I've heard about this, but can anybody who's gone through it describe how much effort it was? Do you have to do a from-scratch Windows install? Did you lose any of your stuff? What level of computer expertise would you say is enough to handle installing LTSC, e.g. could your parents do it?

[–] towelie@lemm.ee 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It's super easy, particularly if you follow a guide your first time. Your parents could absolutely do the install if you set up the USB for them. The hardest part is finding a safe download for the OS (they are .iso files) and setting it up on a USB stick (I recommend using a program called 'Ventoy' to do this).

I know that it's a fediverse sin to post reddit links here, but there's a genuinely superb megathread for Windows 10 LTSC IoT available that I recommend:

https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsLTSC/comments/15rfdjo/windows_ltsc_megathread/

In terms of actually installing you can initiate it by plugging the USB stick in and going through the start menu settings; or, when you boot up the computer you press F2/F12 to enter the BIOS screen, and you select the plugged in USB stick as your "boot drive". This makes the computer open the USB stick instead of your already-installed OS.

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Disagree - I've done it, it is easy and straightforward, but anyone who hasn't installed an OS on bare metal and used a certain tool that you can get from Github to activate MS products, isn't going to explain the process as "super easy". More like "a mother-fucking pain in the ass" and "why did you suggest this" and "what the fuck is an iso".

This is definitely "I'll swing by this month and install it" territory, not "here's a guide, ez pz" for anyone older than 40 who didn't major in CS.

[–] towelie@lemm.ee 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Most of those points are why I mentioned that setting up the iso on a removable drive is probably the hardest part. If you can boot to it then the rest of the installation process at that point is pressing 'next' through the W10 initialization.

But I'll also concede that an average mom and pop likely can't handle opening powershell to run massgravel and activate windows, even though it's as simple as copying and pasting, then pressing '1'