About Perfectly Good PC

A guide for people being told to throw away a computer that works.

Why this site exists

In June 2026 Microsoft quietly extended free Windows 10 security updates to October 2027, and most of the web still hasn't noticed. Meanwhile about 30% of Windows desktops still run Windows 10, and that share has stopped falling: people are choosing to keep machines that do everything they need.

Those people are badly served. The upgrade prompts don't explain the free option. The countdown sites run stale dates. Linux enthusiasts skip the part where your printer stops working, and the refurbished-PC affiliates would rather you didn't know about any of it. This site is the plain, current, sourced version, with working tools instead of a red X.

The Windows 10 deadline is where we started. The permanent subject is wider: keeping, upgrading and repurposing computers that still work.

Three commitments

  • The free option comes first. Extended Security Updates are free for most people and run to October 2027. We say that before anything else, even though it earns us nothing. If the right answer is "do nothing for a year," that's the answer you get.
  • We say who shouldn't switch. Every guide about moving to Linux or a Mac starts with the people it's wrong for: macro-heavy Excel, Adobe professionals, QuickBooks Desktop, CAD, competitive gamers, anyone on Windows-only vertical software.
  • No manufactured urgency. No countdown pressure, no implication that you must buy hardware, and no burying the free option under a purchase link.

How the guides are researched

Every factual claim traces to a primary source (Microsoft's documentation, distribution vendors, kernel driver tables, hardware databases, measured market data) and is recorded in a research file before it reaches a page. The volatile facts are on a re-check schedule: the ESU date has already moved twice, so it's verified monthly along with ESU pricing, hardware prices during the memory shortage, distribution releases and driver support. Each page shows the date its facts were last checked.

When we're wrong, we fix it and say so. If something here is out of date or mistaken, write to [email protected].

How the site is funded

Perfectly Good PC is funded by affiliate commissions. When a guide recommends a part or a tool, an SSD, a USB stick, a Wi-Fi adapter, a backup drive, the link goes to Amazon, and if you buy something after clicking it we earn a small percentage at no extra cost to you. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Some rules we hold ourselves to:

  • Every affiliate link is marked as a paid link where it appears, and every guide that contains them says so at the top.
  • We only recommend things that fit the advice in the guide. Nobody pays to appear in a recommendation, and no manufacturer or retailer sees a page before it's published.
  • We don't link to replacement computers as the fix for a working one. The used-laptop guide exists for people who genuinely need another machine, and it says so.
  • We don't print prices. Amazon's rules don't allow it without their live data, and stale prices would mislead you anyway; the listing shows the current price.
  • There is no display advertising, no sponsored content, and no analytics or tracking script on this site. The only thing that knows you clicked a product link is the retailer, once you arrive there.

The tools

Three questionnaires do the work a static article can't: which path fits you, whether you qualify for free ESU updates and by which route, and whether Linux will work on your hardware. All three run entirely in your browser; there's no email gate and no server receiving your answers. Every possible combination of answers is tested before a change goes live.

Who we are

Perfectly Good PC is an independent publication. It has no relationship with Microsoft, Apple, Canonical, Linux Mint, or any hardware manufacturer or retailer mentioned in these pages, and none of them has any say in what we publish. We'd rather be right than first, and we'd rather be corrected than wrong.