Last I heard, Micro$oft was killing security updates for Win 10 mid-October, but they will generously let you keep getting updates if you either make a Microsoft Account (I refuse) and log in with that instead of your local account, or pay them $30 (if I had $30 to spare it would go to Palestine and then I wouldn’t have $30 to pay Microsoft), unless you’re in Europe where for inexplicable reasons you can just get them no strings attached?

I will not pay Microsoft for extended support.

I will not “upgrade” to Windows 11.

I will not switch to using a Microsoft Account. Hang privacy, this is about tradition! We didn’t have this always-online shit on Windows XP when I was a child and I’m not about to switch over to it. I’m too old to figure out what a “Microsoft Account” is, how to use it, how to make sure that Microsoft isn’t using it to steal my files with OneDrive (not that I have anything anyway. It’s not a good enough OS to warrant using for personal files).

The only thing I use this Windows Partition for is playing games, and if my Steam account gets hacked somehow because the OS was out of date, I’ll just switch back to pirating any game that requires Windows.

Anyway my thinking was that if they’re not being shits about it in Europe for some reason, is there a way to make Microsoft not be shits about it in the US? Do I just set my VPN to Europe and do something to route my Windows 10 Updates to look on a European server?

Bonus question: Where else on the lemmyverse should/could I ask this question? I try not to venture outside Hexbear lest a gang of feral radlibs rend me tentacle from tentacle, so I don’t know where else is even good to post a nonpolitical technical question like this.