Win11 support

[sinisterseed]

Yeah, this is plain bullshit. Saying it enraged me as well would be an understatement.

My current PC is barely 5yrs old at this point and equipped with a 6th Gen i5 CPU, which is two gens behind MS' arbitrary restrictions. I also do not have any TPM/PTT at all, I looked up my motherboard's specs on the manufacturer's site and there's nothing mentioned about it anywhere. Tough shit, I may have a job now but saving up quite some money for *another* upgrade is entirely out of the question. I used to defend MS in the past against users who bitched and moaned about crappy performance on legitimately old hardware, like 10+ yrs, which is not even GL 3.x compatible, and rightfully so as that kind of hardware deserves to be called as such - but 3-5yrs old hardware to be rendered obsolete? Not on my watch.

I can only call this "planned obsolescence" to force people into upgrading. Yes, sure, in the middle of a global pandemic where many lost their jobs and/or are unable to find one anymore, as it was my case, while we're experiencing the biggest hardware shortage due to miners and scalpers, who I very much hope end up cursing their days when W11 comes out and will need to sell their not-so-old hardware because it isn't compatible with W11, no-one buying it as a result.

Either way, since it is limited to 8th Gen, I can speculate on why that is, and that reason would be security. 8th Gen were Intel's first generation of CPUs to be entirely immune to Spectre and Meltdown, so I'm guessing they set the bar so damn high for this reason first and foremost, which *does* make sense for OEM hardware but not everyone else, at all. Needless to say I find this pathetic and entirely counterproductive to what MS set to do with 10, which they desperately tried to get people on, and in the end, mostly succeeded. And now they're locking out people on recent hardware. What an absolute lack of logic.

I expect the requirements will be eventually changed, as not even MS actually knows what to do with them at all considering their statements change every day, but this has surely killed off all the hype they hoped to build for W11's launch in the fall, and the free upgrades for W10 users next year. If it does end up staying this way, it's going to be Vista/Xbox One all over again - Xbox One because remember the bullshit MS wanted to enforce originally, stuff like permanent internet connection even for offline games *and* Kinect were just the icing on the cake.

cl_rant 0.

[Graf Zahl]

According to some people who know tech stuff, the CPU requirements being listed are those where a TPM 2.0 is guaranteed part of the package no matter what.
I am fairly certain that the final requirements will be lower, especially after this initial wave of outrage.

Nevertheless, I understand why they set the TPM 2.0 requirement. Past history shows that the hardware manufacturers will cut any corner they can if the OS allows it, case in point to be seen in sinisterseed's post. Some would just continue that way if they feel no need to have their systems certified. And let's not even start talking about all the people who self-assemble their systems.

To be blunt, we need to get all these old systems without adequate protection off the market but there seems to be that feeling that any new Windows version has to support any old hardware out there. By that reasoning Windows should not improve to keep perfect compatibility. Does that make sense?
Fun fact: My 2012 motherboard does have a TPM 1.2 chip, it's disabled, of course, but it is there.

[dpJudas]

The comments I've been reading are saying the cutoff is to target x86-64-v3, but then also only the CPUs that have hardware fixes against spectre/meltdown. Basically they want to be able to compile all exes to use AVX2 (to compete more fairly against the M1 in tests) and remove the performance hit they had to implement in the kernel to prevent all those broken CPUs from getting hacked.

[Graf Zahl]

That's the first thing I hear about the CPUs that actually makes sense.

[Cacodemon345]

According to some people who know tech stuff, the CPU requirements being listed are those where a TPM 2.0 is guaranteed part of the package no matter what.
I am fairly certain that the final requirements will be lower, especially after this initial wave of outrage.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, given their own devices from 2018 fall short of Windows 11 system requirements. But it is the same division that handles both Windows and Surface so cutting off 2018 Surface systems was likely fine for them. Then again I heard the Microsoft division that handles the NT kernel development is separate from the former so it's likely for system requirements to be lessened but it is also possible that Microsoft may only consider an exception for their own devices (again some Surface devices was allegedly marked as upgradable to Windows 11 despite the PC Health Check app saying otherwise so that may be indeed the case).

The comments I've been reading are saying the cutoff is to target x86-64-v3, but then also only the CPUs that have hardware fixes against spectre/meltdown. Basically they want to be able to compile all exes to use AVX2 (to compete more fairly against the M1 in tests) and remove the performance hit they had to implement in the kernel to prevent all those broken CPUs from getting hacked.

Looks to be indeed the case. We will know what the hardware requirements actually mean when the blog post is published.

Curiously they seem to be lessened the requirements solely for Windows 11 Insider Builds. So there may be a path out for people who were already rolling in the Beta and Dev channels. However the ones who were already enrolled in the Dev channel with hardware unsupported even by the Insider builds will be forced into Windows 10.

Update: The CPU generation requirement looks to be a soft one; looks like I can try upgrading to the final release of Windows 11 on my desktop system since the Insider channels give me the options to switch to either Beta or Dev despite the CPU requirements.

[Rachael]

Keep in mind that the CPU requirement is not a strict requirement if you can get TPM via your motherboard - that was the case with me. My Ryzen is a first gen which does not have the built in modules required to support TPM 2.0.

At any rate though - yes - I am in agreement that I believe Microsoft will lower the requirements with all the outrage about this. Obviously TPM 2.0 is too new a technology right now to require all systems to use it. This would have made a lot more sense if TPM 2.0 had been out for a decade or so. And the silicon shortage will get worse before it gets better - even if we somehow return to pre-pandemic normals anytime this year.

[Rachael]

I'm moving this thread to Off-Topic as I believe it is more fitting here.

[DaMan]

BitLocker currently requires Windows Pro. If full disk encryption is so important now MS better make that available to everyone.

[Graf Zahl]

For the average private person whose main activity is browsing the web and using Facebook, it's probably not important. What is important is to have Secure Book activated because this protects against certain malware attack vectors that have become a major issue.

But having just read a post like this: https://www.doomworld.com/forum/post/2340671 I think my point has been proven that unless these issues are forced, some people with all their boneheaded resistance against change would otherwise destroy everything.

[Rachael]

Forcing the issue really isn't going to help. Those people will always exist. They will not upgrade because they see no need to. Forcing the issue with Windows 11 sure as shit isn't going to make them magically want to switch to it.

[Graf Zahl]

Correct, but we only have two choices with these things: Either move forward and leave those behind on unsupported systems or let everybody suffer.
I'd agree that lowering the requirement to TPM 1.2 might be a good idea to get better coverage, as TPM 2.0 simply, but just ignoring the issue at all and leave everything as it is will only prolong the suffering.

[Cacodemon345]

TPM isn't frankly that useful outside DRM schemes. Some security researchers has been considering TPM useless for actual security aspects.

Keep in mind that the CPU requirement is not a strict requirement if you can get TPM via your motherboard - that was the case with me. My Ryzen is a first gen which does not have the built in modules required to support TPM 2.0.

That wasn't the case with me at all; being that it relies on CPU TPM it can't get past the CPU requirements check in the PC Health Check app. Maybe the program has been updated by now for it but I am staying on the safe side with my laptop which seems to be the only one qualified for Windows 11.

That said, I think TPM 2.0 should still remain a hard requirement so that pre-2015 computers are blocked from installing/running Windows 11. And they should provide instructions on how to enable TPM 2.0 the firmware setup screen. That would save Microsoft a lot of support headaches about their computers being slow when upgraded to Windows 11.

[Graf Zahl]

TPM isn't frankly that useful outside DRM schemes. Some security researchers has been considering TPM useless for actual security aspects.

Citation needed (as in: If you post claims like that, please back them up with credible sources.)

[Cacodemon345]

Actually, I take back the latter sentence since I haven't been able to find a credible security research paper. Still doesn't make what I said in the first sentence any less true. Most of the benefits only seem to be useful in corporate environments. It can be used for SSH and BitLocker/LUKS but that's it. Rest of the benefits look to be solely for Windows Hello and DRM/anti-piracy bullshit.

[sinisterseed]

Forcing the issue really isn't going to help. Those people will always exist. They will not upgrade because they see no need to. Forcing the issue with Windows 11 sure as shit isn't going to make them magically want to switch to it.

Finally, some sense at all.

Alright, second attempt from me. I should clarify that I don't see an issue with these draconian requirements *in the long term*. I do believe that in the long term they will be beneficial to pull the plug on as much obsolete hardware as possible - but not at this point in time, on hardware that's just 3-5yrs old. Currently, forcing the issue is sure as shit not going to push people into upgrading with the hardware shortage still going and likely getting worse before it gets any better, it will have the exact opposite effect and people will just switch to another alternative instead, to keep using their hardware instead.

If MS pushes this *now*, it's quite likely that by 2025 when 10 goes out of support that history will repeat itself and we'll have *another* ransomware fiasco like the XP one was, where people stayed on it for almost a decade after it reached its EOL, refusing to move even to 7 at the bare minimum, while it was still supported. This will only anger those already bitter people even further, and they'll still be staying on 10 past 2025 - and sadly not switch to an alternative either, they'd rather enjoy staying unsupported.

In time, forcing the issue *gradually* will work far better than doing it from the very start like this, similar to how W10 also gradually removed support for increasingly older hardware. W10 21H1 for instance, has cut official support for CPUs older than 5th Gen for Intel, so 21H1 is most likely going to be the final version for these systems before it goes AWOL. It apparently still runs on 4th Gen, unofficially, but I don't expect that to hold true after 21H2.

And I will surely be upgrading by 2025 too, naturally - as if there was any doubt? My 2016 hardware has no CPU support for TPM at all, and so does the mobo (I looked in the BIOS earlier today, just to be sure the manual wasn't bullshitting me, and it's definitely not there, anywhere). But that's not happening anytime soon, until 2025 there's still four more years to go, and since I'm buried in debts and taxes and similar crap, yeah, no can do, getting a new PC sooner than 2023/2024 is entirely out of the question. I was planning on doing some upgrades next month but I'm not sure I'm willing to break my wallet anymore, now I need to gradually save for a future, full upgrade. Can't win them all I guess...