What is hell is intuit doing telling me I have to upgrade to Win 11, I don't want that POS, they said it's for security, That's OK, i'll take my chances with Win 10.

[JohnQT]

Suggest that you just sit tight on Windows 10 for now.  I'm fairly certain that with a few registry edits it will be possible to fool TurboTax into believing that it's running under Windows 11.  Won't know for sure until they actually release the TY2025 desktop product, but once they do I will get right on testing my theory and will post the results here in the TT Community Forum for all to see (including Intuit corporate types and developers, if they care).

[Olivia342]

It sounds like Intuit is pushing you toward Windows 11 because their latest software versions are only officially supported on Win 11. Companies often do this to simplify support and ensure security compliance—they don’t necessarily force you to upgrade, but they may not guarantee the software will work properly on older systems like Windows 10.

If you want to stick with Win 10, you can usually continue using your current Intuit software, but:

• Security updates for the software may be limited or slower.

• New features may not be available.

• Support might be restricted or denied if you report issues.

A practical approach: keep Win 10, but make sure your OS and antivirus are fully patched, and consider running Intuit software in a controlled environment (like a VM or isolated PC) to reduce risk.

If you want, I can give a step-by-step workaround to keep using Intuit on Win 10 without upgrading. Do you want me to do that?

[vetz76]

Sure.

[vetz76]

A directive to go to online version would be a final nail in the coffin, NO Fing way!

[Mike9241]

some have posted that registry hacks, which you can look up on the web, might enable Turbotax desktop 2025 to run on w10.i since it isn't out yet no one knows for sure. if you don't want to hack the registry, or install a VM, the only options are online or a competitor.   

[JohnQT · Accepted solution]

@Olivia342  It seems that you copied that info from an answer to a question that you posed to an LLM?  Unfortunately the idea that AI can give us a workaround for using Windows 10 is a complete hallucination, since none of Intuit's customer's (nor any AI) has a copy of the TY2025 desktop software in hand.

Again, we can only sit and wait for Intuit to release their product before anyone (including any AI) gets a chance to possibly develop a workaround...

[BobRay]

I think there's a good chance that you're right, especially if your machine is Win 11-capable.

[BobRay]

Also take a look at FreeTaxUSA. I have not used it, but it looks like it has all the features of TT Home and Office at a *much* lower price. It will import TT data, but I'm not sure how comprehensive that import will be. I suspect any depreciating assets will have to be entered manually.

[M-MTax]

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@BobRay wrote:

Also take a look at FreeTaxUSA. I have not used it, but it looks like it has all the features of TT Home and Office at a *much* lower price. It will import TT data....

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I honestly don't know for sure, one way or the other, but you have to be careful about feature comparisons.

That product may or may not import some or all of a user's TT data but it will NOT import brokerage account data (e.g., from a 1099-B) and a LOT of users assume that to be basic (very basic) functionality which would be sorely missed if not supported.

[JohnQT]

I seriously doubt that TurboTax for TY2025 will be inspecting hardware capabilities directly.  I also doubt that it cares if you have a TPM to save "secrets".  We all have plenty of essentially open secrets in our tax returns, and Intuit has never cared previously to safeguard those locally in any way, other than allowing us to password-protect the .ttax files.  And TurboTax never required a TPM previously just to password-protect files.

CPU, memory, and TPM capabilities are all requirements of Windows 11.  TurboTax is just along for the ride on that OS.   I could be wrong about all this but one thing I am certain of is that Intuit wants to reduce their programming requirements & costs for desktop TurboTax as much as possible.  Adding hardware feature checks to TurboTax would only add more programming "debt" to the product, which is exactly the direction that Intuit does not want to go.

So yeah, I'm pretty hopeful that Intuit will be taking the simplest approach possible to verify that it's running on Windows 11.  The simpler the cheaper (and also the easiest to circumvent).  😉

[M-MTax]

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@JohnQT wrote:

....I'm pretty hopeful that Intuit will be taking the simplest approach possible to verify that it's running on Windows 11...

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Yeah, couldn't possibly agree more with that statement. 😉

[baldietax]

Intuit doesn't list specific H/W requirements other than min recommended memory so I doubt they care or check for TPM etc, just Win 11 or not, however you got there.

https://turbotax.intuit.com/personal-taxes/cd-download/tta-system-requirements/

But hacking Turbo to run on Win 10 is probably the worst possible solution to this issue imo, as you will be invalidating support from Intuit (on top of an unsupported OS).  Maybe it'll work fine but any issues during your tax process with updates, forms, e-filing etc you'll be on your own.

[kshk1970]

It's cheaper to test s/w on 1 OS instead of 2. Seems like Intuit is trying to save money at my expense and not caring about environment impact of premature PC replacements, even though Microsoft itself allows to extend Win10 support.

[baldietax]

Yes it's a cost decision, I think they've fumbled around the security message but fwiw the VP states in this post they didn't project enough people left on Win 10 with ESU to justify supporting it; same cost decision with ItsDeductible which only had 100k users, and they also scrapped desktop basic edition.  Desktop is only 1% of Intuit revenues, 4mil users (incl Mac) declining 5% annually vs. 35mil online/live returns growing 8-10% annually.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/articles/community-news-announcements/turbotax-windows-10-desktop-...

The issue of PC replacements is an MS issue - they didn't extend support (it ended 2 weeks ago), ESU is security life support to get off Win 10.  There are hacks to extend lifespan of old H/W which people are using to upgrade to Win 11.  Most people have to deal this in the next 12 months anyway whether they plan to use turbotax or not.

[M-MTax]

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@baldietax wrote:

There are hacks to extend lifespan of old H/W which people are using to upgrade to Win 11.  Most people have to deal this in the next 12 months anyway whether they plan to use turbotax or not.

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I wholeheartedly agree with the above-quoted passage and people are really being short-sighted. 

Simply because there may be income tax prep software that installs and runs under Windows 10 this year (2025 returns) does not necessarily mean there will be some, or any, that will do so next year (2026 returns).

Folks are going to have to upgrade sooner or later and in the not-too-distant future. MSFT just basically gave W10 users a 1-year reprieve with ESU.