Microsoft officially announces Windows 11

[Insert_Nickname]

Question is, why do you need Windows 11 in the first place on those machines. Except for that rounded UI or smarter Multi Monitor support, I see little reason to upgrade. Windows 10 has mainstream support until 2025 plus 3 years of extended support. Plenty of time left. You'd really want a built-in TPM 2.0 module for Windows 11 to make sense in the security department.

It'll eventually be required. 2025 is only 3.5 years away. Considering how slowly desktop performance has crept upwards this isn't a very long time at all. That my 2008 i7-920 is still a perfectly viable machine for basic work really puts those 3.5 years in perspective. (Just for the record it runs 7, and will continue doing that no matter the cutoff date)

I certainly do not like MS suddenly pulling a stunt like this after promising "Windows will support a device for the lifetime of the device". Guess what MS, desktop systems can have very long lives. Not everyone uses the corporate 3-year-laptop model. Also suddenly and arbitrarily changing hardware requirements to require what has always been a specialist device with little relevance for consumer systems. Oh, you've mandated it since '16*? You should have made it a hard requirement back then, then. And clearly and unambiguously communicated that it would be required going forward.

*They tried making TPM a hard requirement with both Vista and then 8, but had to relent due to the backslash.

Do we have a source for that? All I know so far is in this article, which means that as of right now we have no idea on when Win 10 extended support ends.

Windows 10 Home and Pro - Microsoft Lifecycle | Microsoft Docs 2) 2019 LTSC Build support until 2029. Win10 is going to be the new Win7 (Chrome support ends on the 15th of Jan 2022). Get ready to retire Windows 7 machines folks.

Running the LTSC branch isn't really viable for most people.

 

[mxnerd]

EDIT: Anybody know how to force the second mouse right click screen on desktop? Double clicking is way too annoying.

Wait for WinaeroTweaker

Winaero Tweaker 1.20 is out with Windows 11 support and tons of new features

I am excited to roll-out a new Winaero Tweaker. It hits a major milestone in the app's lifecycle, as being the first release which is able to detect

winaero.com

 

[Magic Carpet]

It'll eventually be required. 2025 is only 3.5 years away. Considering how slowly desktop performance has crept upwards this isn't a very long time at all. That my 2008 i7-920 is still a perfectly viable machine for basic work really puts those 3.5 years in perspective. (Just for the record it runs 7, and will continue doing that no matter the cutoff date)

If Windows 7 can satisfy all your needs, by all means, run it for as long as you can. It's not like you must upgrade anything, unless you want to. Besides, I strongly believe there will be a way to even run Windows 11 on 775 CPUs, when it gets finally released, unless MS makes a hard CPU requirement (same way they did with Win 8.1/10 64-bit for S939 CPUs, forgot what exactly instruction that was). So unless they do something like that, I am positive you will be able to upgrade your perfectly adequate rig and cut down on unnecessary e-waste. I am also against constant hardware upgrades, just for the sake of it.

I certainly do not like MS suddenly pulling a stunt like this after promising "Windows will support a device for the lifetime of the device".

Yeah well, that's Microsoft for you. Wasn't 10 supposed to be the last version of Windows?

*They tried making TPM a hard requirement with both Vista and then 8, but had to relent due to the backslash.

The worst was shipping Vista PCs with only 512 megs of ram 😂

Running the LTSC branch isn't really viable for most people.

That just means that all those fixes will likely be possible to apply to consumer 10s as well 😉

EDIT: Played a bit with Process Explorer, the amount of telemetry going on in Windows 11 is just mind boggling. The requirement of being in the Dev channel

 

[Insert_Nickname]

If Windows 7 can satisfy all your needs, by all means, run it for as long as you can. It's not like you must upgrade anything, unless you want to. Besides, I strongly believe there will be a way to even run Windows 11 on 775 CPUs, when it gets finally released, unless MS makes a hard CPU requirement (same way they did with Win 8.1/10 64-bit for S939 CPUs, forgot what exactly instruction that was). So unless they do something like that, I am positive you will be able to upgrade your perfectly adequate rig and cut down on unnecessary e-waste. I am also against constant hardware upgrades, just for the sake of it.

If it was only for myself. I'll manage.

Still run everything from 98 (if it still works, haven't powered up in a good while) over XP, Vista*, 7 and 10. I don't think there is much point in 8(.1) since it's new enough that anything will run on 10. That's not even counting the various linux boxes. I do keep anything pre-7 as far from the internet as possible. Not for the reason you might think though, don't want to reinstall because they got infected with something.

BTW, it was the CMPXCHG16b instruction, the early Athlon64 only have the 8b-instruction but they can run the 32bit version just fine.

*Not as bad as everyone makes out, in fact IMO MS has hidden their absolutely best UI ever in there. You just have to dig it out.

 

[Jimminy]

Not as bad as everyone makes out, in fact IMO MS has hidden their absolutely best UI ever in there. You just have to dig it out.

There's a pony in there somewhere !!!

 

[Jimminy]

We already know that virtually no average user is going to switch to Linux*, and why switch to Apple because the product you have been using is becoming a bit more Apple-like? MS can do whatever it wants, it has a captive audience for the most part.

*The figures I have seen point to adoption by a significant portion of power users, but that's still a single digit percentage of overall PC users.

EXACTLY! If I were 30 years younger, with no rheumatoid arthritis, and I could type 110 WPM on a crude linux command line, it might be different.

Hell, with linux, it's only a step removed from writing everything in machine language.

 

[crashtech]

EXACTLY! If I were 30 years younger, with no rheumatoid arthritis, and I could type 110 WPM on a crude linux command line, it might be different.

Hell, with linux, it's only a step removed from writing everything in machine language.

[offtopic]
I don't quite agree with your your sentiments, though I think you are in touch with something true about Linux. Linux is essentially bifurcated between desktop and server. Server is backed by many heavy hitters who use the platform to run the Internet. Linux server credentials are therefore impeccable, however desktop is backed by volunteers who basically serve a small sliver of nerd-dom. No knock to the excellent volunteers, but there is something about profit motive that tends to ensure the best product. So for users who just want a stable and snappy desktop environment, Windows, despite all its glaring flaws, continues to deliver a consistently better desktop/browsing experience for the average user. For example, I sometimes browse the Internet on one of my worker Linux hosts at a production station. If I watch a YouTube video while the GPU is crunching data, there is always a regular hitch in the playback. This does not occur under Windows with an identical workload.
[/offtopic]

 

[mikeymikec]

EXACTLY! If I were 30 years younger, with no rheumatoid arthritis, and I could type 110 WPM on a crude linux command line, it might be different.

Hell, with linux, it's only a step removed from writing everything in machine language.

Even though Linux is my primary OS, I type at command lines more often on Windows.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

There's a pony in there somewhere !!!

Actually, it's a unicorn...

 

[Muse]

Christmas?

The bunch that fall approximately at the winter solstice.

 

[WelshBloke]

The bunch that fall approximately at the winter solstice.

Not one of the big 4 then?

 

[Muse]

Not one of the big 4 then?

I figured The Holidays = all of them.

 

[WelshBloke]

I figured The Holidays = all of them.

"All of them" is pretty much the entire year!

Imbolc, Beltane , Lughnasadh, and Samhain (or Gwyl Forwyn, Calan Mai, Calan Awst, and Calan Gaeaf in Gods language). Then you've got the Solstices and equinoxes.
Thats the year divided up nicely!

 

[Torn Mind]

What if your hardware is too old to have it?

What's infuriating about this whole thing is that it favours 'new' over 'good'. Sandy Bridge laptops with 16 gigs of RAM, quad core CPUs, 802.11ac upgrades and SSD - junk (no secure boot, no TPM of any sort or maybe a 1.2, barely UEFI boot). Nice solid off-lease corporate desktops with Haswells, likely dead though maybe only on life support because they have TPM 1.2s. Meanwhile, I can go down to Worst Buy, pick up a Celeron N4500 laptop with 4 gigs of RAM and 64 gigs of eMMC, and assuming the N4500 has the same in-CPU TPMs that the fancier modern processors have, that POS can run Windows 11 with 'flying colours'.

Basically, if you buy (or even worse, build as a DIYer) good hardware and maintain it well, you got spectacularly screwed. Similarly, all the machines that enthusiasts might have hooked their grandmothers up with, they're all out of luck for Windows 11. If you buy low end large-OEM junk from WB every 3 years, you're fine.

Really, this is an insult on the same magnitude as Windows 8 - just like Windows 8 wanted to turn nice high-end desktops into junky tablets, Windows 11 says 'I don't care how good or expensive or high-end your computer was, if it's "old", you're SOL.'.

(Do I sound pissed? Yes. I have 6 Windows machines here - my crappiest-but-newest, an Inspiron 3780 piece of junk, is the only one that seems to meet all the requirements. An i7-7700 DIY desktop/gaming box with 64 gigs of RAM, NVME Samsung SSD, etc is borderline given the 8th-gen processor 'requirement'. Everything else is more hopeless. Oh, and my proxmox VMs are all unable to run Win11 too...)

Windows 8 is a fine OS that had an valid aim, but they were just too late to the race.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Windows 8 is a fine OS that had an valid aim, but they were just too late to the race.

It does have a lot less telemetry than number 10 for example, I use it on slower machines where every CPU cycle counts. Of course, it's possible to trim down 10 of its useless services but I am too lazy for that and refuse to use somebody else's modifications. Enterprise version as well as LTSC both have minimum of telemetry if that matters.

On a powerful machine with fast storage, plenty of ram and CPU resources, Windows 10 does seem to be the fastest OS currently. Beats 11 in snapiness slightly, at least in my case. But running benchmarks there are within 5%, so pretty much the same.

 

[Muse]

"All of them" is pretty much the entire year!

Imbolc, Beltane , Lughnasadh, and Samhain (or Gwyl Forwyn, Calan Mai, Calan Awst, and Calan Gaeaf in Gods language). Then you've got the Solstices and equinoxes.
Thats the year divided up nicely!

In the USA, when people say "the holidays" they are talking about the ones around the winter solstice.

 

[WelshBloke]

In the USA, when people say "the holidays" they are talking about the ones around the winter solstice.

Is "where are you going on your holidays" not a phrase there?

If you said "Holiday season" to me I'd assume the summer when there's a big break from school and families book their holidays.

 

[Muse]

Is "where are you going on your holidays" not a phrase there?

If you said "Holiday season" to me I'd assume the summer when there's a big break from school and families book their holidays.

I didn't say "your holidays," or "holiday season," I said "the holidays."

 

[quikah]

Is "where are you going on your holidays" not a phrase there?

If you said "Holiday season" to me I'd assume the summer when there's a big break from school and families book their holidays.

We use the word vacation what you use holiday for.

 

[dlerious]

In the USA, when people say "the holidays" they are talking about the ones around the winter solstice.

That's usually what I think - Thanksgiving then a month later Christmas and a week after that New Years. You have sales practically the entire time.

 

[WelshBloke]

I didn't say "your holidays," or "holiday season," I said "the holidays."

Yeah but if someone said "what are you doing for the holidays" to me at work right now I'd assume they were asking if I was going somewhere for a couple of weeks in the summer.

We use the word vacation what you use holiday for.

I get that, that's why I was asking for clarification in my original question.

So "holiday" is synonymous with "Christmas" foe Americans?

 

[Muse]

Yeah but if someone said "what are you doing for the holidays" to me at work right now I'd assume they were asking if I was going somewhere for a couple of weeks in the summer.

I get that, that's why I was asking for clarification in my original question.

So "holiday" is synonymous with "Christmas" foe Americans?

No. "The holidays" refers to the holidays that occur in the last ~35 days of the year. "The holidays," not "holidays."

Holidays = {the set of all holidays}

The holidays = {the subset of all holidays that occur between the last week of November and New Years' Day}

 

[WelshBloke]

No. "The holidays" refers to the holidays that occur in the last ~35 days of the year. "The holidays," not "holidays."

Holidays = {the set of all holidays}

The holidays = {the subset of all holidays that occur between the last week of November and New Years' Day}

Only in America dude, only in America.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So "holiday" is synonymous with "Christmas" foe Americans?

For the most part, inclusive of other religion holidays also during the month of December.

Sure, we have other holidays as well, throughout the year, but if someone says "the Holidays", they usually mean the period towards the end of the year in Dec.

 

[Muse]

Only in America dude, only in America.

Well, seems to me the whole world is full of idioms. There's no universal language and just about all languages have their dialects and regional characteristics. I can walk down the street and be exposed to (if I hear it) English that I can barely understand.