Win11 support

[Kinsie]

My first-gen Ryzen isn't supported (even with the built-in TPM enabled in UEFI), but I'm not too bothered by that because I have my Win10 start menu exactly how I want it and the Windows 11 start menu looks custom designed to give me a rage-induced heart attack by comparison.

I think many people buy camera-less laptops due to spying concerns.

Nothing a band-aid over the lens can't fix.

[Cacodemon345]

They just released Windows 11 build 22000. Will give it a spin later for performance improvements in GZDoom.

[Graf Zahl]

My first-gen Ryzen isn't supported (even with the built-in TPM enabled in UEFI), but I'm not too bothered by that because I have my Win10 start menu exactly how I want it and the Windows 11 start menu looks custom designed to give me a rage-induced heart attack by comparison.

When the time comes, my solution will be the same as for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10: Classic Shell. To restore the only good start menu ever - the original one from Windows 95!

[leileilol]

For me, it's not just the start menu.

My long gripe with Windows after 7 (as well as 7's Aero itself, and XP's Luna) is the whole eye-searing interface that can't support custom light on dark schemes, and on 7 if you wanted an accelerated UI, you're forced to either have that, or have a slower GDI classic theme (where using even Cool Edit on an I5 feels sluggish when wave selections redraw) . Windows after that had no choice and removed all the old "3d" window frames from 95 (or Win31's CTL3D if one wants to get pedantic). There's no fake nostalgia or even any nostalgia for this here. I like to see opaque rigidity on my windows and I care the least about any of the compositing fads OS X has spurred since 2001 (2k's fading in menus and mouse shadows were my limit).

The old icon metrics (32x32, small gaps, sharp defined pixel art) is something I liked too, and that's mostly been dead and buried since XP's big 32-bit icons

[Graf Zahl]

The old icon metrics (32x32, small gaps, sharp defined pixel art) is something I liked too, and that's mostly been dead and buried since XP's big 32-bit icons

Well, say what you want but these really do suck badly on modern hi-res displays.
It's a bit like using that smiley on the ZDoom discord. It just looks misplaced among all the other high def content.

[leileilol]

yeah I definitely wouldn't do the 32x32 thing on a 2K/4K (i've tried that before on a 40", the squinting is real!!!). It's usable enough for 1080 though, until maybe glaucoma sets in later rendering all resolution hype moot anyway...

[InsanityBringer]

ah man I remember being just slightly bothered that Vista and later versions let you get perfect 32x32 icons (I used a lot more old software back then so the scaling bothered me a little), but they'd put the labels on the side in explorer rather than below, as opposed to what old versions of explorer did. heh.

So far I'm really not liking the visual style of Windows 11 so far, but I'm hoping there's still options for it. I basically use the taskbar the way it's been since Windows 95, with small icons and wide labels. Classic/OpenShell will hopefully deal with the start menu, though I don't suspect it's going to be helpful in Kinsie's case, which is unfortunate. This this like the 4th change for the start menu I think and it still doesn't appeal to me that much.

[Blzut3]

Ah well, maybe they picked the cutoff as exactly 3 years or something stupid like that. Microsoft is really testing just how little support they can get away with in general for all their products these days. I think there's zero chance they'll get away with not letting people with this recent hardware upgrade to Windows 11. Especially not if they plan on ending support for Windows 10 at the date they specified. People would literally start hacking Windows if the cutoff is this arbitrary.

Given the update today that they're evaluating supporting 7th gen core and Zen1. Well with 7th gen the meltdown argument is out the window. Given that 7th gen is just 6th gen with some minor GPU tweaks all I'm left with is that it's an arbitrary cut off.

The CPU requirement has always been a 'soft' limit

The funny thing about that is after posting the "soft limit" thing they then redacted it. Ultimately we'll just have to wait and see what ends up happening in the end after the left and right hand fight it out.

What puzzles me is how some manufacturers still dare selling such crap. Video meetings via internet have become so commonplace by now that a camera is a necessity, not an option.

That's a thing? I know some gaming laptops don't have it, but its been a long time since I've seen a laptop designed for actual people to buy didn't have a webcam. Or at least something vaguely resembling a webcam.

Yeh, what I said last night, basically.

>TPM 2.0 required.
>Nah, TPM 1.2 can do too.
>TPM actually not required at all.

You missed the step between 2 and 3 where they said "no actually 2.0 is indeed required." Which happened when they removed all mention of the "soft limits."

It truly is baffling to me how all over the place Microsoft has been about all this.

To restore the only good start menu ever - the original one from Windows 95!

After using search in Vista/7/8, Spotlight in macOS, and KDE's equivalents with no particular name; I switched to just hitting a key and typing a couple letters and pressing enter. Don't miss the menus at all. Of course for Windows 10 they must have hired the guy that programmed Amazon's search, but it does usually work ok for me.

[Graf Zahl]

It truly is baffling to me how all over the place Microsoft has been about all this.

To me the entire thing gives the impression that they were taken over by the enthusiasm of their programmers and technicians but never managed to channel the entire thing into a working marketing campaign. So you got 100+ people getting excited about the possibilities of recent hardware but nobody really thinking about the implications this has on their actual market.
It is quite obvious that no real marketing professional ever had a word in this whole thing.

To restore the only good start menu ever - the original one from Windows 95!

After using search in Vista/7/8, Spotlight in macOS, and KDE's equivalents with no particular name; I switched to just hitting a key and typing a couple letters and pressing enter. Don't miss the menus at all. Of course for Windows 10 they must have hired the guy that programmed Amazon's search, but it does usually work ok for me.

Even for that Iprefer Classic Shell.

[Graf Zahl]

Ok then, I just read this:

https://www.osnews.com/story/133631/mic ... indows-11/

With this I predict a new Vista moment here where the improvements in the new OS will be overshadowed by the problems it causes and drag its reputation down the drain.

[Cacodemon345]

Except this is going to be far more different from Windows Vista where the CPU requirements wasn't hard leading people to install it on shitty systems. And even then the only complain I can see this causing when Windows 11 releases is people complaining that they need too new hardware to run it. I think Microsoft realized that allowing old systems to install it is a big support headache.

There's also a chance they will revise the system requirements based on Insider build feedback.

Edit: Looks like TPM is marked as not usable in System Information program. Hopefully clearing it will fix it.

[Graf Zahl]

What I mean is that this may just go down as "The Windows version nobody could upgrade to".
While I plan to buy a new computer anyway, I have no plans to retire the old one entirely. It may be 9 years old but it still works fine. It has good performance, no problems running software and virtually no reason to junk it. But according to Microsoft it's supposed to be obsolete in 4 years?

Sorry, that won't fly and I am certainly not alone with this. This is simply something the users won't accept and very different from all previous Windows upgrades.
I can outright tell you that this will cause a huge spike of essentially unsupported systems once Windows 10 support ends.

[Cacodemon345]

That I can relate with since my desktop system's CPU is 2 generations behind Microsoft's Windows 11 system requirements which frankly sucks.

[sinisterseed]

Ah well, maybe they picked the cutoff as exactly 3 years or something stupid like that. Microsoft is really testing just how little support they can get away with in general for all their products these days. I think there's zero chance they'll get away with not letting people with this recent hardware upgrade to Windows 11. Especially not if they plan on ending support for Windows 10 at the date they specified. People would literally start hacking Windows if the cutoff is this arbitrary.

Given the update today that they're evaluating supporting 7th gen core and Zen1. Well with 7th gen the meltdown argument is out the window. Given that 7th gen is just 6th gen with some minor GPU tweaks all I'm left with is that it's an arbitrary cut off.

I mean, was there ever any doubt about this to begin with?

The leaked built was demonstrably working perfectly fine on CPUs going as far back as even *second* Gen Intel CPUs without a hitch, it was tested even in games. The cutoff has always been artificial, or best case scenario, set so high to allow only CPUs with guaranteed TPM support to upgrade to 11.

That said, I honestly doubt MS is willing to go much lower into the specs than this. They've removed the CPU and TPM requirement for Insider builds to test how 11 performs on older hardware and they're making adjustments based on that, but I'm not sure how committed they are to lowering the specs. I'm not expecting to see the final product go below 1st Gen Ryzen and 7th Gen Intel, and if most people assaulting the Insider program have hardware newer than that, there damn sure won't be any change. For that to happen we need a bunch of people with older systems rampaging the Insider rings.

Also, regarding extending the life support for W10, I think the likelihood of that happening is 200%, actually. It will be extended just like XP and 7 were before, especially if the requirements for 11 are here to stay. This is where MS' own aggressive upgrading campaign to 10 will backfire badly, they got all of us on 10 without a possibility to upgrade further, and most will not upgrade before 2025 either, let alone move to supported alternatives such as a Linux distro.

MS basically got themselves in a corner with a problem they've created all on their own.

[Cacodemon345]

I actually don't care that much about my desktop computer not meeting Windows 11 system requirements because I will be upgrading it anyway in next year since the AMD GPU in it is going to be the next one in the chopping block since they nuked pre-Polaris support.