I am running it on 3 different gaming devices and have had zero issues with it, and I have it installed on my partner's gaming PC and he also has not had any issues with it.
also a "decade" I am not sure is true, the current version is 11 2024. Before that was 2021, 2019, 2016, 2015.
That being said, I would be very curious what games actually break.
I had to upgrade to the newer LTSC once
in 10 years
There lies the problem with LTSC though: there are always a couple of things really pushing the bleeding edge of features (like a community VR plugin in 2022 would be) and it might take a year or two for LTSC to catch up to those cases. Most people will never run into that... but you can't really know until you do, so is it worth it? Depends, I suppose.
Or even better, just use Windows 10 LTSC. It's the last sane version of Windows.
One popular tool: https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat
> If you fail to activate this evaluation after installation, or if your evaluation period expires, the desktop background will turn black, you will see a persistent desktop notification indicating that the system is not genuine, and the PC will shut down every hour.
I was ready to grab a ISO, but this sounds pretty user hostile to me.
It's infuriating, I would happily pay for a real licence for this, and MS makes it basically impossible to do so.
- If you're looking to do this 100% to the letter, then you'll need to enter some form of VL agreement with an authorized reseller. This will come with a minimum purchase of 5 licenses.
- If you're looking to do this with a "real" key, but not by the book, then one of the gray market sites.
- If you're looking to do this morally (by paying Microsoft), but don't care if the actual activation is completed with the license you purchase, then purchase a Windows 11 Pro license but use https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts/ to activate your Windows 11 LTSC. The ISO itself can still be sourced from Microsoft.
- If you don't care about any of this, then the same as the above except don't buy the Windows 11 Pro License
- If you absolutely want to buy a single license "by the book"... there is no official offering available.
That said, if you don't mind breaking the letter of the agreement and you had already been thinking of getting the subscription for the other perks it may be an option for you.
- You can download the eval ISO from Windows and add in the ~couple MB of additional XML files to be able to change the eval ISO to a version of the installer with the full SKU. The specific files will change per version. There were also some variations for doing this post-install for Windows 10 LTSC but I'm not sure if anyone has bothered for Windows 11 LTSC.
- You can download the full ISO from somewhere else (so you don't have to add anything). E.g. the massgrave links.
- Of course, if you have access to the VLSC for other reasons you can just download through the portal.
Practically, I see the first option as a waste tbh because Microsoft publishes the SHA256 hashes of the ISOs anyways. massgrave most likely rehosts the full ISOs because it is both easier to work with and easier to validate. #3 is nice, but not applicable to most folks. If sourcing the ISO from Microsoft sounds like too much work I don't think you lose much (if anything) by sourcing it elsewhere instead.
That being said, check out the WindowsLTSC subreddit. All the information on how to get it is there.
You don't need any sort of crack make it work and don't need to go anywhere shady to get the ISO. And if you are concerned from an ethical standpoint, buy a normal Windows license and just install LTSC instead.
While it is not "legitimate", it is also not hard at all to do if you already know how to take an ISO and install Windows in the first place. It doesnt require any cracks or torrents.
Edit: oh no, the Microsoft employees found me.
BitTorrent is superior file distribution technology, it deserves to be used.
That said, there are sites with legitimate content (uploaders are known and trusted and so forth).
Visit the mass graves.
Don't believe Microsoft's "marketing" about LTSC that it won't work for a general purpose OS. I use this for my gaming PC and it is fantastic.
No need for any sort of debloat script that is doing untested things, LTSC is a working version of Windows.