Curious - Windows 11 rollout

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
Microsoft officially ends support for Windows 10 in exactly 4 years.
When our project first started we'd been told (by Microsoft themselves) that Windows 10 would be the last ever Windows, and they'd simply update it for ever more.
We'd been promising our recipients that they'd be good for licensing for as long as the life of their PC. Great, because we can make (pretty much) anything run on Windows 10.
Then, bombshell. We're told about Windows 11, and its OTT hardware requirements, and overnight our pledge completely changed from "the life of the PC" to "errmmm.. you've actually only got 4 years and this kit will be compromised because there will be no more security updates". Windows 11 simply wouldn't run on 99% of the donations we get, and it will savagely increase the amount of stuff going to e-waste.
We're already looking at alternatives. We're really familiar with Ubuntu, but not everybody is.
My question is this, what will the average home user be doing in 4 years time?
-Continuing using Windows 10 and take the chance that security vulnerabilities will no longer be fixed
-Buying new kit that can run Windows 11
-Using open-source alternatives like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc?
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Linux is a good operating system, but the change for users used to Windows would not be without its lumps and bumps. Sadly Microsoft have deemed that the release version of Windows 11 will only run on motherboards that have the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) fitted. Bear in mind if this is on a motherboard (most made during the last 5 years do) it usually comes disabled as default. Hence you would need to go into the BIOS and enable it.

TPM makes the system more secure, but it's at the cost of not being able to upgrade PC's of more than 5 years old (ish.)

This link might be of help if you want to check whether a given motherboard has TPM, and also helps to show how to enable it if it is.

 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Bill Gates, sitting under the Virtual Bo Tree, attained Enlightenment, one that said he was now actually a Billionaire, and he didn't need any more money.

Unfortunately it was a Capitalist Enlightenment, subject to wild fluctuations of inflation, of ego as well as many other things, rendering it almost immediately worthless.

Shareholders everywhere breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Atlas shrugged, the rest of us just groaned.

Then carried on much as before.
 

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
I get the TPM thing, I'm led to believe there may be a workaround with a "no guarantees" clause that might allow Win11 to work on older hardware, but that the reason for the harsh requirements is more for features they haven't implemented yet which will inevitably crash older systems. Something to do with memory management (there's an acronym for it I'm sure), which, when it does eventually get installed as part of a future update, will cause 75% reduction in performance for those lagging behind.
I'm more curious really about how the split ratio will go. I'll make a shot in the dark and say I reckon 90% will upgrade / continue as is, and the other 10% will look for alternative OS. There's bound to be the windows fanboys and big corporations who will just bear the cost.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
You may well be right about the work around. My old machine which I used for Microsoft Insider Ring testing for some years has no TMP yet a couple of months ago it downloaded and installed a pre-release version of Windows 11 and is working fine, but I can no longer use it for Insider Ring Testing as it will not take Windows 11 updates or new builds. So I've had to move the Insider Ring testing to a more modern machine ... (and I had to enable TMP on this one as it wouldn't fly without it.)
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
We only got our Windows 10 roll out at work done in October, because we all had to have new hardware. And even then we have to have VDIs for some bits of legacy software.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
It's just such a kick in the teeth, though, isn't it?

Why is this being so under reported?

The fanfare announcing that we would never need to upgrade again was surely tantamount to a de facto user agreement?
 

highguyuk

Well-Known Forumite
I discovered TPM last week thanks to Windows Update - took about 30 minutes of Googling, but I managed to enable it on my Dell laptop which is about 4 years old. However they'll be millions of people who don't feel confident enough to be able to go into the BIOS to change it.

4 years is a fairly long time to have the same laptop these days. So in answer to your question, I reckon 90%+ of personal users will be on Windows 11 in 4 years time - either on their existing machine or having bought a new one. The split will inevitably be less for business users. The market just isn't there for other open-source operating systems either.
 

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
4 years may be the norm for those with a bit of cash, but it's a real disappointment for our project, we're dealing with people who simply have zero cash to be able to keep up with the tech. It's been a real downer for some of those when we've had to let them know that their gift is basically a temporary fix, even though we'd been upgrading things where we could, to give them at least another 5 years of hardware service. Frankly though I doubt a lot of people will worry about the security concerns. We're still meeting charities now who are on Vista and choose to throw caution to the wind because they literally can't afford anything else
 

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
It's just such a kick in the teeth, though, isn't it?

Why is this being so under reported?

The fanfare announcing that we would never need to upgrade again was surely tantamount to a de facto user agreement?
Agreed. Somebody somewhere ought to offer Microsoft to the gallows for such a hollow promise, dare I say, even an outright lie.
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
It seemed to me a fairly foolish statement to make at the time. The platform technology continues to race ahead and tying an Operating System to platforms that will eventually become virtual antiques is a poor long term plan. Having said that, 5 years isn't that old for a PC. I have two PC's in the Radio Room which when I put them together in 2012 were pretty much state of the art. I'm not that bothered about not being able to upgrade the OS as they're pretty much dedicated to radio work. But I do sympathise with people who've been caught by this.
Another reason is at my age four years of support left might well be more than enough. :embarrass:
 

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
It's just such a kick in the teeth, though, isn't it?

Why is this being so under reported?

The fanfare announcing that we would never need to upgrade again was surely tantamount to a de facto user agreement?
Realistically as it’s a free upgrade the point is fairly moot as you’re not having to buy any new license.

It’s more akin to a milestone in the versioning that means it no longer supports certain hardware. Given Microsoft’s main problem is their obsession with legacy support which gets in the way of actually improving the OS I’m not sure this is a bad thing.

Their mistake was keeping the current versioning really as people are used to that being seen as a separate product. See: macOS which has been OS X (10) for so long that they removed the versioning altogether. It’s not at all unusual for older hardware to not support older macOS versions any more.

Supporting an OS for 10 years with feature updates is frankly remarkable, and they in fact did state back in 2015 that there would be 10 years of updates. However they aren’t actually stopping updates then - they’re just stopping their semi-annual 2xHy update system (latest is 21H2, ie 2021 2nd half of the year), they will continue to do security patches long beyond 2025, you just won’t get feature updates any more.

And frankly, if your PC can’t support 11, you probably don’t want to be updating to 11 in 2025 anyway as an over 8 year old PC (TPM 2.0 was 2017 IIRC?) is gonna be a wee bit sluggish with a 2025 OS by that point.

My home PC has a 6700K in so I can’t update to 11, doesn’t overly bother me though, 10 isn’t going anywhere fast and if I get to 2025 and still have this thing I’ll be shocked. That being said my upgrade cycles are single-digit years, the wife just had her upgrade to a 10700K after running an old Haswell Refresh for 6 years. I have a couple of 8700Ks at the office I want to eventually upgrade to Ryzens for the extra power anyway.
 
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highguyuk

Well-Known Forumite
4 years may be the norm for those with a bit of cash, but it's a real disappointment for our project, we're dealing with people who simply have zero cash to be able to keep up with the tech. It's been a real downer for some of those when we've had to let them know that their gift is basically a temporary fix, even though we'd been upgrading things where we could, to give them at least another 5 years of hardware service. Frankly though I doubt a lot of people will worry about the security concerns. We're still meeting charities now who are on Vista and choose to throw caution to the wind because they literally can't afford anything else

You're doing a fantastic job, but isn't all tech when you think about it a "temporary fix"? They'll always be something new, some upgrade that eventually becomes the norm that we all need.
 

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
Realistically as it’s a free upgrade the point is fairly moot as you’re not having to buy any new license.

It’s more akin to a milestone in the versioning that means it no longer supports certain hardware. Given Microsoft’s main problem is their obsession with legacy support which gets in the way of actually improving the OS I’m not sure this is a bad thing.

Their mistake was keeping the current versioning really as people are used to that being seen as a separate product. See: macOS which has been OS X (10) for so long that they removed the versioning altogether. It’s not at all unusual for older hardware to not support older macOS versions any more.

Supporting an OS for 10 years with feature updates is frankly remarkable, and they in fact did state back in 2015 that there would be 10 years of updates. However they aren’t actually stopping updates then - they’re just stopping their semi-annual 2xHy update system (latest is 21H2, ie 2021 2nd half of the year), they will continue to do security patches long beyond 2025, you just won’t get feature updates any more.

And frankly, if your PC can’t support 11, you probably don’t want to be updating to 11 in 2025 anyway as an over 8 year old PC (TPM 2.0 was 2017 IIRC?) is gonna be a wee bit sluggish with a 2025 OS by that point.

My home PC has a 6700K in so I can’t update to 11, doesn’t overly bother me though, 10 isn’t going anywhere fast and if I get to 2025 and still have this thing I’ll be shocked. That being said my upgrade cycles are single-digit years, the wife just had her upgrade to a 10700K after running an old Haswell Refresh for 6 years. I have a couple of 8700Ks at the office I want to eventually upgrade to Ryzens for the extra power anyway.
This made my knees tremble and a bit of dribble come out. As a fairly seasoned tech guy you'd probably expect me to keep up with the trends, but infact my main rig that does all my media work, entertainment, music creation, runs a minecraft server for my kid, and will (just about) play San andreas on low-ish settings, is infact an antique Phenom quad with a GT610, and has been for the last 10 years >eek<
In my defence though it has seen a couple of batteries and at least two paste changes, plus some extra RAM and an SSD that santa brought once. I guess that is my "make do and mend" mindset which has got me where I am now. Far as I'm concerned it still works and still does everything I need, and it's that ethos that I'm trying to apply to the tech black hole that exists in society
 
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Cue

Well-Known Forumite
This made my knees tremble and a bit of dribble come out.
I won’t tell you about the GPUs I took delivery of a couple of weeks ago then… 😇

We develop VR content so kinda have to invest heavily in our kit, I have a client with 48 PCs with 2080s in that you wear on your back!
 
Microsoft officially ends support for Windows 10 in exactly 4 years.
When our project first started we'd been told (by Microsoft themselves) that Windows 10 would be the last ever Windows, and they'd simply update it for ever more.
We'd been promising our recipients that they'd be good for licensing for as long as the life of their PC. Great, because we can make (pretty much) anything run on Windows 10.
Then, bombshell. We're told about Windows 11, and its OTT hardware requirements, and overnight our pledge completely changed from "the life of the PC" to "errmmm.. you've actually only got 4 years and this kit will be compromised because there will be no more security updates". Windows 11 simply wouldn't run on 99% of the donations we get, and it will Chatbot AI Mod APK increase the amount of stuff going to e-waste.
We're already looking at alternatives. We're really familiar with Ubuntu, but not everybody is.
My question is this, what will the average home user be doing in 4 years time?
-Continuing using Windows 10 and take the chance that security vulnerabilities will no longer be fixed
-Buying new kit that can run Windows 11
-Using open-source alternatives like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, etc?
However, there are a few things to consider when it comes to making the switch from Windows 10 to an alternative operating system:

Security: While Windows 10 will no longer receive security updates after the end of its support cycle, it's important to note that this doesn't mean it will become instantly vulnerable. In fact, many older operating systems, such as Windows 7, are still in use today without major security issues. However, it's always a good idea to keep your operating system up to date, especially if you're dealing with sensitive data or using your computer for work.

Hardware: If your current computer doesn't meet the hardware requirements for Windows 11, you'll need to buy a new device in order to upgrade. This can be costly and time-consuming, so it's worth considering if the benefits of Windows 11 are worth the investment.

Alternatives: There are many open-source alternatives to Windows, such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint, that offer similar functionality and security. These operating systems are often free and can be installed on older hardware, making them a good option for those who don't want to upgrade to Windows 11.
 

FreeITstafford

Well-Known Forumite
Hardware: If your current computer doesn't meet the hardware requirements for Windows 11, you'll need to buy a new device in order to upgrade. This can be costly and time-consuming, so it's worth considering if the benefits of Windows 11 are worth the investme
Using the bypasses that the latest version of Rufus provides it will run swimmingly on older hardware with no TPM and no secure boot, as long as there's at least 4GB of memory, and an SSD always helps. And we're not alone, with some users reporting the only issue to be one or two failed updates, but we haven't experienced that at all yet. Ok it might not work forever, but let's not write everything off just yet. It's taken a little of the panic off us since that post at least.

Alternatives: There are many open-source alternatives to Windows, such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint, that offer similar functionality and security. These operating systems are often free and can be installed on older hardware, making them a good option for those who don't want to upgrade to Windows 11.
Watching very closely what's going on with AtlasOS. If it's a viable free alternative to Chrome OS Flex, which we are using on anything with less than 4GB of non upgradeable memory (HP Streams spring to mind), it will be a hit with our end users.
 
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