Windows 10 End of Life (2 Viewers)

[BlueSpruce]

BitLocker's reliance on a TPM for security is its own downfall.
TPM Bus sniffing is the approach.
Defeated in minutes with a Raspberry Pie……

Ditto

 

[BlueSpruce]

Today, October 18, 2025, my Win10 box received updates! I thought Win10 security and feature updates would stop on October 14, 2025. I didn't sign up for Extended Security Updates, so what's up with this?

 

[NauticalGent]

An interesting read:

What should I do with my older PC that can’t run Windows 11? https://share.google/JIrIB3wsvvpiv1Tlc

 

[NauticalGent]

The ChromeOS Flex option is intriguing. Has anyone here used this?

 

[BlueSpruce]

The ChromeOS Flex option is intriguing. Has anyone here used this?

No, and don't intend to for the following reasons:

 

[AccessBlaster]

Bypass the requirement with Rufus.

 

[JonXL]

I am running Windows 10 with Office 2016 Pro and since reaching EOL (officially for both now), I've noticed strange behavior whenever I am connected to the Internet. First, the MS Upload Center kept popping up telling me I had no files to upload - okay, I've never used this nor worked with any MS files online where I would need the Upload Center to sync for me; I don't have an MS account connected to my PC and no One Drive. Now just today whenever I unlock my PC, I get Office trying to configure itself (Please wait while Windows configures ... [MS Office]). I've had this PC for 7+ years with Office 2016 and neither of these things has ever happened until now.

Which is to say, these products haven't simply reached end of life in the sense of being forevermore neglected by MS but that they have been specifically targeted for assassination. With whatever final updates MS sent out, it clearly included some little poison pills here and there meant to actively disable proper functioning of any software that isn't could-based, AI-integrated, all-seeing-eye MS account monitored.

 

[BlueSpruce]

I am running Windows 10 with Office 2016 Pro and since reaching EOL (officially for both now), I've noticed strange behavior whenever I am connected to the Internet. First, the MS Upload Center kept popping up telling me I had no files to upload - okay, I've never used this nor worked with any MS files online where I would need the Upload Center to sync for me; I don't have an MS account connected to my PC and no One Drive. Now just today whenever I unlock my PC, I get Office trying to configure itself (Please wait while Windows configures ... [MS Office]). I've had this PC for 7+ years with Office 2016 and neither of these things has ever happened until now.

Which is to say, these products haven't simply reached end of life in the sense of being forevermore neglected by MS but that they have been specifically targeted for assassination. With whatever final updates MS sent out, it clearly included some little poison pills here and there meant to actively disable proper functioning of any software that isn't could-based, AI-integrated, all-seeing-eye MS account monitored.

I think you have to go to One Drive Settings and disable syncing Office files.
As for Office reconfiguring itself, I would remove Office and re-install it.

 

[JonXL]

I think you have to go to One Drive Settings and disable syncing Office files.
As for Office reconfiguring itself, I would remove Office and re-install it.

There are no One Drive settings... I have One Drive completely tuned off. Besides, this just started happening after Win10 went EOL; that is not a coincidence.

 

[BlueSpruce]

There are no One Drive settings... I have One Drive completely tuned off. Besides, this just started happening after Win10 went EOL; that is not a coincidence.

Umm, that's what Google AI said when I described your symptoms. I also said OneDrive was turned off.

I have long held a theory, actually a conspiracy theory, that many of Microsoft's settings are placebos that don't do anything except pacify us into thinking our choices have been complied with. I mentioned this several posts earlier in this thread that things like telemetry, copilot, and other daemons are hardcoded into the Windows kernel and user settings that "disable" dont really disable, rather hide it in the background. Maybe if you enable OneDrive and see a setting for unsyncing Office Uploads, turning it off and then disabling OneDrive again might make it go away? If not, perhaps uninstalling/reinstalling Office 2016 Perpetual will clear up both problems you mentioned? There's also registry settings that might do the trick?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I'm on Win11 but my wife's machine is Win10. I'll watch for any odd behavior, but I'm pretty sure I have knocked out OneDrive and I'm pretty sure she doesn't have any MS account.

 

[BlueSpruce]

I'm on Win11 but my wife's machine is Win10. I'll watch for any odd behavior, but I'm pretty sure I have knocked out OneDrive and I'm pretty sure she doesn't have any MS account.

I strongly suspect OneDrive mirrors PC storage even if it appears to be "turned off".

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/a...932/one-drive-keeps-coming-back-from-the-dead

It's the easiest way for MS to scrape users data. It works the same way as SyncToy and DropBox.

All my personal and confidential info is on a box that's always offline. The online box I use strictly for the web.

I also host my own Dovecot Postfix mail server on a Linux box.

 

[BlueSpruce]

There are no One Drive settings... I have One Drive completely tuned off. Besides, this just started happening after Win10 went EOL; that is not a coincidence.

On second thought, when I custom installed Office 2010 it gave me the choice of excluding features from each component. I recall seeing "Office Download Control" in the "Office Shared Features" section, and perhaps you can exclude it there from being installed, or under the "Office Tools" features?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

For Win11, I had no choice. I bought it through a commercial whole-system vendor. Win11 was pre-configured. They DID customize it for me, so I have a hard drive where I keep all my files, away from the SSD because I've been burned twice now by a failing system disk.

 

[BlueSpruce]

You could also truly disable OneDrive by downloading Autoruns and unchecking the following entries so they don't run when booting Win10. I tested this and it works!

The OneDrive service does a Single Sign On (SSO) to Microsoft, whether you created an MS account, or not. If you don't create an MS account, it creates a proxy account anyway for things like syncing your data to their services, copilot, etc. etc.