Windows 11 problems

Most of the "older hardware" out there will be dead by the time Windows 10 reaches EOL.
Some will be only 7 years old in 2025 but unable to run a supported version of Windows. That's why my post suggests 6th gen be the cutoff, because then it would be certainly true that most would be dead in 2025.
The idea that it's reasonable, and not just for Microsoft, to maintain modern operating systems with semi-perpetual backward compatibility is not only unreasonable, but ill-advised.
Nobody has suggested such an idea, but in my opinion it's not unreasonable to be compatible with powerful i7-6700 systems. Sure there needs to be a line drawn, I just think they drew the line a bit too aggressively because they can get away with that being in a near-monopoly.

A caveat about relying on software-based security patches or missing a particular security feature would have been a good compromise and encouragement for people to upgrade if and when they can afford to.
 
Not seen any of that. But why are you upgrading ANY of your clients to 11? I can't believe a bookkeeper would do so on their own and Windows 11 is NOT automatically upgrading. SO they would have to pull the trigger themselves. I have not had ONE client ask about 11. Nobody even knows about it.
LOL it ahoqs up in your task bar windows 11 is here also popups windows 11 is here and on tv the damn windows 11 commercial th
 
Not seen any of that. But why are you upgrading ANY of your clients to 11? I can't believe a bookkeeper would do so on their own and Windows 11 is NOT automatically upgrading. SO they would have to pull the trigger themselves. I have not had ONE client ask about 11. Nobody even knows about it.
LOL nobody knows about it it is in the start bar windows 11 is here as well as popups windows 11 is here in outlook webmail or thier website then there is the tv commercial that plays every 5 mins and no i did not upgrade anyone to windows 11 it is all the attention it is trying to get to get people to switch.
 
I installed Windows 11 on this machine to have a play, so i know what im dealing with should anyone come in asking. Its not a mission critical rig, all software is also on another computer and all files are stored on onedrive and synced between the computers. I have not noticed any issues so far.
Of course, i tell my business clients to hold on until i say so, but some of them as well as some residential customers will want to press that button, but thats up to them.

I dont really see the big deal in the hardware limitations that Microsoft has set, if you dont want to buy a new computer, dont, stay on Windows 10, its fine, you have 4 more years of support, you'll just miss some rounded corners and some new icons (I know there is more to Win 11 than that, but as you all know its mainly a GUI update).

In regards to the hardware vs software patch of Spectre/Meltdown - Many people wanting to use older hardware would be the first to blame Microsoft if the software patched failed (unlikely, but i assume possible) and unsurprisingly they wont want to deal with that sh*t.

I dont care about having to use a microsoft account. I use M365 and onedrive so they already have my details.
 
And it's not about what it is to you, or me, or anyone else. The idea that it's reasonable, and not just for Microsoft, to maintain modern operating systems with semi-perpetual backward compatibility is not only unreasonable, but ill-advised.
I’m not advocating for support, but simply not to put a broad roadblock in place or limit it to Pro keys activations maybe.

I am not talking about business users. I’m talking about home users, usually elderly who are just beginning to scratch the surface. They are amazed that they can click a few buttons, type a message and their friend from church will receive it. Or they can click a few buttons and their grandkid shows up on the screen. That’s the extent of their use.

I get security and file encryption, and I get not supporting it, but to just say no was the wrong approach in my opinion. It’s not like it doesn’t run. It’s not like it runs poorly. It just doesn’t provide encryption, which for those who use their machine for video calls and playing solitaire is the least important.

It would be like GMC saying you can’t repair a car after 100,000 miles. Even if you want to take the risk of something going wrong, even if your total commute is 2 miles to the grocery store and home, even if… your vehicle won’t be repaired over 100,000 miles. Just seems like an odd line in the sand when it clearly works fine.
 
I'm going to repeat myself here once again, because there are several here that seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding...

When it comes to Spectre/Meltdown mitigations, you MUST HAVE one of the CPUs that's in the Windows 11 compatibility list. The list is NOT arbitrary, it's literally made out of CPUs that have the technology to properly solve this problem with current methods in the firmware.

ALL OLDER CPUs, even ones that may have TPM 2.0 support, simply lack these features. They also lack specific VM security features that allow the desktop to virtualize correctly. This is important, because MS is shifting into the Kubernetes world like everyone else. This means containers everywhere, and every app a container. This is how Windows 11 will be able to run Android apps natively soon, and how it will be able to use a mixed ARM/AMD64 CPU in the future as well... just like Mac OS does now.

This is literally the future. The line is very clear if you know how CPUs work and you've spent time looking at their feature sets. If you've failed to do this as I have, yes... I can see how you feel this is a money grab.

The only subtext here that's a problem is MS is not coming out and explicitly STATING the above. And I suspect if they did, 7th gen machines that are still under warranty, like my current Dell Server, would have a lever to force Intel into a recall. AMD has similar issues, heck AMD has MORE issues... their support for all this has been just as lacking as everything else they do. That's why they have performance issues in Win11. But, given the scale of this error, Dell and the rest should be replacing machines wholesale... but they aren't because no government is forcing them to. We the little people have zero digital property rights as usual.

So if you want to blame someone, blame AMD and Intel. But even that isn't really all that rational because Spectre/Meltdown style assaults poke holes in predictive execution. Which is the feature that's given us all the CPU performance gains we've had since the 486. So unless you want to revert to 486s, and give up your multi-core CPUs, we get to deal with this new reality where the Laws of Physics have once again beat us all upside the head. The concept of these CPUs being defective is very much up to debate. So a recall doesn't really make a ton of sense on several levels.

Besides, we have Windows 10 until Oct 2025, there's no need for a mad panic, there's no need to install Windows 11 on anything older than gen8 right now. And in the future, plentiful off lease equipment will be there to swap to.

So if you want to use Windows 10, you're good for another four years. If you want to KEEP USING what's currently a decade old crap box in FOUR YEARS... Well... that's just foolish on many levels. Not just because of the above, but because the machine will be ancient, new toys will be available, and you'll be wanting those new toys. This isn't about today, it's about tomorrow, this whole industry is about tomorrow and being stuck in today is a great way to go out of business.

And the elderly that hate change will continue to be a thorn... they always have been... they always will be. Some of you will join them in the next four years I'm sure.

P.S. Secure Boot on native EFI is a huge anti-crypto wall too... This change shows an over 70% reduction in malware in MS's telemetry. Is that due to hardware or habit? We're all about to find out...

*Edit* It's predictive execution, not privileged execution... I need to go back to bed.
 
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I'm going to repeat myself here once again, because there are several here that seem to be laboring under a misunderstanding...

When it comes to Spectre/Meltdown mitigations, you MUST HAVE one of the CPUs that's in the Windows 11 compatibility list. The list is NOT arbitrary, it's literally made out of CPUs that have the technology to properly solve this problem with current methods in the firmware.

ALL OLDER CPUs, even ones that may have TPM 2.0 support, simply lack these features. They also lack specific VM security features that allow the desktop to virtualize correctly. This is important, because MS is shifting into the Kubernetes world like everyone else. This means containers everywhere, and every app a container. This is how Windows 11 will be able to run Android apps natively soon, and how it will be able to use a mixed ARM/AMD64 CPU in the future as well... just like Mac OS does now.

This is literally the future. The line is very clear if you know how CPUs work and you've spent time looking at their feature sets. If you've failed to do this as I have, yes... I can see how you feel this is a money grab.

The only subtext here that's a problem is MS is not coming out and explicitly STATING the above. And I suspect if they did, 7th gen machines that are still under warranty, like my current Dell Server, would have a lever to force Intel into a recall. AMD has similar issues, heck AMD has MORE issues... their support for all this has been just as lacking as everything else they do. That's why they have performance issues in Win11. But, given the scale of this error, Dell and the rest should be replacing machines wholesale... but they aren't because no government is forcing them to. We the little people have zero digital property rights as usual.

So if you want to blame someone, blame AMD and Intel. But even that isn't really all that rational because Spectre/Meltdown style assaults poke holes in predictive execution. Which is the feature that's given us all the CPU performance gains we've had since the 486. So unless you want to revert to 486s, and give up your multi-core CPUs, we get to deal with this new reality where the Laws of Physics have once again beat us all upside the head. The concept of these CPUs being defective is very much up to debate. So a recall doesn't really make a ton of sense on several levels.

Besides, we have Windows 10 until Oct 2025, there's no need for a mad panic, there's no need to install Windows 11 on anything older than gen8 right now. And in the future, plentiful off lease equipment will be there to swap to.

So if you want to use Windows 10, you're good for another four years. If you want to KEEP USING what's currently a decade old crap box in FOUR YEARS... Well... that's just foolish on many levels. Not just because of the above, but because the machine will be ancient, new toys will be available, and you'll be wanting those new toys. This isn't about today, it's about tomorrow, this whole industry is about tomorrow and being stuck in today is a great way to go out of business.

And the elderly that hate change will continue to be a thorn... they always have been... they always will be. Some of you will join them in the next four years I'm sure.

P.S. Secure Boot on native EFI is a huge anti-crypto wall too... This change shows an over 70% reduction in malware in MS's telemetry. Is that due to hardware or habit? We're all about to find out...

*Edit* It's predictive execution, not privileged execution... I need to go back to bed.
Totally understand all of that. But I also understand that not everyone has unlimited budgets and often times it’s not worth the gains.

Did you replace your car when they went from a normal key to the one with the resister in it? Then again when they went to transponder keys? Then again when they went to laser cut keys? How about now when they are coming out with proximity keys? It’s all in the interest of security and makes it harder for people to steal your property.

Point being still - let the people make their own decision. Grandma who wants to play solitaire on her computer and maybe browse the local news does NOT need to worry about meltdown / spectre or TPM or drive encryption. Now they have two options 1) shell out for a new machine or 2) go without security updates to their operating system. Can you honestly say that spectre / meltdown is a MAJOR concern for those folks? Personally I would rather see them on 11 without the benefits of newer processors but at least they will get OS patches.

We work with businesses as well as bought a residential store a number of years ago. We serve a bunch of ultra low income homes and work with them the best we can.

In the business world, or for any user on this board - absolutely get the best most secure option you can, but this isn’t a one-size-fits-all industry.

As I type this I just absolutely blew my grandmothers mind by showing her audio books and Siri on her iPhone. That’s the extent of her usage - she checks local sports scores and tells me the weather several times a day and is floored by the ability of her phone. It’s an iPhone 7, still supported but I promise you she doesn’t care about the new “toys” and how the camera is better and it wakes faster blah blah. Different markets.

Trust me, I would love to work in a market like yours where as soon as a bigger better device drops everyone is flocking to me wanting to buy it.
 
@VISA MC My 1982 Chevy C10 longbed pickup is a self contained object that isn't plugged into an infinitely evolving and ever expanding network of new systems.

The rules of the road that truck drives on haven't changed much in 100 years. So I can keep driving that old truck, she's a classic. But fuel prices are going up... so eventually it'll be too expensive to operate her.

The Internet road changes entirely every so often, this is one of those times. Budget's be damned, it's upgrade or fall off time. If people cannot keep up with Microsoft, they can enjoy Linux. Running unsupported software never ends well, for anyone on it. Unless the machine isn't plugged into a network of any kind.

"Classic" PCs never were a thing, not plugged into a network anyway. And... they're expensive to operate too!

As for old people? Put them on tablets. All they do is look at facebook all day anyway. And they're all at EXTREME ID theft risk, these changes are designed to prevent. You think their budgets are tight now? Wait until their SS check no longer shows up because someone redirected it! They might not care, but you should because that crap is happening all over the US RIGHT NOW! The world even... but whatever.

We have no choice... The good guys are losing the fight, and this transition is the only way to put the bad guys on defensive again.

IF MS does patching for Win11 on old hardware after 2025 then perhaps that's an option... because you're right that's "better" than being out of support. But by then, the machines they need will be cheap and plentiful anyway.

I'm planning on a huge hardware refresh in 2024, until then? I'm sticking with Win10. People that needs new equipment between now and whenever the gen8 stuff gets cheap simply get a choice... cheap box on a timer? Or more expensive box that lasts.
 
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Different markets.

Which is a point that gets lost, frequently, in this venue. That along with any memory of who's serving what market.

I don't expect those focused on the business market to have the same concerns, or even many that overlap, the concerns I have based on my clientele in the residential and very small business market.

When I read long-timers on this forum I try to keep in mind exactly what market or markets they serve when taking their comments on board. The wants and needs of different markets are often somewhat to very opposed to each other. [Hence the reason I feel a lot of sympathy for any OS maker. They're trying to create software in the Swiss Army Knife class that serves many disparate user communities and lets each get done what they need and/or want to get to done. It's a major juggling act, and one where no one is ever going to be happy no matter what choices are made.]
 
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@Sky-Knight said:

I'm planning on a huge hardware refresh in 2024, until then? I'm sticking with Win10.

Yep, that's our Firm's plan as well. Just like we did with Windows 10. 95% of our client base was running Windows 7 until a year before support ended. We ran updates on all computers not attached to a DC to prevent the upgrade after we saw a couple early on that went bad. When we went back to upgrade hundreds of PCs for 7 to 10 we only had a problem with one of them....it was a 32 bit version of 10...Why did we even bother? ;) We preferred to let all the Home users be the Beta testers for Win 10 and not our clients. Guess by the time we rolled around to upgrading they got most all the kinks worked out.

I am a little confused though with everyone's comments. Guys, we're literally 5 years off before support for 10 is done. There is an excellent chance, unfortunate as it may be that one or some of us discussing this could be dead by then. Kinda scary to think about.

Sure, we may roll out brand new Windows 11 boxes but we've got 5 freaking years before we're at the point of "Replace 'em all!" A heck of a lot can change in 5 years. Keep in mind, I doubt Microsoft will extend Win 10 support like they continually did with XP. I miss XP sometimes. XP SP3 was a fast OS on a 5400 HDD with a whopping 512 MB of RAM. Most of us have probably forgotten how fast it actually was.
 
Yeah I remember the big sunsetting of Windows XP/Server 2003.
Was the first year we busted past the 1 million mark.
MAN, that was a busy year.
Winy sunsetting not nearly as big, as...we had SSDs..and it was such an easy, quick in place upgrade to Win10.
 
@britechguy Yeah but that's largely irrelevant.

The security concerns involved here actually impact the residential market harder, especially the retirees. And if we put all that away, none of us really have a choice. We can only do what MS lets us do within their ecosystem, or abandon said ecosystem.

But if we've got 94 year old grandma on Windows 10 right now, and she's happy... LEAVE HER ALONE! If she lives long enough to be forced into Win11, we can cross that bridge when we get there, and have a wonderful conversation about her long life while we're a it!
 
The security concerns involved here actually impact the residential market harder, especially the retirees.

Again, we are going to have to agree to disagree here. It entirely depends on what those people actually do with their computers.

I have clients who would not, ever, agree to access their bank accounts, credit card accounts, or anything of real financial value online. They email, web browse, and, maybe, use social media.

They are not, and never will be, concerned with security in the same way you, and your clients, are and should be.

Usage patterns really, really matter. And if Spectre and Meltdown were such a huge deal we'd still be hearing about them a lot more than we do. The mitigation patches have been more than sufficient, and will certainly remain so for most residential clients.

Not all the world wants, or needs, "fortress computer." There is such a thing as security that's sufficient for usage patterns of residential users that would never pass muster in a business environment. Good enough is just that. And it's not you that gets to make the determination of what any given tech or end user considers good enough.
 
@britechguy The day you get the phone call, you'll be back in here apologizing that you didn't listen.

And you will... because it will happen. All that social media stuff "that isn't important" is how these pricks get your personal data to impersonate you over the phone before they convince some min wage desk clerk to transfer your life savings to Zimbabwe.

As for "hearing" about Spectre/Meltdown... Do you ever "hear" about RowHammer? Do you even know what it is? How about LANtenna?

All of these things are mental experiments more than actual vulnerabilities, and that will remain so... until it isn't... And as soon as that switch flips it's over. And when it does, it won't use the above names. The attack will have a new name.

Now, I'm not about to run around making people replace junk. But I'm not unhappy MS is making people update their crap in four years. In four years these things will be critical issues. Today? You're right... it's all concept and no execution... yet.
 
Now, I'm not about to run around making people replace junk. But I'm not unhappy MS is making people update their crap in four years. In four years these things will be critical issues. Today? You're right... it's all concept and no execution... yet.

Probably "all concept and no execution" ever. Vulnerabilities that are easy to exploit for nefarious purposes don't sit, unexploited, for years after they're very publicly identified. There have been many of these over the years. The key to a room that very few want to enter because it has no easy useful exits to "the treasure chest" doesn't often get used.

But, you say, "Now, I'm not about to run around making people replace junk. But I'm not unhappy MS is making people update their crap in four years." If you can find even a single instance where what I said goes against this, please do. I've actually taken that same position in this topic multiple times.

There are times, and this is one of them, where hands have to be forced. And I have no problem with Microsoft forcing them. At the same time, I can see why this is far more critical to force in some environments than in others, which is what my observations are about. I'm not proposing that Microsoft back off, far from it.
 
And you will... because it will happen. All that social media stuff "that isn't important" is how these pricks get your personal data to impersonate you over the phone before they convince some min wage desk clerk to transfer your life savings to Zimbabwe.
I'm with @britechguy here. We will have to agree to disagree here. The issue is I'm 100% capable of seeing your point, and implement those same tactics with my business clients. But you aren't willing to see that not every single person who touches a computer needs those same requirements.

But for those who don't use social media, who don't use email, who don't use the internet for much more than checking the weather and playing locally installed games, it's not a concern. I would feel absolutely fine with those clients using a fully patched OS on a machine more than capable of accomplishing their needs with an anti-virus installed. However moving forward their options will be use an unpatched OS, which I don't want to advocate for, or buy new stuff so they can have protection and features they will likely never need.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree here.
 
I'm with @britechguy here. We will have to agree to disagree here. The issue is I'm 100% capable of seeing your point, and implement those same tactics with my business clients. But you aren't willing to see that not every single person who touches a computer needs those same requirements.

But for those who don't use social media, who don't use email, who don't use the internet for much more than checking the weather and playing locally installed games, it's not a concern. I would feel absolutely fine with those clients using a fully patched OS on a machine more than capable of accomplishing their needs with an anti-virus installed. However moving forward their options will be use an unpatched OS, which I don't want to advocate for, or buy new stuff so they can have protection and features they will likely never need.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree here.
Who doesn't use email? Even grandma has and uses email and frankly is more likely to use email than her younger family and friends who text, Instagram, and Snapchat their way through their lives. And email phishing is still a heavy problem in that group. A more secure OS, that can run in containers is more secure against this kind of exploit.

Right now I don't think that Windows 11 on the same hardware is ANY more secure than Windows 10. I don't care if it is 6th gen or 10th gen hardware. This is going to eventually change. At some point, Windows 11 will become much more containerized and viruses will be written to exploit systems that can't do that be it because they are running Windows 10 or they are running Windows 11 on older hardware. Someday, probably in the next year, we are going to see an exploit that really hits hard on old hardware running Windows 10. Microsoft can't really come out and say that anything older than 8th gen is too dangerous to use but that is exactly what they are implying and really should be saying. It would cause a panic so that is why they don't.
 
All that social media stuff "that isn't important" is how these pricks get your personal data to impersonate you over the phone before they convince some min wage desk clerk to transfer your life savings to Zimbabwe.

And this is a just ludicrous example. You can't get much of anything from social media that the end user doesn't put there for all the world to see. This has been discussed, repeatedly, for years, by every security expert I know of. The information used for the purpose you note isn't gained from a security breach, but simply by strategic culling from what the person puts out in public themselves.

And impersonation over the phone is the textbook case of social engineering. Technology is not now, not ever, going to fix social engineering scams. And particularly when the other side of the scam is someone who is not particularly concerned about what they're doing or why.

You can't fix non-technological vulnerabilities with technology. And it's a fool who believes you can. Until and unless, we in this industry speak with a full throated and single voice that it is the end user's responsibility to protect themselves, as they are the weakest link in the security equation, by learning the behaviors to do so we're still going to continue to be wide open to any and every social engineering scam now known and to be invented in the future.

It's not a hack. It's human foolishness and exploitation of same. In the case of stupid, true stupid, you will never fix it. In the case of ignorance, that can be fixed with the necessary training (which need not be formal).
 
And email phishing is still a heavy problem in that group.

Most phishing is, again, social engineering. You don't fix what people do, often beyond the scope of the computer by doing things like calling, via computer security.

I really fail to understand how so many on this forum, who absolutely should know better, insist that technological fixes will be effective, in any meaningful way, against social engineering. It can help, minimally, but it will never come close to solving the manipulation of individuals to do things not in their own interests. That's not something technology can fix in any meaningful way.
 
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