Windows 10 support is over. Likely switching to a version of Linux

[koraks]

The web page says

Click the second link as well.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Ahh...apparent good news for me then, as I have long been using LR 6.1 in conjunction with my Canon 7DII, so I had upgraded from LR5.0 quite a while ago.! And I keep install programs for upgrade downloads on an external USB drive, so it is very easily ported to a new computer.

I think I have stored away 6.14 in my hard drive and backup drives as well.

 

[Sharktooth]

Ahh...apparent good news for me then, as I have long been using LR 6.1 in conjunction with my Canon 7DII, so I had upgraded from LR5.0 quite a while ago.! And I keep install programs for upgrade downloads on an external USB drive, so it is very easily ported to a new computer.

You may not be safe on a new computer. Check your licensing terms for Lightroom. You may only be licensed for one computer. You may be able to transfer the license to another computer, but that could mean another session with Adobe tech support. I wouldn't count on it being a simple installation on a different computer.

I've run into this issue using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It used to be a one time purchase, but I couldn't run it on a different computer if I'd already installed it on one. When you go to validate the installation it will say that it's already been validated on a different computer, so it has to be removed from the old one first. It will likely be problematic with older versions, since Adobe won't make the process easy. Like everything, they want to frustrate you into buying the latest version.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

You may not be safe on a new computer. Check your licensing terms for Lightroom. You may only be licensed for one computer. You may be able to transfer the license to another computer, but that could mean another session with Adobe tech support. I wouldn't count on it being a simple installation on a different computer.

I've run into this issue using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It used to be a one time purchase, but I couldn't run it on a different computer if I'd already installed it on one. When you go to validate the installation it will say that it's already been validated on a different computer, so it has to be removed from the old one first. It will likely be problematic with older versions, since Adobe won't make the process easy. Like everything, they want to frustrate you into buying the latest version.

I'm running Photoshop Elements 2020 ( and also Premiere Elements 2020 - video) on my current 2022 desktop after installing it originally on the older 2020 desktop. So somehow I was able to install it on my newer computer. Maybe the later versions of Elements are blocked from transferring.

 

[wiltw]

You may not be safe on a new computer. Check your licensing terms for Lightroom. You may only be licensed for one computer. You may be able to transfer the license to another computer, but that could mean another session with Adobe tech support. I wouldn't count on it being a simple installation on a different computer.

I've run into this issue using Adobe Photoshop Elements. It used to be a one time purchase, but I couldn't run it on a different computer if I'd already installed it on one. When you go to validate the installation it will say that it's already been validated on a different computer, so it has to be removed from the old one first. It will likely be problematic with older versions, since Adobe won't make the process easy. Like everything, they want to frustrate you into buying the latest version.

Good thing to investigate.

 

[Sharktooth]

I'm running Photoshop Elements 2020 ( and also Premiere Elements 2020 - video) on my current 2022 desktop after installing it originally on the older 2020 desktop. So somehow I was able to install it on my newer computer. Maybe the later versions of Elements are blocked from transferring.

It will depend on the licensing agreement. If it was purchased under a home use license they might allow you to install and activate it on two or three machines. If the license doesn't specifically state that, then you can't assume that it can be activated on more than one machine. You can certainly install the software, but you may not be able to activate it. It will all depend on the terms in the license for the specific software you purchased.

 

[xkaes]

Only one of our computers has that hardware, and I am reluctant to run different operating systems on different computers - particularly since it isn't at all clear that a Windows 11 computer can be configured with our legacy backup hardware the way that we were able to configure the Windows 10 machines.

One POSSIBLE approach would be to move the Windows 10 hard drive to a Windows 11 compatible machine. That should configure itself, and when done -- then upgrade to Windows 11.

I've moved Windows 10 hard drives to other other computers -- for more memory, etc. -- without much trouble. Some drivers need to be updated or changed, but otherwise no problem.

 

[MattKing]

It is a decent idea, but it wouldn't really solve the issues I have relating to the peripherals that are connected.

 

[Lee L]

As for darktable, Rawtherapee, and The GIMP, those and many other free programs are developed mainly on linux and then ported to Windows and MacOS, so they should run on any version of linux you install. Vuescan and linux revived my Canon 2710 dedicated film scanner when it lost Windows support (the change to XP) 5 months after I purchased it. I even have the earlier version of Vuescan with lifetime updates that are still honored. I've been on linux since 2004 and happy with it.
There are also forks of darktable and Rawtherapee like Ansel and ART that should run on any linux, but I don't have experience with them.

 

[loccdor]

By the way, after using it for a few more months, the most annoying thing I have to say about Linux Mint is this:

Any time I put my digital camera's memory card to transfer photos via USB adapter, even if I flip its little switch to "Read Only" mode, the operating system still writes housekeeping files, and when I return the card to my Pentax K-1 it starts up with the message "Card Is Not Formatted". Leading to having to format it again through the menus.

Still much prefer it to Windows/Mac.

 

[Sharktooth]

By the way, after using it for a few more months, the most annoying thing I have to say about Linux Mint is this:

Any time I put my digital camera's memory card to transfer photos via USB adapter, even if I flip its little switch to "Read Only" mode, the operating system still writes housekeeping files, and when I return the card to my Pentax K-1 it starts up with the message "Card Is Not Formatted". Leading to having to format it again through the menus.

Still much prefer it to Windows/Mac.

That's an interesting problem. I did a search on the net and found some useful information. It looks like the switch on the card doesn't change anything internally on the card. It's the card reader that looks at the switch setting, and tells the operating system if the card is read-only, or not.

The opposite issue seems to be common on Linux. The card will be seen and mounted by the operating system, but the card will be mounted as "read-only", so people are wondering why they can't write files to the card.

In both cases, the problem could either be a poor Linux driver for the card reader, or the card reader is cheap, and doesn't have any detector for the locking position.

I'd look for a better card reader, to see if that will resolve the problem.

 

[loccdor]

the card reader is cheap

Thanks for looking into it. It's definitely a cheap card reader.

 

[Alan Townsend]

As a Linux dabbler over the last 20 years, my main complaint is how poor external DVD drive support is. Believe it or not, I continue to archive my photography on DVD, which works fine on windows, but not so much Linux. Linux handles optical drives very poorly. Yes, they are obsolete now is likely why this hasn't changed much over the years. You have to "mount" optical drives, and then there is the file incompatibility problem. Linux doesn't support most of the expensive photography applications likely due to less ability to control their use like Windows does.

I use GIMP for file editing, but I don't do much if any image manipulation. GIMP works cross platform very well, but is more manual in operation. My current Linux box is my Raspberry Pi4 8GB machine running the Raspberry Pi OS, which is from a Debian version for ARM processors. That box will not work with an external DVD drive at all, giving USB overcurrent warnings on the two drives I have, work work just fine on Windows. I do like the Linux UI and other aspects of it very much.

So I use SD cards to transfer data from my Windows 11 PC to Linux and vice versa. Does not work with my newest card reader, but does with my older one. My new Win11 PC is about an order of magnitude faster than Raspi, so I use that exclusively now for Gimping and archiving anyway.

My old Windows 10 PC is out in my HAM radio shack, but I plan on installing some Linux version on it in the near future. One thing I love is Firefox. I run it on all my PC's and can't wait for the upcoming version that disables AI. Firefox doesn't track and supports uBlock origin, which is the superfine free ad blocker.

 

[Bushcat]

That box will not work with an external DVD drive at all, giving USB overcurrent warnings on the two drives I have,

Perhaps you could connect the drive via a powered USB hub, or simply use a DVD drive that accepts optional power via a second USB cable, adapter or whatever.

 

[xkaes]

It is a decent idea, but it wouldn't really solve the issues I have relating to the peripherals that are connected.

That could be a problem, but a possible solution is Virtual Boxes. I'm not up on the latest VBox releases, but I use Virtual Boxes all the time to continue to use my older software and hardware on newer computers.

 

[koraks]

That could be a problem, but a possible solution is Virtual Boxes. I'm not up on the latest VBox releases, but I use Virtual Boxes all the time to continue to use my older software and hardware on newer computers.

Whether this works depends on the hardware involved. USB connected hardware has a good chance. PCI/PCIe connected stuff - less so. In those cases it depends on a number of factors. It can sometimes be a usable workaround; sometimes it doesn't help one iota.

 

[MattKing]

The problem legacy hardware is connected via an ethernet cable. The built-in hardware controller depends on out of date Windows protocols.
I wouldn't care, except it works really, really well right now with Windows 10.
And of course, it is paid for .
Since I started this thread, I tried some updating.
The computer that was supposed to be directly updatable to Windows 11 now has Windows 11 Pro on it, and despite many different tweaks seems to not want to see the peripheral directly.
For some strange reason, if I access another computer - a Windows 10 computer - on the network, and then try to link through that computer to the peripheral, I'm not able to do so, but then if I back out, then a mysterious link to the network attached peripheral appears on the network listing - one that was never there before.
I can't map to it as a drive. I can't access it directly with my Backup software, nor with any of the other regularly used programs on that Windows 11 Pro (now) computer.
In contrast, the other computer that I have successfully (through a bit of a hack) upgraded to Windows 11 Home, has been successfully tweaked and can now access the peripheral directly - sort of, with the odd glitch - as well as the other computers and peripherals on the network - mostly.
I blame faeries and gremlins.

 

[xkaes]

It seems like doing anything "out of the ordinary" ends up being on thin ice.

 

[koraks]

The built-in hardware controller depends on out of date Windows protocols.

Are you sure? Because by the rest of what you describe, this appears to be a regular ethernet network running TCP/IP. Problems with Windows access to network machines are often associated with permissions and security settings. Ensure that you have this network set up as a 'private' network (as opposed to a public one). Otherwise it won't connect to network drives/shares.

Make sure you can 'ping' the device in question from your Windows machines. If one machine doesn't successfully ping it on its given name, then try its IP address. If pinging the IP address works, but pinging the device by its name doesn't, it's a DNS issue. Try connecting to the device by its IP address using Windows explorer; this might work OK if name resolution fails.

If ping works OK by device name, but you still can't access it, double check the security issue I indicated above. This should usually solve the problem.

If any of the above is unclear, feed it into Copilot/ChatGPT etc. and make it walk you through all the steps. It's pretty good for that sort of thing!

 

[mshchem]

Too many billionaires in charge of this computer nonsense. Microsoft vs Google vs XYZ, all trying to get every dollar a person has. And it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I rarely sit in front of a keyboard, most of my activity is (obviously) on a tablet.

Life is too short to sit in front of a screen. Nice day today, went for a nice bike ride. 10°C, breezy, thin clouds diffuse sunlight.....Perfect!

 

[MattKing]

Are you sure?

Yep.
All the other solutions suggested are versions of other things attempted.
It is a little bit like trying to get an SCSI scanner to work, except in this case the operating system designers actively decided to impair the functionality of legacy hardware that employs protocols that are viewed as being less secure - which is what I'm dealing with.
If I was using these for business, I'd be happy to spend money to keep things up to date, because security is a constantly evolving battle, and I appreciate the fact that there are big entities out there devoting big resources to the issue.
But this is for personal use within my home environment.