Windows 11

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Microsoft introduced this operating system about three years ago, and it was highly controversial as the company apparently insisted on a number of stringent requirements which would prevent the vast majority of PCs in existence at the time from being able to run it. From my recollection these included:

Intel 'Core' 8th generation processor, ie 2017 onwards.

Uefi firmware interface and 'Secure Boot' feature.

Trusted Platform Module 2 (TPM 2) security feature.


I had no interest in trying to move to Windows 11 on hearing this, as none of my laptops came anywhere near meeting these requirements. However, a few days ago out of curiosity I tried installing Win 11 on a Dell Latitude E6420 which dates from around 2011. This has an Intel 2nd generation i5 processor, an old-fashioned 'legacy' BIOS as opposed to a modern Uefi setup (and therefore does not have Secure Boot enabled), and doesn't have TPM 2 (it does have basic original TPM, but this is switched off).


Guess what? Windows 11 installed without problem on this device and seems to run fine, apart from the fact that two or three updates have so far been reluctant to get on board.

Not sure what to make of this. Has Microsoft relented in its requirements to a surprising degree, or are there one or two shocks in store for people who have gone down the same route as myself?

Rescind the corporate cult of Gates. Switch to Linux!

I can't exactly recall, but I seem to remember that there was an initial announcement of which processors were supported by Windows 11 and then there was some sort of backtracking when the outrage machine cranked up.

I think Windows 11 was probably always going to be compatible with more machines than MS were saying but they didn't want to be accountable for the ones that weren't and erred on the side of caution.

Yeah. Well, I'm using Linux Mint on my laptop here and I have that installed on an old unsupported iMac too. As much as I like Linux, it's not ready for mass consumption yet. Nowhere near. And possibly never will be. I spend too much time fiddling with it to get things working that just worked under Windows. I enjoy it so I don't mind, but most people haven't got the time or the inclination to learn how Linux works. For those people, I'm afraid, there's no better option than Windows or MacOS.

Well, it's good to know that, for now at least, Windows 11 seems to be viable on some older machines. Hope that remains the case for the rest of its existence (presumably about 7 more years, since Windows operating systems seem to be supported for 10 years overall).

On the subject of Linux, there are just a ridiculous number of versions of it, a large number of which are just useless or pointless. The two that I use are Mint and MX, which can be mastered quite easily but still have their drawbacks compared with Windows. With a couple of Mint installations I've been completely locked out of the system due to some kind of login loop, which seems to be a known bug with the distro, but not really acceptable for a Linux version that claims to be a tried and tested, user-friendly product. Then we have 'dependency hell' situations when trying to install programs....

Modern Windows sucks because Microsoft saw how Apple's profits increased after Apple started dumping everything down so Microsoft decided to do the same thing.

Microsoft started copying all of the worst aspects of Apple. Modern Windows is even worse than a copy of a Mac, it's a copy of an iPad. Windows is rapidly turning into a Microsoft version of iOS.

Windows 8, 10 and 11 were designed for the Surface tablet first and for your PC second. They don't give a Microshit about whether or not it's a suitable operating environment for your desktop, they just want to sell more Surface tablets because nowadays everything has to be a god danmed tablet.

Even the radio in your car get replaced by a tablet! Kids grow up these days not knowing how to use a proper computer because all they have is tablets!

Modern devices are designed to infantilise, not to empower.

^ I wouldn't want to invalidate anything you've written, but would just like to say that I used Windows 8.1 as my main operating system for almost a decade, and it was the best OS I've ever encountered: user-friendly, good looking, bombproof reliability....

NB Windows 8.1 is not to be confused with the original Windows 8, which only lasted about one year and was a bit useless.

Windows 11 will install (or can be made to) on a non-compliant computer, but only security updates will be offered, from what I understand.

I do agree with posters that recommend Linux, it too is useful.

You could do Windows AND Linux (and MacOS)

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ ... -p/3055445

“Tips & Tricks for better performance of Windows 11
Hi,
Minimum requirement for Windows 11 is 4GB RAM.
There are many PCs with 4GB RAM started getting Windows 11.
Most PCs with 4GB RAM are performing slow with Windows 11.
Whether common steps, registry level steps or any level, please let us know all possible tips & tricks for better performance of Windows 11 for low configuration computer”

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/dua ... windows-11

“a dual boot setup, where Windows and Linux are installed to the same machine, often on the same boot drive. Using a custom boot menu, GRUB, we can choose between the two operating systems when we power on our PC.

In this how to, we shall learn how to dual boot Linux with Windows, using Ubuntu and Windows 11.”

https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM

“Run macOS on QEMU/KVM. With OpenCore + Monterey + Ventura + Sonoma support now! Only commercial (paid) support is available now to avoid spammy issues. No Mac system is required.”

I use Windows 11 at work and it f*****g sucks. Windows 7 was the last good one.

Some horror stories about Windows are untrue, but I still wouldn't want Win11. Win10 is bad enough.

Win7 isn't bad, though I hate the way user account control can't be configured on a per-program basis, it's either fully on or fully off, pretty much. It can be done via the Task Scheduler, but it's tedious to do and even then, if you double-click a document that has its file associations set up to open with a program you've "liberated" via the Task Scheduler, you're back to square one.

I agree. Windows 7 was the last OS from Microsoft that I was impressed with. I am still on Windows 10 as I am not looking forward to Windows 11 from what I have heard of it.

I really wish we could get extended support for Windows 7.

As far as I'm concerned it's the last version of Windows. My next computer will be running some version of Linux.

I stuck with 7 as long as I could and when I got my current computer I upgraded the Win 11 that it shipped with to Win 10. I'll probably replace it with something else in the near future, I just haven't had the chance to do so after the warranty expired.

This whole business about Recall being forced into installs ought to be a last straw for anybody that was still sticking with the OS.

Seems to happen a lot - MS tries some dirty trick like that, there's an outcry, and they eventually back down.

Yes, that's what happened with Internet Explorer, they got in trouble for bundling the browser, so they integrated it even further as the file explorer. The result was several billions of dollars in costs to them associated with the resulting problems that came from having an internet facing program that tightly embedded.

I remember the EU forced them to stop rigging things to make it look as if Windows Media Player was the only way to play media. It was always dead easy to uninstall WMP, so the EU were protecting consumers quite robustly. But what happened? MS do much worse things now and no authority even tries to stop them.