MicrosoftYeah I think the issue of this creating so much e-waste really will turn into a PR nightmare. Users can find workarounds for most of the Win11 issues they have. But to just say their existing computers are junk, when the hardware cutoff may involve tens of millions of computers or more, is .. not good .. at all. I blame the Office team for a lot of this, because they don't want to continue using an older base OS for their code. But most people don't want Office to change either, so there you go. 🙂 The Win10 LTSC is not exempt from this - they aren't supporting Office on that platform after LTSC leaves mainstream support (5 years) and same for Windows Server. A lot of MS customers would pay good $ not to change anything - but a lot of suits at MS feel (and they may be at least half right here) that if they don't change software (with new AI features, etc) then a competitor will come along and eat their lunch (even if it takes years like it did with IBM). So everyone has points here, but I think with more communication (REAL communication) and listening to customers MS can come to a solution (or, maybe 2 solutions) that can satisfy almost (almost) everyone. But they have to be willing to listen too.
