What is LTSC and how do you get it?

Hazel123 said:

They do have about 10 years of support, but they keep massively changing it annually! It's like a new Windows annually.

Click to expand...

I guess I just don't feel that the feature releases are really "massive changes". It's like a service pack used to be. In most respects, I struggle to even find the changes, and instead have to hit a review site or YouTube video to ascertain what is new.

Hazel123 said:

It's all commercial competitiveness and not providing a stable system for people to just use and get work done. 23H2 is fine but - I wish they'd stop tinkering.

Click to expand...

Lot's of people seem to like change. Look at the people who clamor to get the update, outside of normal channels because it wasn't being offered to them via Windows update. And people upgrade not only their OS in the Mac space when new releases come out, but sometimes when their current computers don't run the new releases, they get a new Mac itself to run the latest MacOS.

I don't want my OS to get super stagnant either. And I certainly don't want a new Windows OS release every 2-3 years. So, i feel the once per year feature updates seem like a nice compromise.

Stability has never seemed that bad to me. My company upgraded my work laptop from Windows 10 to 11. We happen to still be on release 23H2, but we have tens of thousands of devices that we support. I wouldn't say we have experienced massive issues with stability. I certainly haven't experienced stability problems at home.


I get what you are saying. My desktop, that I mainly game on and run VM's on, is running Windows 10 still. It's not broke in any way, so I just leave well enough alone. I'll get it updated before October rolls around. I've got 11 installed in a native book .vmdk file...so my license is registered, active and won't be an issue.

Hazel123 said:

Ok so not available to just anyone then It was the LT bit that interested me - long term? Does this mean their version will be long term support for up to 10 years by the look of it? Because I am fed up with annual major feature upgrades. Too many changes all the time. I just want something I like and can use and stays the same for as long as possible!

Click to expand...

ok i got bored today so put together an autounattended.xml file

1. download the newest 24h2 iso:
   .https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11
2. burn it to usb with Rufus *DO NOT CHECK ANY OPTION BOXES - everything is baked into the xml*
3. open usb (just to the root - shows setup.exe, etc)
4. drag and drop the attached xml to the root
5. boot from usb
6. click "i dont have a product key"
7. choose version (Home, Pro, etc)
8. install

* installs with a local admin named "Owner" - you can setup internet and change to microsoft account post-install if desired
* applies dark theme by default
* places shortcuts to download Google Chrome, RevoUninstaller Portable and WinaeroTweaker on desktop
* sets windows update to notify prior to download and install for updates
* turns off device encryption by default
* turns off widgets service by default
* optimizes microsoft edge (turns off sidebar, etc - look at all the tweaks winaero allows, it's those)
* allows Edge to be uninstalled *i had this work 2x and not work 2x during tests. have attached a txt with powershell commands to make it uninstallable. just launch powershell as admin and copy/paste the commands all at once and press enter (credit: github comment somewhere)*
* disables ads/web in start, settings, search etc.
* adds Disk Cleanup, Restart Explorer, Take Ownership to context menu
* Restores New > Rich Text Format (i have attached wordpad original files if you want it back in 24h2 easily, just extract the files to C:\Program Files\Windows NT\Accessories\ and overwrite the folder "en-US" that is already in there)
* Could not get Focus Assist & Do Not Disturb to turn off programmatically. i have attached 2 ahk scripts i wrote to do those tasks post install, if desired
*IF PowerShell progress hangs at all once on the desktop - just click inside the window and press Enter*

here are screeshots of whats left after the post-installation modifications:

drag and drop the attached xml to the root

Click to expand...

Where is the attachment please?

Hazel123 said:

Where is the attachment please?

Click to expand...

its there

Thank you so much. I've got caught up with other things right now but when I get chance I will try this So is this exactly the same as the LTSC version then? As in support time and other criteria?

Hazel123 said:

Thank you so much. I've got caught up with other things right now but when I get chance I will try this So is this exactly the same as the LTSC version then? As in support time and other criteria?

Click to expand...

no, it will still install Pro, Home, or Education (whichever you choose at install) but will debloat the OS to be similar to that of LTSC in terms of apps, etc.

Thank you. So what happens when the next annual feature upgrade comes along, do you think? Will it just add new features? Or will it install all the original Windows 11 features and apps again?

if you have auto updates of store apps disabled, it wont reload the bloat

dacrone said:

ok i got bored today so put together an autounattended.xml file

Click to expand...

This sounds great!
Two questions:

1. Changing "Owner" to something else, is it just a matter of changing AccountName0=Owner i the XML file to AccountName0=SomethingElse?
2. Can the XML be tweaked so the dark theme is not default? This is less easy (for me) to understand from the XML file.

Thanks
// Jocke

OppfinnarJocke said:

This sounds great!
Two questions:

1. Changing "Owner" to something else, is it just a matter of changing AccountName0=Owner i the XML file to AccountName0=SomethingElse?
2. Can the XML be tweaked so the dark theme is not default? This is less easy (for me) to understand from the XML file.

Thanks
// Jocke

Click to expand...

check that (i opened this in its own thread)

as for the theme:

dacrone said:

no, it will still install Pro, Home, or Education (whichever you choose at install) but will debloat the OS to be similar to that of LTSC in terms of apps, etc.

Click to expand...

Reality is bloat is so last decade. Modern drives have vast amounts of storage space, removing a bit of so called bloat is insignificant.

People delude themselves performance is enhanced All you need to do is disable apps from starting up.

My pc idles at around 1% - I tested LTSC against my optimised Pro - benchmarks showed negigible difference.

Why go through hoops and loops for virtually undetectable gain?

Nobody said it saves any space. Just removes a bunch of garbage nobody wants. If I wanted it, I’d have installed it. Not deluded into thinking anything. I know what I want and I make it so. Debloat = Declutter. Minimalize = Shrink Size. That can be done as well. Different topic, different approach.

dacrone said:

View attachment 125713

just to elaborate on your comment

Click to expand...

Used to be expensive. Now GA at a reasonable cost.

Hazel123 said:

Ok so not available to just anyone then It was the LT bit that interested me - long term? Does this mean their version will be long term support for up to 10 years by the look of it? Because I am fed up with annual major feature upgrades. Too many changes all the time. I just want something I like and can use and stays the same for as long as possible!

Click to expand...

LTSC offers only security updates, not new features. If you want to latter, you'll have to manually install them. The focus is stability and any changes in Pro that might break your system will never arrive in LTSC.