I did find it odd that my Ryzen 7 1700X (8 cores, 16 threads, 3.4GHz) was suddenly "not good enough" to run the OS.

It'll work fine, Microsoft even explains how to upgrade: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/installing-windo...

They chose an arbitrary cut-off date for hardware support for their new OS. They decided not to support old stuff anymore and they had to pick a date/technology platform. It was always going to be arbitrary. In my opinion they should've picked a clearer distinction (i.e. require a certain level of AVX support so all binaries can be built with AVX optimizations enabled) but I can see why they chose to do this. After all, they're going to have to support the OS for ten years, that four year old CPU is fourteen years old by the time Windows 11 goes out of support.

That link does not say it will work fine. It says it is not recommended or supported and if it blows up it is your problem. Additionally it says you might not get any updates. Certainly, it sounds like it might just be some ass covering on their part but they were also testing a nag watermark for unsupported installs like this so maybe not. Either way it doesn't sound like a really solid path forward.

It's certainly not a path forward that Microsoft will recommend. It'll work fine, though.

If not, there are other operating systems that do work. Microsoft isn't the exclusive owner of the PC space, that's one of the major points of all of the antitrust fines and lawsuits.

He said it'll work fine, not that Microsoft is promoting it as such.

There're no fundamental changes to what's actually required, the limitations are arbitrary and set by Microsoft (and they provide a means to get around them).

It'll work fine.

It can work yes but AMD chips didn't get GMET until Zen2 so if you leave virtualization based protection on you might see a performance hit.

From Microsoft's website:

>Memory integrity works better with Intel Kabylake and higher processors with Mode-Based Execution Control, and AMD Zen 2 and higher processors with Guest Mode Execute Trap capabilities. Older processors rely on an emulation of these features, called Restricted User Mode, and will have a bigger impact on performance.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...

Which is amazing since windows 11 is full of mentions of green energy, lowering energy consumption and asking you to lower screen brightness to lower carbon emissions. Total green washing when you consider the gigantic amounts of ewaste that arbitrary cut off date will lead to. It's just funny tbh, like I get it's most likely very different teams working on those things but it's tone deaf at best.

But hey at least the OS has a revolutionary new green technology called... Battery saving mode!

This is what most of the consumer facing eco trends feel like.

Kool-aid Jammers are my latest laugh. Plastic pouch. Plastic straw wrapper. Paper straw.

Right, the straw was the enemy here?

The worst part is that it is clearly cargo culting. What consumer suddenly buys kool aid they never bought before because it says "paper straw now!" on the packaging?

I for one think plastic straws taste bad.

You prefer the taste of wet paper and a little wax, as it falls apart in your mouth?

Depends on how fast you finish your drinks but it's fine usually. I guess I've never seen them for milk tea.

True. It is not as though I've ever cared about what the vendor supports at home before.

Most of my machines were on a Linux distro before that decision, and Debian 12 is providing a good enough to me experience on the desktop, even gaming.

I'll probably just stay there indefinitely. Is that an upgrade? Subjective. I'm happier here.

Really crystallizes how what matters is "good enough" for Microsoft's goals, not the user's.

Isn't this about Spectre/Meltdown vulns instead of the perf. specs?

IIRC it has more to do with that series of chip not having GMET (AMD Guest-Mode Execute Trap for NPT) which is used in Windows 10/11s virtualization based protection. Microsoft requires this option for all new PCs from their partners but you can install windows 11 and run it fine without this CPU feature (there is a performance hit if you leave virtualization based protection on though since it has to be done in software).

Don't reward them for that. The only solution is to move to another OS, that's the only thing they will ultimately understand - no matter how inconvenient it might be.

That's not an option if you use your machine for work and your Dev tools only work on windows. PS5/Xbox toolchains only work on windows, as a gamedev I don't really have a choice.

You can always target other platforms and still make money as a gamedev.

I don't have any choice in that matter, I work for a publisher that releases games on these platforms.

You can install W11 without a TPM with a workaround. Microsoft should be forced to allow it by default.

I wish there was a linux distro made by people who love windows, not linux.

There is a aphorism.

Bsd was made by people who love unix, linux was made by people who hate windows.

I think they hate unix, not windows, because they dragged all legacy nonsense unix had for hardware reasons straight into modern times so everyone can laugh on it.

Sounds like the last time you used Linux was 20 years ago. Linux been as easy as Windows to install and use for at least 10 years now. My mothers laptop runs Linux Mint and she doesn't know its not Windows even though the colors are all wrong. Why? It's all about the DE - if it looks like windows, walks like windows and quacks like windows, its windows. If she can click on the menu and find the internet then it's a win. Installation was was as easy as windows and everything worked out of the box.

Hell, I installed the Chicago95 XFCE theme on my main system to see how well it emulated the look and feel of Windows 95 and wound up liking it. Why? Because even though it looks dated, the icons were immediately familiar and I felt navigation instantly become easier.

Do not underestimate the power of familiarity. Many of us grew up on DOS/Windows playing games and typing school work up in Word so moving away from those familiar waters is HARD. It's like being an immigrant moving to a new country - you have to put in extra effort to learn to adjust to culture and language. Some can, some cant. YMMV.

I've always felt that $BIG_BRAND_DISTRO+KDE got pretty close. It's still Linux, so not quite the same, but as far as look and feel, it's pretty close I think.

I remember some videos where people pretended some KDE theme is how new windows version looks and people had no problems believing it.

Use any Unbutu distribution with MATE or Cinnamon. Like shit dawg, I got my grandma using Linux Mint with MATE.

Changed the background to match the same one on her old laptop and added some desktop icons, and boom 99% of her experience was the same. Had to help her a little with the LibreOffice -- that's a little different -- but otherwise functionally similar to Windows 7 / Win10.

I'm using linux as a daily driver and at this point there isn't anything I can't do on Windows. The hold out for a while was games, but Proton w/ Steam works well and I can play big titles like Cyberpunk 2077.

If I may suggest, ZorinOS is about as close to windows on Linux as it gets. Found it through a HN comment myself.

This is what I ran in 2002 or so: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire

There have been several, but what makes Windows Windows is the ecosystem, and no distro can replicate that.

What is that ecosystem now? What do households with windows use that isn't on the cloud?

The problem with the cloud is how often I've run into blanket linux/bsd support bans. Especially when it comes to professional certifications done online. I had one website refusing to work on my FreeBSD or Debian installs. It would just get to a certain point and not let me proceed and multiple buttons refusing to work properly.

Got on the phone with support and they were dumbfounded. Got the idea to just spoof my user agent as a windows box on edge and it worked perfectly afterwards.

Even if not done on purpose there is a lot of crufty shit online that breaks in unsuspecting ways when I'm on a linux/BSD box. Especially if interfacing with the government websites and webapps. Our state fire code website looks straight out of 2002 and has multiple warnings about making sure to use IE6... in 2023.

Maybe its just my use case (fire industry / local government), but it helps to have a mac or windows machine lying around as backup.

A lot of stuff is moving to web/cloud stuff, but we are not there entirely.

As one example, I had to take a proctored exam recently, and the only supported OS was Windows or MacOS. Linux was not an option.

Then there is games, Proton is great but plenty of AAA titles are still not compatible.

Just for starters.

Games for sure, the exam software is disappointing.

That's not happening until 2025, GP said "this year".

Windows 10 was released in 2015, so they will have offered 10 years of support, which was the standard policy in place ever since Windows Vista (Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1, 10).

Apple does not support any macOS version for that long, and is unlikely to support a current version of macOS on any given device for that long.

You say “support” like the moment they stop it, OS cease to work. OSX Leopard is usable for most of tasks. Lot of people still running Windows 7 and Windows XP without any need for “support”. Windows 10 will be even better without constant “support” reboots. Can’t say this for Windows 11, as it so tightly stuffed with spyware and online integrations, it might just not boot if MS plug some server switch.

I would not want to run an unsupported OS of any variety.

Modern web browsers will stop working on older operating systems - so will other apps.

Not only is it a massive security risk, but it will simply become impractical for most users.

Besides, if you're afraid of the TPM vulnerability described in this article, you ought to be more worried about running an out of date OS!

"Support" can mean a lot of things.

Apple does not provide security updates for Catalina, which was released 3.5 years ago. People would be crazy to run unpatched OSes for any use case involving the internet or wifi.

Dropping support, so what?

That does not make these PCs obsolescent in any way. People still use Windows 7, and even Windows XP. Especially in the many contexts where "security" is not important at all.