Win11 support

[sinisterseed]

Pretty much.

All OSes serve their purpose but on the desktop side, for productivity Windows is pretty much the only choice if you're not a hobbyist, which is what Linux is and always will be catered to, that, and servers. Apple has its walled garden ecosystem doing its thing too.

I really cannot wait to see MS' face when October 2025 comes and they see some 70% of its userbase still on W10 21H2. That's on their grave, not mine. Starting mid-2022 I'll begin saving up for a new PC, but I'll suck the life out of my current rig so I will not buy it until maybe even August 2025. The more current the hardware I'll get, the better.

Their hamfisted approach can only fail, but I digress seeing how apathetic MS is in their response to the outrage. "We know it sucks", wow, no shit there. Well, I guess they'll see what's gonna suck even more when W10 reaches its EOL.

[Cacodemon345]

I think Microsoft decided that enough was enough and I can't blame them for making the minimum requirements hard this time to reduce support costs and the amount of security vulnerabilities they have to deal with thanks to legacy hardware but the user-facing changes so far are being criticized for being relatively very minimal as compared to the drastic changes being done to the minimum requirements, not to mention the amount of legacy GUI interfaces still remaining in their OS for enterprise environments so that they don't scream doomsday when they find them missing (Netplwiz and Task Scheduler password dialog anyone?).

At least HVCI will force anti-cheat drivers to behave well and not be an endless source of system crashes.

[Graf Zahl]

I really cannot wait to see MS' face when October 2025 comes and they see some 70% of its userbase still on W10 21H2. That's on their grave, not mine. Starting mid-2022 I'll begin saving up for a new PC, but I'll suck the life out of my current rig so I will not buy it until maybe even August 2025. The more current the hardware I'll get, the better.

I think you are overestimating the problem by a fair margin.
From what I read, right now roughly 40% of W10 machines meet the W11 requirements, if you now consider that at least half of the remaining systems will be replaced during the next 4 years, you'll end up at 30%.

Which of course is still too much for EOL'ing an operating system.
TBH, I think the push for strong security is the right thing to do - but the deadline for terminating the remaining systems in the wild is too short. W10 should be on support for at least 2 years more.

[sinisterseed]

I think Microsoft decided that enough was enough and I can't blame them for making the minimum requirements hard this time to reduce support costs and the amount of security vulnerabilities they have to deal with thanks to legacy hardware

Me neither.

I can certainly get their POV, but the fundamental issue that this is all too sudden at the worst possible time remains still. Had the historical context in which this is being enforced been different, the overall reception and surprise factor would have been far, far less unpleasant.

So in short, too sudden and bad timing are the main issues here. seeing the rise of security issues on a hardware level in recent years I believe this is indeed the right choice, but there's simply not enough time for it. This, combined with MS' entirely dismissive attitude towards the problem is only making it even worse - rest assured all the people MS pissed with this will still resent what went down these few months by 2025, and will neither upgrade nor switch to a different OS. MS has only themselves to blame for this, they've handled the whole fiasco atrociously.

I think you are overestimating the problem by a fair margin.
From what I read, right now roughly 40% of W10 machines meet the W11 requirements, if you now consider that at least half of the remaining systems will be replaced during the next 4 years, you'll end up at 30%.

Which of course is still too much for EOL'ing an operating system.
TBH, I think the push for strong security is the right thing to do - but the deadline for terminating the remaining systems in the wild is too short. W10 should be on support for at least 2 years more.

Yeah, hyperbole there on my part, but it gets the point across tbh.

I do believe you're too optimistic with that retirement estimate, seeing what the reaction to the requirements was. I doubt there's gonna be that many upgrading their hardware in the next 4 years. Not after this. It's gonna be dumb luck if a quarter does from my POV, it will be worse than both XP and 7 combined. And they won't be doing it out of bitterness and resentment more than anything else.

[Graf Zahl]

No, I don't think I am too optimistic.
Don't forget that technology will advance in other areas as well in 4 years. The older half of the affected systems will surely see some replacement over that time. The average life of a computer is still 5 years or less.

And please do not take the reactions on the internet as the true state here: The whiners and complainers that are the loudest right now are only a tiny fraction of the market.

[Redneckerz]

The reason why they upped the requirements is well known and anything but 'stupid'.

Oh yes, ''security concerns'' and ''keeping you secure.'' as a means to justify this kind of thing. Landlocking your OS behind a certain grade of processors when W10 has a more general requirement footprint. If W11 did the same nobody would make a stand. Calling for specific processors however..

Of course, in the end switching OSs isn't really going to improve things. Apple is even worse and Linux is still a first grade productivity killer in the desktop environment.

Its not a productivity killer, its that every common man (Who has no dedicated interest in computers) is used to Windows and not to Linux. The perils of a monopoly.

Desktop Linux is perfectly serviceable but its not for the common man.

[Hellser]

I am in agreeance with Graf. TPM 2.0 support is a fine requirement and Microsoft should not have to drop it. It's not like Microsoft hasn't done this before. Intel and AMD's 7th generation processors threw up an error in Windows 7 and 8.1 -- "Unsupported Hardware", "Your PC uses a processor designed for the latest version of Windows". Citing that users will miss out on important security updates. Which ended up to be quite true in some way.

I do believe TPM 2.0's requirement was put in place to prevent another Meltdown incident. I'm sorry, but companies should not have to tend to someone using an ancient computer. Hell, even my legacy (and dead) old video card, a GeForce GTX 770 SC, is set to have its support dropped from nVidia's drivers. If that card was still alive, THAT would tell me I need to upgrade soon.

[sinisterseed]

I am in agreeance with Graf. TPM 2.0 support is a fine requirement and Microsoft should not have to drop it. It's not like Microsoft hasn't done this before. Intel and AMD's 7th generation processors threw up an error in Windows 7 and 8.1 -- "Unsupported Hardware", "Your PC uses a processor designed for the latest version of Windows". Citing that users will miss out on important security updates. Which ended up to be quite true in some way.

I do believe TPM 2.0's requirement was put in place to prevent another Meltdown incident. I'm sorry, but companies should not have to tend to someone using an ancient computer. Hell, even my legacy (and dead) old video card, a GeForce GTX 770 SC, is set to have its support dropped from nVidia's drivers. If that card was still alive, THAT would tell me I need to upgrade soon.

Not just 7th Gen actually, they did the same with 6th as well. At least on 7, 8.1 was still fine. 7 would not install for me no matter what.

I don't think they should drop them either, but it really should have either come up later, or 10 be supported for longer. 4yrs simply isn't enough time for people who couldn't afford periodic upgrades in the first place - even now that I have a job, it's still a waste of money since the core issue are components you can't upgrade to newer gens, specifically the CPU, so wholly new machine it is. But oh well, at least I'll manage to save up enough in that time for another mid range rig.

Of course, in the end switching OSs isn't really going to improve things. Apple is even worse and Linux is still a first grade productivity killer in the desktop environment.
Its not a productivity killer, its that every common man (Who has no dedicated interest in computers) is used to Windows and not to Linux. The perils of a monopoly.

Desktop Linux is perfectly serviceable but its not for the common man.

Which is exactly its biggest issue. If Linux wants to be competitive on desktop is *needs* to be more accessible to the average man. For very trivial things it gets the job done just fine, but the deeper you go, the more complex it gets compared to Windows and especially macOS.

And there's also the lack of software. For more basic things it may be there now, but when it comes to professional software? Not really, so Wine is still the only option to go in those cases - those that do work, that is. For all that effort, you're better off just using Windows or macOS instead. Linux is not an OS to just get things done.

[Graf Zahl]

The reason why they upped the requirements is well known and anything but 'stupid'.

Oh yes, ''security concerns'' and ''keeping you secure.'' as a means to justify this kind of thing.

It seems you do not understand what's up here. Any security that is optional is useless in today's computing environment. What do you think how malware works? If it can fool the system that the security infrastructure does not exist it can all be disabled. By making the needed features a hard requirement there is no way this can be done. So for W11 it's either to become a liability or to strongly enforce these things. If it didn't there'd two things happening:
1) mass deployment on insecure systems.
2) Conspiracy minded idiots disabling the security features or deliberately acquiring systems that do not have them.

In summary, I have no issues with W11's requirements.

Landlocking your OS behind a certain grade of processors when W10 has a more general requirement footprint. If W11 did the same nobody would make a stand. Calling for specific processors however..

Yeah, whatever. MS clearly stated that with older CPUs it can be hit or miss.

Its not a productivity killer, its that every common man (Who has no dedicated interest in computers) is used to Windows and not to Linux. The perils of a monopoly.

Desktop Linux is perfectly serviceable but its not for the common man.

I can outright tell you that Linux desktop is a no-show for any corporate productivity system and that's where most computers today exist. In fact there's only one group of users that use Linux as their desktop work platform and that's technically very knowledgeable people who do not mind to tinker with their system. This is a small niche - unfortunately one that has a tendency to see themselves as the keepers of the holy grail of computers and often making no provisions for outsiders. And this attitude filters through every fiber in Linux, making it a system that's virtually unpalatable as a productivity platform.

I do believe TPM 2.0's requirement was put in place to prevent another Meltdown incident. I'm sorry, but companies should not have to tend to someone using an ancient computer. Hell, even my legacy (and dead) old video card, a GeForce GTX 770 SC, is set to have its support dropped from nVidia's drivers. If that card was still alive, THAT would tell me I need to upgrade soon.

These days TPM 2.0 should be taken for granted. I find it baffling that even in recent years some systems were sold not having it, despite being a requirement for geting Microsoft's approval for a properly designed systems. There's obviously that old misconception floating around that the only use of TPM is to lock the user out of their own computer which makes many people do stupid decisions.

I don't think they should drop them either, but it really should have either come up later, or 10 be supported for longer. 4yrs simply isn't enough time for people who couldn't afford periodic upgrades in the first place - even now that I have a job, it's still a waste of money since the core issue are components you can't upgrade to newer gens, specifically the CPU, so wholly new machine it is. But oh well, at least I'll manage to save up enough in that time for another mid range rig.

and that's the actual crux of the matter. With today's lifetime of computers, even with the average easily falling into Microsoft's lifetime estimate, there will inevitably be systems in 2025 that are still perfectly serviceable but cannot install Windows 11 when Windows 10 is EOL'd. And this is the one thing here I have issues with.

I consider it unreasonable to expect that any old system out there can upgrade the OS. In fact such an attitude would be counterproductive because it'd force the new OS to make compromises for old hardware that may harm it on new hardware. Like I said, any option to disable a feature based on hardware presence means one more potential attack vector for malware.
Unlike with Apple where software abandons older versions far more quickly, running W10 for a few more years would not lock the users out of most software so it'd be an acceptable compromise to allow natural transition to more modern hardware.

[Rachael]

I think we should note right here right now - TPM modules are available if your CPU does not support it.

CPU requirements are not a hard requirement for Windows 11 and that is a flagrant misconception that is going around soiling the well. It's simply wrong. The only thing that's required is not the processor but a TPM module of some sort - which may or may not be attached to the CPU. The TPM module can be external, which means perfectly good processors will still work.

If you're already running Windows 10, your processor supports Windows 11 just fine. It's your motherboard with lack of TPM support that is more likely the problem.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=TPM+mo ... a=shopping

Of course, with the fucked up way Microsoft did this, the price on those lil things exploded literally overnight. However they were once $15 USD/ea and I expect their price to fall to a reasonable level again sometime in the near future.

[Graf Zahl]

You are forgetting some of the CPU-side virtualization features they apparently depend on to make the system more secure. At best some older CPU bay show reduced performance, but at worst it may just not run.

[Rachael]

Maybe so - but plenty of processors without built-in TPM support will work with Windows 11 as long as you can get a TPM module.

[Cacodemon345]

The virtualization features won't even be auto-enabled on systems meeting the bare minimum of Windows 11 requirements (it needs 8GB RAM to be auto-enabled while the minimum requirements are 4GB) and it is going to be completely up to the user to enable them in certain markets. And right now it is still unclear if the CPU requirements are going to be strictly enforced or not in the final release because Microsoft hasn't been clear on that. And the new security enhancements won't even be visible to corporations and other people that disable Hyper-V because they would then turn off HVCI to keep VirtualBox/VMWare running without any shortcomings. And this is where the security push would be doomed to fail.

[leileilol]

I've never had two different virtualizers use CPU virtualization at once, so this Win11 VM'ing for security sounds like a potential future anti-trust issue.

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and yeah linux is very counter-productive, at least for me anyway. Like, I like to keep all of my drives mounted at all times (per ye olde ibm habits), while all the DM's insist they'd be exclusively mounted per user etc. that's bit me way too many times. Yes there's ways to manually mount them in a fstab whatever on boot through scary plaintext config manipulation involving super long strings, but many of those "easy! finally liinux on desktop" distros don't present that by default (at least the Debian ones).

[Cacodemon345]

It's unlikely to be a anti-trust issue in the future as long as Hyper-V can still remain turned off. It will be one when Hyper-V is made mandatory.