Windows 10 End of Life

The ChromeOS Flex option is intriguing. Has anyone here used this?
 
The ChromeOS Flex option is intriguing. Has anyone here used this?
No, and don't intend to for the following reasons:
IMG_0270.png
 
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 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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
Last edited:
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'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.

MailServer.PNG
 
Last edited:
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?

CustomOfficeInstall.png
 
Last edited:
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.
 
You could also truly disable OneDrive by downloading Autoruns and unchecking the following services 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 servers, copilot, etc. etc.

Auto.png
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I put these products in the same category as virus detection they kinda work. ;)
I use ProcExp a lot to see what Windows is really doing behind the scenes.

Autoruns allows you submit any files to VirusTotal, which is an online tool that uses all contributors virus scanning software. I have caught several rogue files with it.
 
Last edited:
Windows 10 support ended 10/14/2025 and Windows 11 was made to trash millions of computers, as most users don't need the fancy hardware features Windows 11 demands to install.

Luckily for anyone who just wants email, web browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, access apps, instead of ditching your computer, you can continue using it "as is" until its wheels fall off. Just make sure you don't accidentally click on something that causes Win11 to be installed.

Another option is to backup your personal files, ditch Windows, and go with one of the many free Linux versions. Pro versions of Windows can have lots of bits of Linux lurking in it anyway, so you can go the whole way and ditch Windows completely.

It's kind of like everyone used to think you had to have a landline, then mobiles came along and had to have a keypad, then iPhones came along...Could phone numbers and Windows be next on the chopping block?

I've continued using Windows 10 on my primary laptop and have no intention of doing anything different with it until the laptop itself fails

Every once in a while I get popups trying to force me, I get rid of them pronto.

The OS's have become increasingly annoying and more apple-like over time, so I put them off until I have no choice. Probably will be when I next buy a laptop I may have no choice at that point

I use no AV system at all, (other than all the windows built in stuff), AV systems behave more like a virus than a virus does, never regretted it
 
Fixed my problem with a registry edit. Despite pausing my latest update until mid-November, it pushed itself through anyway when I restarted so that the update center can proudly tell me the OS is EOL. Hopefully it stays that way.
 
Fixed my problem with a registry edit. Despite pausing my latest update until mid-November, it pushed itself through anyway when I restarted so that the update center can proudly tell me the OS is EOL. Hopefully it stays that way.
Beware if that update didn't undo your registry setting. Check it again. There's a Windows service called "Remote Registry" which essentially allows Microsoft to make changes to your registry settings without notifying you.
 
Last edited:
No, Access BE's don't run natively in Linux. You would have to put them in a Windows hosted KVM. However, SQL Server runs natively in Linux, although I've never tried the Linux version.

There are plenty of db servers that run natively in Linux, e.g. Oracle, MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Informix, ... I have linked Access FE's to all of those. On Linux, you typically want to isolate db servers in a KVM. That's the recommended config for hybrid Access/Web applications. Web server also has its own KVM. It's a lot easier to backup/restore KVM's, plus that isolation provides increased security. The Linux server essentially acts as VM hypervisor.

Yes
Actually, an Access BE runs fine when on an ext4 partition with Samba authentication running on Linux. I did it for years. An Access BE doesn't run in place, it's opened by the FE.
 
Actually, an Access BE runs fine when on an ext4 partition with Samba authentication running on Linux. I did it for years. An Access BE doesn't run in place, it's opened by the FE.
FE's can link to BE's on Linux and NAS, however if you try to directly open them it throws a memory fault, core dumped error. I tested it over 10 years ago. BE's and FE's are Windows accdb file types. If accdb's were able to natively run on Linux, then Excel and all other Office components would also, but MS has never ported it to Linux, with the exception of Office without Access on MacOS. An accdb requires DLL's, display, I/O drivers, and a runtime to launch.
 
Last edited:
FE's can link to BE's on Linux and NAS, however if you try to directly open them it throws a memory fault, core dumped error. I tested it over 10 years ago. BE's and FE's are Windows accdb file types. If accdb's were able to natively run on Linux, then Excel and all other Office components would also, but MS has never ported it to Linux, with the exception of Office without Access on MacOS. An accdb requires DLL's, display, I/O drivers, and a runtime to launch.
My development machine for years was a Win10 VM running on VMWare Workstation on Ubuntu Linux. All files were on Samba shares on an ext4 partition on the same machine. I never encountered even a hiccup with an Access back end file. In fact, the machine had no NTFS partitions at all. Even the Windows VM files themselves resided on the same Samba shares on the Linux host system. I can't say what you tested but Access back end files, both MDBs and ACCDBs, can and do reside and operate without complaint on Linux Samba shares. No Linux application that I know of can open an ACCDB but that's obvious and beside the point.

To be clear, back end files don't "run" on the machine where they reside. That machine, regardless of OS or filesystem, is simply a file server. It isn't opening or running the back end file at all, just serving it to its client machine, in this case a Windows machine running Access, which opens the file. It is the msaccess.exe instances on users' machines that open both the front- and back-end files in a split Access database. Each user has a local front end file running on a local Access instance. All users' local Access instances then also open the same back end file, which resides on a remote share (Samba, workgroup, LDAP, AD, whatever). One bit of Access' magic is that it allows many front ends to simultaneously open the same back end file. Local machines' file and record locking settings configure this behavior somewhat. No back-end Access database server exists, however, just a back-end file, opened locally by each front end. In fact, one subtle optimization technique is to bind a startup or other application form to a back end table, to keep the back end file open instead of opening and closing it each time a user opens a form.
 
I can't say what you tested but Access back end files, both MDBs and ACCDBs, can and do reside and operate without complaint on Linux Samba shares. No Linux application that I know of can open an ACCDB but that's obvious and beside the point.
We're running around in circles saying the same thing. However, there are drawbacks to hosting an accdb BE in non-Windows environments. You cannot directly open the BE to do things like Compact/Repair, alter tables, etc. I have built several hybrid Access/Web applications where Access FE's on Windows Workstations link to db servers, such as Oracle, MariaDB, MySQL, hosted in Linux KVM's. These db servers are also linked to customer web portal apps. My customers and I have never had a desire or need for hosting an accdb BE on Linux. Access BE's are inadequate for hybrid web apps. If an accdb BE should be needed for linking to Access FE's, we would host the BE on a Windows box, or a Linux KVM running Windows.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom