Windows 11 roll out

[nlinecomputers]

Oh, the reason they HAVE enforced the line in the sand for insiders is simple. They need older hardware to continue testing Windows 10. As that will be the publicly supported version for a large number of hardware setups that will not upgrade to 11. People don't upgrade unless they buy a new PC. If Windows 10 works they will stick with it just like they stuck with Xp or 7 when newer versions came out. So they kicked you to the curb so that you would go back to 10 and test the security updates that will still be coming out on 10. I also suspect that some small feature updates will still come to 10 just because it is costly to maintain two sets of code.

 

[britechguy]

If it was a hard break it would not install. Yet it does.

They have been allowing this for some time, and have stated that "the spigot will be turned off" once the release to the public occurs.

Much has been written about even Windows Insiders being rolled back to Windows 10 if their hardware is not Windows 11 compatible, and written by Microsoft.

To me, it makes absolutely no sense, for Microsoft most of all, to keep attempting to maintain perpetual backward compatibility. They still want to get to "only one Windows" and allowing Windows 11 to go on anything, and be maintained, would thwart that.

But as I said, time will tell.

 

[nlinecomputers]

To me, it makes absolutely no sense, for Microsoft most of all, to keep attempting to maintain perpetual backward compatibility. They still want to get to "only one Windows" and allowing Windows 11 to go on anything, and be maintained, would thwart that.

It makes sense for one reason only. To provide a source for that limited group in the US and much bigger in places like China that will NEVER pay for a copy of Windows and would resort to dangerous piracy/hacked copies. Such copies are very likely to have backdoors. Previous versions of Windows were heavily pirated. Windows 10 isn't. Because it doesn't need to be. With some effort, anyone can get a copy of Windows unaltered to work on any hardware. Worst-case scenario you join the insider program and then immediately leave. You can then install a copy of Windows 10 that will install. It is obviously pirated but it will not have backdoors.

As for the insider program, they DID boot all the non-compliant hardware out. But as I have done there are ways around that to get a copy. It remains to be seen if my system will work on WIndows update but I bet it will. It is what I am testing. See my above post for the reason I think Microsoft is enforcing it on insiders but not on the public.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@nlinecomputers I don't think that would be a crippling recall at all, we'd all be better served if MS would say emphatically HEY... CPUs older than this are broken and we're not going to sit here and support them for the next 20 years.

The issue is one of expectation. On the Intel side the 7th generation chips in some cases can be fixed with firmware updates, and I expect those edge cases to gain support over time. AMD? They flat don't support their CPUs well at all, people pretend they do... but they don't, and never have.

Hardware is exactly what it is, and when you have a design fault you get to buy a new one. That's life. Intel EOL'd 7th gen Oct 9th 2020 though... which is a bit of a rub. And yeah they should be smacked for shipping garbage. But anything older than 5 years? Who cares?

In the gap is all the grey area you've outlined, so we'll see how things shake out. I'm not going to even think about Windows 11 for anything other than new sales for the next two years. After that, we'll see how the market shakes out.

I see all this as nothing more than the usual forward march of progress.

 

[britechguy]

@Sky-Knight

We're both on the same page with regard to this.

Be it hardware or software, it is crippling to either to attempt to ensure perpetual backward compatibility. And in the age of security becoming a far more prevalent concern than it once had been, having hardware-based security (TPM) is a big step forward.

I don't think this is a "purely money making" scheme, but a final acknowledgement that there come times when breaks with the past occur because they're necessary.

In the world of screen readers, there have been multiple backward-compatibility-breaking releases because you simply could not exploit new features if you didn't do just that. It's really no different when it comes to operating systems. They were never conceived of as working forever on whatever hardware you may wish to install 'em on. Even Linux isn't that way, though it has more of that ethos as part of its guiding philosophy.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

We have about 200 business clients.
We don't do residential really (the few we have, are..the business owners or people that work at our business clients)

From the Win7 to Win10 upgrade.....I really don't recall problems from that. I think I can count, on one hand...with a few spare fingers left.....the amount of computers I had to roll back to Win7 back then.

The only drawback I recall, was...on those computers old enough back then...to still have spindle drives left...the upgrade took a dang long time, making the end user sit and wait..and wait..and wait. Really don't have spindle drive clients left, 99 and 44/100% SSD.

Not sweating this upgrade to Win11 at all.
Already did the workstation at my office I'm typing on right now to Win11 a couple of months ago. ZERO issues. Zero! And she's an early early gen i5.

Won't be as much "visual/usability" difference for end users either, not like going from Win7 to Win10. From Win10 to Win11 is...barely much of a difference at all visually/usability wise...just the programs/shortcuts on the task bar are centered like a MacOS dock.

 

[britechguy]

The only drawback I recall, was...on those computers old enough back then...to still have spindle drives left...the upgrade took a dang long time, making the end user sit and wait..and wait..and wait.

Not that this wasn't a major contributing factor, but so was internet bandwidth in a number of locations.

It took me way longer to download the Win10 upgrade on machines where that was necessary than the install did, and don't get me wrong, the install was lengthy, too.

This is one of the reasons I began installing from the ISO as standard practice. If you've got fast internet, it didn't matter much as far as download time went, but a very great many didn't.

I, like you, don't see the change from Windows 10 to Windows 11 to be anything at all like the switch from Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 to Windows 10. Windows 11 is just the next in the series of what is a well established design idiom for Windows 10. It's not a tectonic shift, or anything close to it, as far as the end user experience and UI are concerned.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Sure...bandwidth can have a contributing factor here, and a big possible drawback for those on, say, old school DSL with 6 meg down.
Suppose I'm lucky where a majority of my clients are on fatter cable pipes. However, I'll agree that installing from local media is best, I did a lot via the USB thumb drive.

We use our RMM tool to schedule when updates happen, runs either midnight Thursday or midnight Friday....forced reboot if needed, so the time would have less impact there (meaning, usually didn't happen during the daytime for our clients).

Also didn't happen to a lot of our clients if they were on domains...if a workstation was joined to local active directory, the upgrade would not happen by itself.

 

[SAFCasper]

I will install W11 on my personal and work computers sometime in the next 3-4 weeks just for the learning experience. However, it won't be touching any of my managed clients for minimum 6 months, preferably closer to 1yr. Counting on our RMM to be capable of blocking the upgrade.

Not much to do with bugs or upgrade issues. It's for compatibility reasons. Software vendors are notoriously slow at supporting new OS and I'm not giving support the easy excuse of "well you are running on an unsupported OS". Even the ones that do claim to support W11 straight away have probably rushed it through.

Also of the mindset why change something that isn't broken. Windows 10 works well for my clients and I don't see any real benefits Windows 11 would offer other than being shiny an new. If anything it would only cause headaches for staff having to learn the new system.

I'm sure with time this view will change as they keep adding features to W11 while neglecting W10 more and more. I'm guessing in a year or two W10 will effectively go to Extended Support receiving nothing but security updates and bug fixes.

Also I guess new hardware purchase we might not have a choice after stock of current W10 machines sells out. Could exercise downgrade rights but thats a PITA at times if you aren't using VL. Plus I hear the claims of 12th Gen Intel being heavily optimised for W11 so that could tip the scales if true.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah but this isn't a "new OS", it's only such in name only.

This is Windows 10 21H2, renamed to Windows 11. I really doubt there will be much in the way of compatibility problems, especially when the update is limited to 8th gen and younger platforms.

It's Windows 10, on tighter hardware requirements, with a slightly different UI. That's not really a new OS, but I understand why MS felt the need to make it one.

 

[britechguy]

Yeah but this isn't a "new OS", it's only such in name only.

This is Windows 10 21H2, renamed to Windows 11.

Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing!!! We have a winner!!

The DNA of Windows 11 is almost entirely Windows 10. And I'm not anticipating a major diversion between the two, other than the hardware on which each will run, after the two coexist.

 

[SAFCasper]

Yeah but this isn't a "new OS", it's only such in name only.

This is Windows 10 21H2, renamed to Windows 11. I really doubt there will be much in the way of compatibility problems, especially when the update is limited to 8th gen and younger platforms.

It's Windows 10, on tighter hardware requirements, with a slightly different UI. That's not really a new OS, but I understand why MS felt the need to make it one.

As much as I dislike with the phrase "Windows 10 21H2, renamed to Windows 11" I do agree the underlying codebase is likely very similar and there won't be any major compatibility issues with software. However, this makes zero difference to me. If the vendor doesn't officially support Windows 11 we aren't going to run Windows 11. Why take the risk? Who knows what obscure bug could rear it's head and the vendor may not help as we have went against their recommendations.

As I said, if there were some clear benefits to running Windows 11 I might change my view. But currently it seems like all potential risk for very little benefit. Why rock the boat when you don't need to.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@SAFCasper I hear you, but if you have a vendor that's not listing support for Windows 11 RIGHT NOW... they're already behind and should be abandoned as soon as possible.

It's that little work to test...

What you're saying is a feature update broke it... that doesn't fly right now. But I get staying between the lines... I won't be installing it for at least six months myself.

 

[britechguy]

However, this makes zero difference even if we run a trial and our software works flawlessly. If the vendor doesn't officially support Windows 11 we aren't going to run Windows 11. Why take the risk?

Has anyone insisted that you do? I haven't seen anyone saying that you should do anything other than what you propose. It's the most conservative course, and since it's highly doubtful that most users, whether home or business, actually need (and I do mean need, not possibly want) any feature introduced with Windows 11 it's well worth waiting.

That being said, I'd have to say that this would have to be one of the safest, "take the leap early," transitions in many years, and for precisely the reason that Windows 11 is, in fact, and this can be verified based on its own development history, Windows 10, Version 21H2, under a marketing guise.

I still wouldn't be in the slightest rush to upgrade, and particularly in business settings where a single thing that's mission critical or even really important is involved.

 

[britechguy]

not listing support for Windows 11 RIGHT NOW... they're already behind and should be abandoned as soon as possible.

Good luck with that.

I don't have a short memory, and apparently you do. If you think back to what went on when Windows 10 was making its debut a very great many of the major software makers were not, in any way, ready for it at the moment it was introduced. Heck, there were even some pieces of Microsoft software that had some bumps.

I don't dump something if it's good software because Microsoft, "pulled a fast one," and decided, pretty much on whim, to introduce a new version of Windows and with way less warning to the developer community than was given for Windows 10.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Good luck with that.

I don't have a short memory, and apparently you do. If you think back to what went on when Windows 10 was making its debut a very great many of the major software makers were not, in any way, ready for it at the moment it was introduced. Heck, there were even some pieces of Microsoft software that had some bumps.

I don't dump something if it's good software because Microsoft, "pulled a fast one," and decided, pretty much on whim, to introduce a new version of Windows and with way less warning to the developer community than was given for Windows 10.

Yes, but again Windows 10 was a "new OS", utterly different than what came before.

Windows 11 is not. It's just a name. It's yet another feature release, one that comes out twice a year on a set schedule. If you have vendors that are not ready for Windows 11 RIGHT NOW. They need to be abandoned. Because it's the same OS as before... no API changes... no driver model changes... no security changes... It's a minor rev update with some cosmetic changes only.

Perhaps that changes in the future? But for right now, if it runs on Win10, it runs on Win11.

Because if it won't run on Win11, it also won't run on Win10 21H2... which we're getting AT THE SAME TIME!

 

[SAFCasper]

Has anyone insisted that you do? I haven't seen anyone saying that you should do anything other than what you propose.

Perhaps the post I directly replied to suggesting there is no need to delay Windows 11 as compatibility issues are doubtful.

Again, don't disagree with that. Simply discussing why in my view/circumstances I will still be delaying.

 

[SAFCasper]

If you have vendors that are not ready for Windows 11 RIGHT NOW. They need to be abandoned.

I'm my dream world I agree. In the real world it's not that easy.

Locked in contracts. Heavy investments in training, integration etc. Possibly no better alternate available. Then there's the discussion with the client "you need to ditch X and pay for implementation of a new program because they don't support Windows 11 yet" which will surely be followed by "do we even run Windows 11" - no it's not released until next week.

Yeah... simply not going to happen 99% of the time.

 

[britechguy]

Because if it won't run on Win11, it also won't run on Win10 21H2... which we're getting AT THE SAME TIME!

You didn't say, "won't run," you said, "not listing support for Windows 11, right now."

I'm really not sorry for this opinion - there are more pressing issues, many of them, than updating the "what we support lists" to include Windows 11.

And this is precisely because it is a direct logical conclusion that if something runs under Windows 10, it's virtually certain that it will run, unchanged, under Windows 11.

I don't expect Windows 11 to be on a very great many "we support" lists until several months after it is released, and not a moment before.

 

[NviGate Systems]

Not to say that Microsoft can't make a mess of things but there are a number of things that will reduce troubles compared to the last migration. Most Windows 7 systems that were upgraded have long since been upgraded many times over to various builds or been reset. So we aren't really talking about migrating from 7/8 to 11, but rather 10.0 to 10.1 as Windows 11 is essentially Windows 10 at it's core.

Microsoft has gotten better at migrating things. Yes there will be issues, but I think that will be down to hardware failures (ones that didn't present symptoms) specific hardware incompatibilities that need a firmware update, or software that needs updating.

I don't think we will have the panic or issues like the 7/8 to 10 had.