them with one click, configuring nothing.

Second — and this is the one that matters. When you double-click a Windows installer, one of those files ending in .exe, it doesn't crash and it doesn't sit there silently: it opens a notice explaining the best way to use that program here. It recognises more than 170 of them. No other distribution does this, and it's the main reason it's in this guide, because the moment people give up on Linux is almost always that one: they downloaded an installer, nothing happened, and they concluded the computer was broken.

Third: it works fully from the first boot. Music, video, printer, bluetooth and external displays sort themselves out.

And fourth: it runs on machines up to fifteen years old, which is exactly the one in front of you.

It carries guaranteed maintenance until June 2029. There is a paid version called Pro; you don't need it and this guide doesn't use it.

Will your machine take it?

What it officially asks for is very little:

To see what yours has, in Windows press the Windows key and R together, type dxdiag and hit Enter. Processor and memory are listed there.

With 2 GB of RAM it will walk, but tightly. With 4 GB it's fine. From 8 GB up it will surprise you.

The upgrade that's worth every penny

If your computer still has a mechanical hard drive — the kind that hums and you can feel spinning — swapping it for an SSD transforms it more than any operating system will. A 500 GB SATA SSD is the sweet spot on price and it is exactly what brings an old laptop back. It isn't required for anything in this guide, but if you're going to spend money on something, spend it there and not on a new computer.

What this actually costs

The system is free. The materials aren't, and it would be dishonest to tell you this comes to nothing when it doesn't.

The USB stick

It's the only compulsory item. You need 8 GB or more, and it's one of the cheapest things on any electronics shelf.

Three things that help: the stick doesn't get used up, it comes back. Once the system is installed you format it and it's as good as before, for photos or whatever. You can borrow one, because you only need it for an afternoon. And if someone in your family has already done this, the same stick works for the whole street.

Any known brand does the job. What you don't need is an expensive, blisteringly fast stick — to write an installer once, speed changes nothing. These four were checked model by model in all three Amazon stores, so pick the one that ships to you:

The backup, which is the expensive part

Here's the real spend. The external drive everyone recommends — the WD My Passport, which is the pick of both Wirecutter and PCWorld — runs well into three figures for 1 TB, and for a lot of people that isn't “an accessory”, it's a week's money. So let's take it in parts.

First measure how much you actually want to save. Open your Documents, Pictures, Videos and Desktop folders, right-click each one and look at Properties. It tells you the size. Add it up. That number decides everything:

A warning about Google Drive

The free 15 GB is still there, but Google is tightening it: in some regions it's already trialling 5 GB for new accounts that don't verify a phone number, and more and more things count against the limit. If you use Drive, upload and download promptly. Don't treat it as a permanent warehouse.

The list before you start

Gather this before you sit down. If something is missing, don't start; getting stuck half way is worse.

• The USB stick, 8 GB or more, empty. It gets wiped completely.
• Somewhere to put the backup, based on what you decided above.
• Internet on the computer. Wired if possible.
• The charger plugged in if it's a laptop. Don't let it die halfway.
• Your phone to hand, to look things up while the computer is busy.
• A free afternoon. Don't rush it, and not on a day you need the machine.
• Someone you can call, if you have them.

1 · Write down what you use

Take a sheet of paper and write down everything you do on this computer in a normal week. Not what you think you should use. What you actually open.

Almost everyone's list is this: email, messaging, YouTube, banking, Facebook, printing something, looking at photos, Word. If yours looks like that, you'll be fine and can carry on without worrying.

Just check whether any of these turn up, because they're the awkward ones:

• Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere or any installed Adobe program
• A work program handed to you on a disc or installed by IT
• Accounting or invoicing software
• Online games with other people
• Any medical, industrial or laboratory device that connects by cable

If one came up, don't stop yet. Keep the sheet, because in step four you're going to test exactly that before anything becomes permanent.

2 · Get your things out

This step is boring and it isn't optional. Even if everything goes perfectly, you back up.

Copy these folders as they are, reorganising nothing:

• Documents
• Pictures
• Videos
• Music
• Downloads
• Desktop

And then the things that don't live in a folder, which is where people lose work:

• Passwords saved in the browser. Go into Chrome or Edge settings and export them, or write them in a notebook. If they only existed there, they go with Windows and there is no getting them back afterwards.
• Browser bookmarks, also exported from settings.
• Photos stuck inside a program rather than in a folder.
• Licence keys for software you paid for, if you ever plan to use it again.

3 · Prepare the stick

You're turning the USB into an installer. Two downloads and one button.

1. Go to zorin.com/os/download and download Zorin OS Core. It's the Download button in the Core column, the free one. It downloads a large file, several GB, ending in .iso: that's the whole system compressed into one. It takes a while, so leave it going and get a coffee.
2. Download Balena Etcher and install it on Windows. It's free and does exactly one thing: put that file onto the stick.
3. Plug in the USB, open Etcher. It has three buttons in a row. Pick the .iso file, pick the stick, and hit Flash.
4. Wait for it to say it's done. Ten or fifteen minutes.

4 · Try it without installing

This is the part almost nobody does and the most important in the whole guide. You can run the complete system without it touching your hard drive, straight off the stick. If you don't like it, pull it out, restart, and your Windows is exactly as you left it.

How to get in

Leave the USB plugged in, shut the computer down completely, and as it starts up tap the key for your brand. Don't hold it down: tap it repeatedly from the moment you press power.

An ugly screen comes up, white letters on black. Find the line that says USB or the name of your stick, move with the arrows and press Enter. If Windows booted normally, you missed the key: shut down and try another.

It takes longer than usual to start. That's expected — it's reading off the stick and that's slow. On the first screen choose to try it, not to install.

The five things

Once you're in, don't go exploring. Do these five, in this order:

• Connect to wifi and get into your email.
• Play a YouTube video with sound. Turn the volume up.
• Go to your bank's website and get as far as the password prompt.
• Plug in the backup and open a document and a photo.
• Print something.

And if you wrote down one of the awkward programs in step one, test it here, now.

5 · Install it

From the same trial session there's an icon on the desktop to install. Double-click and follow the screens: language, time zone, your name and a password.

That password you're setting matters, and it's worth understanding now: it isn't just for logging in. Every time the system is about to make a serious change — installing something, updating, touching the underlying configuration — it will ask for it. That's what stops any random program modifying the machine behind your back, and it's one of the reasons no antivirus is needed here.

The decision that matters

It will ask what to do with the disk. There are two routes and they aren't equivalent.

When it finishes it will ask you to restart and remove the stick. Remove it.

6 · Leave it ready

Half an hour here is the difference between this running itself for years and a distress call in three weeks. If you're installing it for someone else, this section is for you, not them.

• Turn on automatic updates. They're in the system settings, with switches; no commands to type.
• Set up Timeshift first. It's the equivalent of Windows system restore, but one that works: it keeps snapshots so you can go back in time if an update breaks something. It goes before you turn automatic updates on.
• If the machine has an Nvidia card, enable its driver from Menu → System Tools → Software Updater → Settings → Additional Drivers. Pick the one marked proprietary and recommended, not the Server one. Skip this and the machine will feel slow and you'll blame the system.
• Install RustDesk on their machine and yours. It's free and lets you see and control their screen from wherever you are. Without it, every problem is a house call.
• Copy the backup files back into their folders.
• Leave the five icons they actually use on the desktop and clear the rest out of sight.
• Make the text bigger if needed. It's in Settings, Accessibility.
• Set up the printer and send a test page.
• Write the computer's password on a card and leave it where they'll find it. It sounds terrible, I know, but being locked out of your own machine on a Sunday is worse.

The first seven days

They will be uncomfortable. Worth knowing up front, because the discomfort is the normal part of this and not a sign something went wrong. Simple things will feel harder than they should for a few days, and then one ordinary Tuesday you'll notice you stopped thinking about where everything is.

The habit that has to change

On Windows, to install something you googled the program, downloaded the installer and double-clicked. Here it's the other way round: you open the software store, which works like the one on your phone, search for the program and install it from there. It's safer and faster, but the reflex takes about two weeks to change and in those two weeks you feel stupid. That's normal and it passes.

Things you'll miss that aren't faults

• There is no C: or D: drive. Disks appear in the file manager sidebar under their name. That's it.
• You don't need antivirus. Genuinely. Programs come from signed repositories, nothing random from the browser gets executed, and nothing touches the system without your password. For normal home use a resident antivirus adds nothing. If you share a lot of files with Windows users and it puts your mind at rest, ClamAV exists for checking by hand and it's free.
• Text looks different for the first few days. True, and it settles once your eye adjusts.
• There's a program called Terminal, the black window from films. You don't need it for anything in daily life. It's there for whoever wants it.

How to do each thing

Nine moves. With these you can live.

Install a program

Open the start menu and look for the Software Store. Type the name of what you want, hit Install, and it asks for your password. Done. It appears in the menu with the rest. If you can't find something, it usually has another name — search by what it does, not the brand: type “photo editor” instead of “Photoshop”.

Remove a program

In the same store, find it, open it and hit Uninstall. No leftovers, no cleaner utility needed like on Windows.

Update

If automatic updates were left on, you do nothing. When a notice appears saying there are updates, say yes and carry on. They install themselves and rarely ask for a restart. When they do, it's because the core of the system was updated and it's worth doing.

Find a file

Press the Windows key on your keyboard — here it's called Super and does the same thing — and start typing. It searches programs, files and settings at once.

Copy files to a USB stick

Plug it in and it appears in the file manager sidebar. Drag and drop as always. Before pulling it out, click the eject button next to its name — yanking it mid-write can corrupt files.

Open a photo, a video, a PDF

Double-click and that's it. If it opens with a program you don't like, right-click, Open With, pick another and tell it to always use that one.

Pin a program to the desktop or the bar

Find it in the menu, right-click its icon, and choose add to favourites or to desktop. Keep what you use daily on the bar at the bottom.

Shut down

Top right corner, where the clock and the wifi and battery indicators are. Shut down, restart and suspend live there.

Change how everything looks

Look for the Zorin appearance app in the menu. That's where you pick between the four desktop layouts and switch light to dark. If something bothers you visually, that's the first thing to touch.

When something doesn't work

Three things account for nearly every complaint in the first month. All three have fixes.

The wifi doesn't appear

It's the number one problem and it's almost always Broadcom cards or certain Realtek models, which need an extra piece that isn't bundled for licensing reasons.

The fix looks ugly but it's mechanical: connect the computer by network cable, or share internet from your phone over USB, then go to Menu → System Tools → Additional Drivers. If your card is listed, select it, install and restart. This is why the guide insists on wired internet on installation day — fixing wifi without internet is far more painful.

The machine feels slow or the display looks wrong

If it has an Nvidia card, it's almost certainly missing the driver. Go to Menu → System Tools → Software Updater → Settings → Additional Drivers, pick the proprietary one marked as recommended, and restart. One detail: current driver versions only work with Nvidia cards from 2013 onwards. If yours is older it falls back to the generic one and nothing bad happens — you just won't be gaming.

The printer isn't in the list

Almost any printer from 2015 onwards connects itself, because it speaks a common language the system understands without installing anything. Older ones sometimes need finding manually in Settings. HP behaves best, Epson now publishes its own packages, and Canon is a lottery depending on the model. Scanners are a different story and remain uneven, especially on older all-in-ones.

Your programs, one by one

Everything in this table is free and installs from the software store.

Getting photos off your phone

With Android it's direct: plug in the cable and it shows up as a folder. To send things without a cable, install KDE Connect on the computer and the same app on the phone, pair them on the same wifi, and from the phone tap the computer's name and choose what to send. It lands in Downloads. KDE Connect also works with iPhone, now that it's on the App Store — convenient when it connects, though pairing is sometimes stubborn. If you're in a hurry, uploading to the cloud and downloading never fails.

Work, school and paperwork

Video calls

Google Meet works with nothing installed, straight from the browser, and screen sharing too. Zoom has its own Linux program and installs from the store. Teams no longer has a Linux desktop app — Microsoft pulled it in 2023 — but it runs in the browser and covers everything meetings need. Skype shut down in May 2025, so that one isn't a worry.

Scanning a document

It's included and it's called Document Scanner. Open it, hit scan, and it saves as PDF or JPG. You can scan several pages and reorder them before saving. With older all-in-ones it sometimes fails to see the scanner even when printing works; then you have to hunt down the manufacturer's driver.

Signing a PDF without printing it

Use Xournal++, installed from the store. Open the PDF and write on top of it, add your signature or fill the fields, even if the form isn't the fillable kind. To get your signature: sign a sheet of paper, photograph it and insert it as an image.

One detail that trips everyone up: to save your changes don't hit Save, hit File → Export as PDF. Save creates a file for the program, not a PDF other people can open.

Security without antivirus

I said no antivirus is needed here and that's true, but it deserves explaining, because “you don't need antivirus” sounds like “nothing can happen to you” and it isn't the same thing.

Why the system is better protected

Three concrete reasons. Programs come from signed, reviewed repositories, not from downloading loose installers off the web. Nothing touches the system without you typing your password, and it's the system asking, not the program. And for a file to be able to run at all it needs explicit execute permission, which doesn't happen on its own.

Add to that the fact that whoever writes malware goes where the people are, and the people are on Windows. It isn't that Linux is magic; it's that the combination of architecture and numbers makes the real risk, for home use, very low.

What it does NOT protect you from

Here's the important part, because this is where people actually lose money:

• Emails and messages asking for your banking password. That works the same on any system and no software stops it.
• Fake pages that look identical to your bank's. Type the address yourself or use your bookmarks, never a link that arrived.
• The “we're calling from tech support, your computer has a virus” phone call. Nobody legitimate calls like that. Hang up.
• Using the same password everywhere. If one leaks, they all open.

If there are children in the house

The system ships with parental controls: you create the child their own account and from yours you limit which programs they can open and for how long. In 2026 screen-time limits were added, with a warning to the child as time runs out and the ability to grant more from your account. Look for Parental Controls; in some cases it has to be installed from the store first. Honest warning: it's for organising use, not for containing a teenager determined to get around it.

If your eyes aren't what they were

All of this lives in Settings, under Accessibility, and switches on with toggles.

• Large text. Enlarges letters, menus and buttons across the whole system in one go. Try it first; it solves 80% of complaints.
• High contrast. Raises the contrast of windows and buttons so edges stand out.
• Magnifier. Enlarges the area around the cursor. Can stay on permanently or be called up from the keyboard.
• Screen reader. It's called Orca and reads out what's on screen. It improved considerably in 2026: it switches language on its own depending on what it's reading, and now works properly inside full documents, not just menus.
• Slow keys and bounce keys. For unsteady hands: they stop a held key typing three letters.
• Large cursor. So you don't lose the pointer on big screens.

If you're setting this up for an older person, spend ten minutes on this screen before handing the machine over. It's worth more than anything else you can configure.

What won't work

Anyone telling you everything works isn't telling you the truth. This is what stays on the other side.

Adobe

Installed Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and Lightroom don't exist for this system and there's no decent way to force them. It's the hardest wall of the lot. The alternatives are in the table above and they're all free, but I'm not going to tell you GIMP is Photoshop, because it isn't: it's capable, it's different, and it takes work.

If you make a living from Adobe, don't migrate your work machine.

Certain online games

Most Steam games run well, better than people assume: the performance gap against Windows sits between zero and fifteen percent and narrows with every update. But there's a list that doesn't and won't change soon, because it depends on each studio allowing it: Valorant, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Destiny 2, Battlefield 6. If someone in the house plays one of those, that computer isn't a candidate. Before deciding, look your games up on ProtonDB, a database where people report which ones run and which don't.

Very specific work software

The point-of-sale system, the customs one, whatever the company installed. You can try, but it's exactly where you suffer most and where you'll find least help. If you have one you can't do without, test it in step four or simply don't migrate that machine.

Questions everyone asks

Is this legal? Isn't it pirated?

Completely legal and nothing to do with piracy. It's free software: the people who make it give explicit permission to use it, copy it and give it away. NASA uses it, banks use it, almost every server on the internet runs it, and so do several governments. Free doesn't mean stolen; it means funded another way.

What if I regret it? Can I go back to Windows?

Yes. Your Windows licence was burned into the computer's motherboard when you bought it, and installing another system doesn't erase it. To go back: download the media creation tool from Microsoft's site, make another USB, and install Windows as if it were new.

When it asks for the product key, skip that step. It activates itself once online, because it recognises the machine. One condition: it has to be the same edition of Windows it came with — Home for Home, Pro for Pro.

Knowing this removes a lot of fear, which is the point of mentioning it. But to be clear: you'll lose whatever you have saved, exactly as in the other direction. Backing up applies both ways.

Will it slow down over time, like Windows?

Not in the same way. There's no registry to clog up and no accumulation of junk at startup. What does happen is the disk fills, and that slows any machine. If space is tight, delete what you don't use.

Will my usual files open?

Yes. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, photos, music and video all open. The formats are the same; what changes is the program that opens them.

Do I lose my email?

No. If you use Gmail, Outlook or Hotmail in the browser, nothing changes at all: you log in the same way and everything is there, because it never lived on your computer — it lives on the internet.

How long does the whole thing take?

An afternoon, counting the download. What eats the time is downloading the file and backing your things up; the installation itself is twenty or thirty minutes.

Do I have to learn to program or use that black window?

No. You can use this computer for years without opening the Terminal once. It exists, plenty of people prefer it, and you don't need it for anything in daily life.

Will my old printer work?

Probably, and that's exactly one of the five tests in step four. Check it before installing and the question answers itself in two minutes.

Mine is a desktop, not a laptop. Does anything change?

Nothing, except you don't worry about the battery. Everything else applies.

Can I have both?

Yes, that's the dual boot explained in step five. Read the BitLocker box before deciding, because it has a cost.

Words you'll hear

When you ask for help people will use these. Here's what they mean, briefly.

Where to get help

• End of 10 — the international campaign built for exactly this, with a directory of places offering help in person.
• The Zorin forum, the official community.
• Your local Linux user group. Most cities have one, and many run installation days where you turn up with your machine and leave with it working, free.

And in 2029, all over again?

Zorin OS 18 has maintenance until June 2029. It's reasonable that the first thing you ask is whether you'll be in the same position in three years. The answer is no.

The difference from what just happened to you is that here there is a way out, and the way out is a button. Zorin includes a tool for jumping from one version to the next without reinstalling: Menu → System Tools → Upgrade Zorin OS. It keeps your files, your programs and your settings. The jump from 17 to 18 is already released and tested, and takes between half an hour and an hour.

Nor will you be cutting it fine. A new version comes out roughly every two years, and 18 arrived in October 2025, so the next one turns up a year or two before the deadline. When it does, it tells you, you press the button, and the date moves another four years.

And above all: nobody is going to tell you your computer no longer qualifies. That's the deal you're changing.