I recently bought a Mini-PC on Amazon from KAMRUI that has an AMD
Ryzen CPU etc. It’s a fast, low-energy machine that’s promoted
as an “entry-level gaming machine”. It fits my needs perfectly
for why I got it.
The ad suspiciously does not mention an OS anywhere. Few of the
ads from KAMRUI do now. I wonder why?
When I got it and started it up, I noticed it begin to run the
installation process for Win 11, which kind of surprized me. I
went ahead and installed it, doing the dance that lets you proceed
without having to login to an MS account.
I didn’t care, because my plan was to install Windows LTSC IOT
(Win 10 version), which I did, and am very happy with.
I watched a bunch of videos on YT about Windows LTSC, and some of
them point to sites where you can DL links to get installers and
patches to tell the registry to bypass things, as well as a file
that works as a license key. I’m not going to post them here.
The thing is, this version of Windows is only licensed to
companies who need it, but it runs on most any Intel or ARM
machine made thesse days.
I spent the first 5 years out of college working at Intel on stuff
intended for use with embedded systems, beginning with a real-time
embedded OS, and many years after that building embedded
applications for clients. It’s a different world. The average
vehicle has a couple dozen computers in it, and every one of them
is a uniquely designed embedded system.
Every time I mention this to anybody, I get a lot of flack from
people who don’t understand the difference. Windows LTSC IOT was
made for use by companies that make standalone products and things
(eg, kiosks) that need an embedded OS that has no monitor or kbd
attached because there’s nobody there to watch them. There’s
zero bloatware included. In fact, it doesn’t even come with some
basic stuff you’d expect. It’s even leaner than Windows Server
products.
But if you install it on a desktop, you get a super-lean install
of Windows that will not auto-update EVER unless you explicitly
tell lit to. Those auto-updates are the kiss-of-death to embedded
applications! They may be connected to an internet, but not
usually in a way that makes them vulnerable to outside attacks.
The LAN is going to be very local and typically behind a firewall
if they have public connections.
The Win 10 version’s end-of-life is scheduled for 2035 or so,
and they’re not going to pester you to install Win 11 because
that’s not what companies that build embedded systems will do.
The Win 11 version’s EOL is around 2045.
If you look at the failures around the DIA underground baggage
handling system, I knew from the start it was going to fail
because they were using the only version of the newly released Win
NT platform, which was for desktops. It could not deal with
real-time signaling, it got interrupted by random background
processes, and it was very unpredictable. That baggage handling
system was a perfect example of the need for an embedded OS. The
company that built it was an MS-certified Platinum service that
had MS behind the, feedign them the wrong product for this job. At
the end, they sadly laid the blame on the tiny vendor who provided
the DB they used. I had been using that DB for years, and it’s
an excellent product. Win NT was the primary cause of the failure
and nobody who reported on it ever metioned that it’s totally
inappropriate for embedded systems.
If you’ve ever been through public places with large-screen
kiosks and one or more are showing a Windows BSOD, you’re
looking at the problem. Windows assumes someone is monitoring the
computer 24/7/365 and can respond to unhandled exceptions inside
the OS whenver they happen. Imagine if that happend on an aircraft
or inside of a computer running a bank of elevators, or your
microwave.
It only took MS until around 2015 to actualy build something
specific for embedded designed — Windows LTSC IOT. (There’s a
Win LTSC version that’s NOT for IOT, which is different.)
I’ve had no problems running it on my little MiniPC and it’s
stable as can be. No auto-updates. No bloatware. Nothing there
that it didn’t come with or that I didn’t install.
-David Schwartz
On Mar 21, 2026, at 10:47 AM, Keith Smith via PLUG-discuss
<[email protected]> wrote:
Hi,
This is a very interesting video. It fails to state that M$ was
extremely predatory in the 80's and 90's.
I recently read that Bill Gates spent several billion dollars to
rehabilitate his repetition.
Fast forward and I recently read the Gates' reputation just took
a big hit because of Jeffrey Epstein. It is being reported that
Gates' wife left him, at least in part, because of Jeffrey
Epstein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVv-dSmr6BA
Keith
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