momaka wrote on Today, 15:16:

Well, why not just put Windows 10 back on them and sell them that way? Sure support has ended, but who cares anyways. The Window […]
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Ozzuneoj wrote on 2025-11-12, 06:54:

Anyway... now I just need to figure out what to do with each one. Before Windows 10 was announced as being dead in the water it was lot easier to just sell an older PC on the cheap, knowing it would do what 90% of people needed as long as it wasn't gaming. Now though, even if I can install 11 on one, I will have this concern in the back of my mind that Microsoft will break functionality on unsupported systems soon and I'll have an upset buyer. I don't care about that for my own machines, but selling one like that just creates a lot of potential headaches that I don't need to deal with. It was barely worth trying to sell one before support ended, now it just isn't worth it at all.

Well, why not just put Windows 10 back on them and sell them that way?
Sure support has ended, but who cares anyways. The Windows 10 support is really only relevant to large organizations whose IT departments don't want to be running non-updated machines anymore due to liability/legal reasons. For home use, Windows 10 is still perfectly fine, IMO. And if you price them right, they should still sell... though obviously not very fast.
FWIW, I bought two i5-4570 -based Dell SFFs this summer (3010's, I think) for $15 each - no HDD or RAM either. Probably could have haggled the guy to lower the price a little more, as he himself admitted I was one of the very few people that contacted him regarding these PCs *and* even the only one that actually showed up to buy anything. They were on CL for like a year.

Alternatively, you could put some modern flavor of a relatively more "user friendly" Linux distro on there and pass it on with that. Though I personally don't think that would sell as easily as a Windows machine.

Perhaps maybe just sell them for like $10 without any OS and hope for the best. Won't be a big profit, but it would also be the least amount of work too.
I personally absolutely HATE doing Windows 10 installs, as the configuration/debloating/neutering afterwards takes way way more time than I like to spend on configuring any PC. I used to dislike doing Windows 7 for the same exact reason (compared to XP), but even 7 is a walk in the park compared to W10. (And for this reason, I'm still stuck on XP and 7 for my personal machines.)

I would say if you're using XP and 7 still you have a bit different needs\expectations from the average PC user. Nothing wrong with it, it just isn't representative of most people.

I live in a very rural area. The market for used desktops is pretty low these days compared to 5 years ago. Selling ones with an OS that most people have heard is no longer supported would not work too well here. Also, I have been working on PCs in this area most of my life and I don't want the reputation of dumping stuff on people that is already (or is soon to be) unsupported. If I have to add an SSD and maybe some RAM to one it's already barely worth the time spent setting it up and dealing with people on Facebook to get $100 for it... plus I am self employed and have a sales tax license so, yeah. There goes more of it.

I'm not sure if it's even possible to get a machine set up with extended security updates (to get one more year) without a Microsoft account on it. I know there are ways to force a system to present the ESU enrollment window, but part of that process is signing into your account. So yeah, Microsoft did a real thorough job of killing off the used PC market. I'm sure none of the big PC vendors had any influence on this decision... 🙄

I'm sure the older Ivy and Haswell machines can be used as XP retro machines of some sort at least. Maybe there's a market for Windows 7 PCs now and I could put that on the newer ones? Too bad I'd have to get licenses for them, even though they already have Windows 10 licenses. Bleh.

I will probably have to go with just selling a pile of them cheaply. I am absolutely not dealing with people to sell them individually for $10-$15 each. I would much sooner just part them out, put all the cases at the curb (metal scrap people will grab them) and sell the boards for scrap online. I have found that the cheaper the item (or lot) you sell on FB Marketplace, the more ridiculous messages from you have to deal with. 😯