Microsoft closes the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware
Microsoft closes the door on Windows 11 supporting older hardware
Microsoft is sticking to its strict hardware requirements.
This feels like such a fuck you to working class. People can’t afford another layer of these costs right now.
... This is bait right? You want somebody to tell you there's a simple and free solution, and then you're going to say it's a bad solution?
FINE! I'll bite: Pirated copy of Windows Enterprise LTSC. It's less useful, more resource hungry, privacy invasive and has worse support for older hardware than Linux though.
My dad's bringing his PC to my house when they visit for Christmas so we can setup Linux as a dual boot for him to see if he can switch from Windows 10 to Linux instead of buying a new PC
My dad (in his mid 80s) told me proudly that he had just bought Linux and installed it on his computer. It's great that he wanted to try Linux but I wonder what malware-riddled scam distro he found, and how I'll sort it out on my next visit.
Not sure if it was Mint or Ubuntu, but one of them shows a donation box with a default amount when you click download. It's already downloading when the box shows up, but maybe he misinterpreted that.
Maybe elementaryOS? There is a Purchase button on the site, with a pay-what-you-want option. If possible to enter 0 though.
Zorin has a pro tier that costs money but it's supposed to have the look and feel of classic Windows - maybe it's that?
You used to be able to buy physical media. And that may be what they're talking about? Hard to say. For a long time this whole write it to a USB stick and install it was newfangled and not at all common. I 100% have a version of red hat in a box that I bought off a shelf of a local Best Buy back in the 90s. Yes you could have just downloaded and installed it or created your own install media. But having your own CD burners even weren't that common at the time. I remember 1999 being when I got my first CD burner and how special that was lol. It seems almost quaint by today's standards. And downloading wasn't really an option either. 56 kilobits per second if you were lucky would have taken days and days. Now it's just minutes over most broadband.
I gave my distro dev $20 for the bragging rights. More than I ever paid for Windows.
That's fine, I've closed the door on supporting Microsoft. They could have just charged for the 'upgrade' and that would have been better since it wouldn't result in the colossal amount of e-waste that this is creating. Even without the forced obsolescence, their products have become hostile, invasive and generally just a PITA to use. Meanwhile Linux distros are knocking it out of the park lately.
I really don't know what Microsoft are thinking. They haven't made particularly good strides towards gaining any kind of goodwill, so once it becomes common knowledge that alternatives not only exist but actually show them up, those lost customers are people that they will never get back. Look how pathetic their marketshare is for Edge for example, even though it's the default browser on Windows. They still haven't been able to shake off the bad stigma that Internet Explorer had (and to be fair, they aren't doing people any favours with Edge either).
I bet it'll still try to install itself on that hardware though and break it.
Probably how they'll force upgrade down the track, upgrade or we brick your shit.
Linux adoption intensifies
Maybe in a decade from now Linux will achive 7.5% market share, maybe
You only need about 15% for commercial support.
Non negotiable sounds fine with me. Because we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
I’d like to give a heartfelt thank you to Microsoft management though, for furthering the cause of Linux adoption. We couldn’t have done it without you. 🙏
They don't need the hardware to run an OS. They need the hardware to run their AI shit for reasons nobody ever needs - except Microsoft.
So maybe it is not Microsoft closing the door for older hardware, but older hardware closing the door for Windows 11?
The used market is going to bomb if older machines can't be setup with newer windows version.
'incompatible' hardware will be dirt cheap, and 8th gen or newer will sell for more than it would have otherwise--especially if tariffs jack prices up on new hardware.
i have a couple dozen older systems here. most were given to me before win11's requirements were known. fixing and flipping them for a few bucks was a small but relatively steady income stream, but not anymore. hardly anyone wants them.
the couple that are new enough to be blessed by microsoft will be kept, and i'll hang on to the better ones of the rest (like skylake, kaby lake) to put linux on. everything else will end up at ewaste recyclers even though there's absolutely nothing wrong with any of them other than the fact that a profit and 'shareholder value' driven megacorp says they can't be used anymore.
Maybe the tariffs will serve to cull a bit of the consumist impulse the US suffers of.
Regarding if a machine is desirable or not: I'm still seeing Windows XP machines being sold today for over 100€. No monitor, no peripherals, no nothing: just the machine. And people needing a machine to type a report, do a spreadsheet, do basic office work, with no other option, pay for it.
i run my machines until they stop working, period.
I'll see you all on SteamOS in six months
Love Linux and steam deck, but AS IS, steam os is a horrible choice for a desktop general use computer.
It's immutable without layering, so there are things that you can't install/keep after an update. Case and point, printers. You can't print, period. Valve knows, they don't need a gaming device to print so they don't care.
Hopefully they will do something about this, but I don't hold my breath for 2025
I know everyone here foams over Linux, and for good reason... but please remember the average user is a techno-fobe who struggles to find the start menu. Linux just isn't an option for a lot of people. Windows has been around so long and feels familiar. Until there is a major demographic shift and ECE training on general computer use an basic troubleshooting... the majority of the population will stick with whatever arrives when they turn it on because "It's what they know".
If Linux is to take over it must come PRE-installed, Must be fully compatible (read: plug-n-play); even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale, at-least feel familiar to the majority of users.... and for corpos... run MS office (read: excel) natively.
even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale
Windows isn't supporting that anymore either.
at-least feel familiar to the majority of users
Start menu is at the bottom left of the task bar, you can start Chrome from there.
Weird printer on windows 11, that’s not a thing. A weird printer in your CUPS server in Linux, totally a thing
If Linux is to take over it must come PRE-installed, Must be fully compatible (read: plug-n-play); even with the weird printer your aunt found in a garage sale, at-least feel familiar to the majority of users… and for corpos… run MS office (read: excel) natively.
Or we could just not care if it "takes over"?
Even if Linux was and did all of those things -- and many of them are already crossed off of the list -- it may not "take over" and despite some corporate spend from some of the backing corporations, it's not really a profit driven ecosystem. Linux doesn't have to take over and do exactly what Microsoft does, Linux is just fine as is.
The more of us that buy computers with it preinstalled the more it signals that there is interest.
Popular brands offer it. I'm not saying you have to go buy, but you can also let people know it's an option.
I bought an XPS Developer edition and when asked I explained that when Linux had support from the manufacturer it can be as reliable as their Macs, often even more reliable.
I’d argue it will be Android/iOS/ChromeOS over Windows, for better or for worse. This fucks over companies and governments than it does the average user, in aggregate.
I spend a few months here and there just using my iPad for everything I can (I got through my college degree with one a long time ago and it’s nostalgic for me), and it’s crazy to me how feature complete it is for most work flows. Exactly programming is an issue, for me, but I can create an STL to printing it all on device! Much less office and what not.
Fyi you can install it without TPM 2 hardware, if using Rufus to create the installer, you can just tick an option to remove tpm forcing.
That's if you want to keep using Windows after 2025 on a 7+ year old hardware.
Not endorsing it, just saying you can, at no extra cost.
if you want to risk random update potentially bricking your computer or at least your os breaking, not worth it
That'll work until they actually make it do something with the TPM.
I bet in 3 years they'll require an AI accelerator.
I bet in 3 years they'll require an AI accelerator.
You're right, better get out now!
As far as I'm aware TPM 2 pretty much does with hardware, what is otherwise software emulated. It's more efficient and secure when using something like bitlocker etc. Everything should work, just is more suspectible to tampering and malware.
Another shitty decision from Redmond.
Yay!
blessing in disguise. at least you can build a system so poorly that 10 won't be forcefully upgraded on you.
Why have we stopped talking about how the $15
TPUTPM can make upgrading older systems possible? Does that not work anymore?I think they also prevent most CPU released before 2017ish from installing as well so computers just missing the proper TPM are few and far between anyway. You can still get around all the requirements pretty easily though.
My Ryzen 1700 system was prevented from upgrading and it met the TPM requirement, it just wasn't whitelisted. That CPU was released in 2017, and that whole gen was pretty popular (1600 sold like hotcakes). I think anything newer should work though.
That said, my primary OS is Linux anyway, so it doesn't matter, this is just an install on my other disk in case I need something Windows-specific (haven't needed it in years).
I installed Linux Mint on my wife's ageing Thinkpad (2016, new battery is en route but everything else works fine). Windows would struggle to even start its own file explorer (lol), so I said no more of that bullshit.
She is happy with it, apart from ProNote not working (she uses the web client instead).
What i wonder, is:
- TPM a black box and then, why should i trust it
- if not, why not just use RAM as protected memory instead?
As a W10 user,.....Oh no don't....
....Come back.
Microsoft really playing into the bit. This is all just hype for Windows 12
Tech illiteracy?