techradar Windows 11 set to warn users if their PC shouldn’t be running the OS

[ENTERPRISE]

Quote

Windows 11 can currently be installed on PCs which don’t meet the official system requirements, but Microsoft doesn’t recommend this course of action – and has taken new steps in a preview build to add a further warning against doing so.To recap, Windows 11 can be run on a system which doesn’t officially support the OS, but Microsoft has previously cautioned about possible ‘damage’ to a system in this scenario, and noted that vital security updates may not be provided to such PCs either – even though said updates are still delivered to these devices.

Source 

 

Like a dog with a bone. They really do not want the OS running on perfectly good systems do they. 

[pio]

-_-

 

Yeah, they REALLY don't want you to use those older systems that still work.  Make sure you get in line to buy your next new Intel / AMD rig just in time for Windows 11 folks! 

 

These arbitrary requirements make absolutely no sense.  There's absolutely no reason any CPU should be knocked out from any of these OS's when older CPU's are usually stronger than stuff they're allowing to be used (like Atoms vs say a Q6600).

[cscoder4ever]

No wonder adoption rates are super abysmal, they try to pull moves like this heh

[schuck6566]

8 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

-_-

 

Yeah, they REALLY don't want you to use those older systems that still work.  Make sure you get in line to buy your next new Intel / AMD rig just in time for Windows 11 folks! 

 

These arbitrary requirements make absolutely no sense.  There's absolutely no reason any CPU should be knocked out from any of these OS's when older CPU's are usually stronger than stuff they're allowing to be used (like Atoms vs say a Q6600).

I'm really on the fence about this, just because a system CAN run an OS doesn't mean it should by any means. If a system that takes minutes to open a program or browser page gets an update that draws even MORE resources and crashes,the first thing that'll happen is the users will be screaming "The UPDATE broke my computer!" when what really happened was it finally had a stroke.

The systems I have here "

"are running Windows 10 and really shouldn't be.They'd be doing much better with a version of linux(I'll probably end up with mint on the notebook @ least). They DON'T qualify for Windows 11 and I can say it's a relief because if they did I'd try to run it just to see.

 

When does a company finally say "Enough,we can't carry your old ass anymore,you need to go to the old cpu's home." (before anyone gets offended,the wife & I are both over 55. lol )

Nvidia ended support for older video cards, Now Microsoft seems to be ending support for older cpu's.

I was upset at first that my i7 2600 wasn't going to be covered,but then I realized it's already over 10 years old,and will see the EOL of not 1 but 2 Operating Systems(7 that came installed,and 10 as the upgrade)so I think they gave me my money's worth for the OS on that cpu.

[bonami2]

My temporary fx 6100 got an hard time making windows update with 50-75% cpu usage i even disable defender because it use 25% doing the update.

 

Just clocked the dang thing at 1.55v for 4.8 now it run ways smoother. 1.58v under load

 

Newer Intel N5095 with 15w almost perform the same as an fx 8300 in Passmark.

 

Restricting hardware choice like apple do with phone instead of android having 2m phone model. Can improve software performance optimisation and stability.

 

 

[PCSarge]

i still say let at least the first 5 generations intel i3/i5/i7 of CPUs go RIP along with AMDs older models. if you're still on one your waaaay past your upgrade mark and need to actually do it.

 

microsoft is doing this more to force big corperations to upgrade than anything. hell when i worked in LGs warehouse 2 years ago they were still just STARTING to upgrade old core2quad systems with windows XP still running. company upgraded tech adoption is abysmal, doing this forces it upon them if they want OS security.

 

in personal opinion that is of course. i'm not sure if thats the end game but it seems like it

Edited February 14, 2022 by PCSarge

[Snakecharmed]

When I first read this, I was thinking that it was another anti-consumer move by the Windows dev team, but after reading the actual tweet quoted in the article, I don't think there's much to make of this provided that their notifications don't become more obtrusive like the damn Get Windows 10 campaign was on Windows 7. This is a single line of text in system settings, not a desktop notification popup or an activation message in place of your wallpaper.

 

From a software point of view, the challenge is not that far removed from legacy corporations and computer dummies in general who were stuck on Internet Explorer for the longest time preventing web-based software development from evolving. Obviously, CPUs, their instruction sets, chipsets, motherboards, and connected peripherals are drastically different from web browsers in that their technology stack is far less quickly evolving, but they do represent additional tests that QA teams need to run. It becomes a hindrance once you exceed a certain threshold, and in this case, they've chosen the age of the hardware rather than its performance.

 

Not that there was ever any scenario where I would want Windows 11 on my current machine, but it's hard for me to get upset about this considering that I've had my motherboard for a personal best of nearly 11 years. After being okay with Windows updates for several years until one caused a boot problem and forced me to use System Restore, I'm fine with not updating my OS as long as there are no major issues or limitations from not doing so.

[pio]

To everybody saying that businesses and the like need to upgrade, I have a question.  Why would a business NEED to upgrade?  If a Core 2 Duo can do what the business needs the system to do, why would the business want to waste the money, potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands?  I mean most business uses are web based, office based, or other such lite usage.  Why would a business want to waste money when a business is in it to make profit?

Don't get me wrong, where upgrading makes sense by all means upgrade.  

[mouacyk]

Windows has a problem that Linux doesn't have. It is selling uniformity and assurance for plug-and-play, and therefore is limited by how they build their binaries for release.  Too relaxed optimizations and specialized hardware end up sitting idle. Too optimized then low-end/old hardware just can't run it.  Linux offers various levels of optimized binaries, and then the source code.  It would be a support nightmare for Windows to attempt just the first offering.

[Sir Beregond]

7 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

To everybody saying that businesses and the like need to upgrade, I have a question.  Why would a business NEED to upgrade?  If a Core 2 Duo can do what the business needs the system to do, why would the business want to waste the money, potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands?  I mean most business uses are web based, office based, or other such lite usage.  Why would a business want to waste money when a business is in it to make profit?

Don't get me wrong, where upgrading makes sense by all means upgrade.  

It's not about the hardware. Businesses should not be on Windows XP still in 2022. My guess is that's what those C2D and C2Q machines are running.

 

Anyway, at a certain point it does make sense to drop support for stuff that's 15+ years old.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Sir Beregond

[Snakecharmed]

7 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

It's not about the hardware. Businesses should not be on Windows XP still in 2022. My guess is that's what those C2D and C2Q machines are running.

 

Anyway, at a certain point it does make sense to drop support for stuff that's 15+ years old.

 

Our perception of time is subject to recency bias and new developments in instruction sets have plateaued so 15-year-old equipment almost sounds reasonable. Until you realize it isn't.

 

15 years ago in 2022 is 2007. We had Intel Core 2 and AMD Phenom single-threaded, multi-core x64 CPUs. Still kind of usable, if only because of SATA SSDs, even though you'd be limited to 3 Gbps throughput and you can forget about any CPU-intensive performance seeing how meager they've benchmarked in our CPU-Z competition. Either way, not a very good user experience.

 

15 years ago in 2007 is 1992. We had the 486. Not usable in 2007.

 

As an enterprise employee in software development, I get disgusted with companies that choose not to invest in their hardware and software, especially if for some reason they've taken to buying their hardware and software outright instead of leasing it. In 2020, I had to scrounge together three matching 22" 1080p TN monitors from 2006-07 that only had VGA and DVI connections and rather than wait for IT approval, I chose to buy my own HDMI-DVI adapters to make them work with the i7-4790 workstation that was purchased for me in 2015. I also had to have special permission to get a damn SSD installed in that workstation after two consecutive dead hard drives, both of which were already well-used before I got them. That SSD upgrade took close to a month because of IT's knuckledragging, during which time I used my own personal laptop for work.

 

Since 2021, I've had brand new MacBook Pros sent to me prior to day one with two different companies. Point being, I don't believe software companies like Microsoft should go out of their way to support businesses that pinch pennies and don't accept that regular software and hardware updates should be a normal expense of running a business.

 

If on the other hand, we're talking about a mom-and-pop shop that has one PC that also serves as a POS terminal, well, that's up to them, but I also don't think they're remotely concerned about running the latest OS in the first place, so this discussion is entirely moot for them. Hell, they don't even need desktops for that anymore when payment processing and POS is now done in the cloud with SaaS.

 

I'm sure I've lost track of the point since the original article doesn't address the issues that we've brought up since, but much in the same vein as how I've said that any company in any industry that requires software to run needs to operate like a software company, a similar mindset should be in place with regard to the hardware the company uses. That's the cost of business. Deal with it or else enjoy inconveniencing your employees and/or your customers at your own risk.

Edited February 15, 2022 by Snakecharmed

[Diffident]

The hardware that you guys are talking about not being supported by Windows 11 isn't even the problem.  First generation Ryzen isn't supported by Windows 11.  It's not really that "old" when considering it's performance.

 

It's all related to TPM.

[UltraMega]

Yea, it's all about TPM, no doubt. I'm not a security expert but security moving more into hardware is something that's slowly been happening for years. Not defending it, and I think TPM is mostly about DRM rather than security but it's not unique either. GPUs and CPUs all have had DRM hardware for years. You can't stream 4K content on you PC from Netflix without it. 

 

All that aside, Win11 fixed an issue I was having in a game that nothing else fixed so I'm a fan. Still mad I can't move the start bar though. 

 

There really isn't a reason for people to switch from 10 to 11 though, they are 99.9% the same. I don't get the sense that Microsoft is even really marketing it. It's more there just to be ready and available for ARM hardware and that's really it as I see it. I'd love to have a phone that ran Win11 though... I think that's Microsoft's long term plan to get back into the mobile market... to just wait until the hardware catches up to the software and they can put full windows on phones. 

[pio]

You guys do realize that an old school Socket 939 dual core or a Core 2 Duo is just as powerful still today as SOME lower end SKU CPU's such as Atoms and the like right?  Didn't we just all do a CPUz bench off to show similar results to that?    So why are there arbitrary restrictions causing even THOSE machines to stop functioning on modern OS's when they're just as powerful or more than stuff that IS supported?

From a BUSINESS point of view, they're in it to make money.  Period.  Why would they waste thousands of dollars on new equipment every year like Microsoft is basically saying?  Seriously....first gen Ryzen isn't supported.  That's just a few years old, and there's ZERO functionality reasons as to why it shouldn't be allowed on Win11.  There is absolutely no reason for them to cut their backwards compatibility on hardware, period.  That's Window's whole selling point.  I understand not using a single core CPU in 2022, I mean duh lol.  But any dual core ever made SHOULD be capable of running Windows 10 since it allows Celeron dual cores to run.  Windows 11, I could understand maybe dropping dual core CPU support out and keeping quad cores all active, but they're not even doing that.  You have to have what is it, 2nd gen Ryzen or 10th or 11th gen Intel?

But even if a business IS still using Windows XP today in 2022.....so what?  If the machines are offline use machines, or connected to some internal network only kinda deal, I mean there's quite a few reasons why a business would still use old hardware.  Heck, my dad's steel shop still has a few Win98 and XP systems running their machines, and that's only because newer computers CAN'T run their machines without complicated adapters and software work arounds.

[UltraMega]

2 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

You guys do realize that an old school Socket 939 dual core or a Core 2 Duo is just as powerful still today as SOME lower end SKU CPU's such as Atoms and the like right?  Didn't we just all do a CPUz bench off to show similar results to that?    So why are there arbitrary restrictions causing even THOSE machines to stop functioning on modern OS's when they're just as powerful or more than stuff that IS supported?

From a BUSINESS point of view, they're in it to make money.  Period.  Why would they waste thousands of dollars on new equipment every year like Microsoft is basically saying?  Seriously....first gen Ryzen isn't supported.  That's just a few years old, and there's ZERO functionality reasons as to why it shouldn't be allowed on Win11.  There is absolutely no reason for them to cut their backwards compatibility on hardware, period.  That's Window's whole selling point.  I understand not using a single core CPU in 2022, I mean duh lol.  But any dual core ever made SHOULD be capable of running Windows 10 since it allows Celeron dual cores to run.  Windows 11, I could understand maybe dropping dual core CPU support out and keeping quad cores all active, but they're not even doing that.  You have to have what is it, 2nd gen Ryzen or 10th or 11th gen Intel?

But even if a business IS still using Windows XP today in 2022.....so what?  If the machines are offline use machines, or connected to some internal network only kinda deal, I mean there's quite a few reasons why a business would still use old hardware.  Heck, my dad's steel shop still has a few Win98 and XP systems running their machines, and that's only because newer computers CAN'T run their machines without complicated adapters and software work arounds.

Older CPUs don't support newer instruction sets that newer software relies on. Even if the OS would run, lots of software wouldn't. 

[pio]

16 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

Older CPUs don't support newer instruction sets that newer software relies on. Even if the OS would run, lots of software wouldn't. 

Of course, I understand that.   But take for example the Socket 939, this is a problem I ran into recently actually.  32bit Windows 10 works perfectly fine on a Socket 939 dual core.  Runs great with a SSD in the system.  Seriously, just as good or faster than my son's Celery dual core laptop (10th gen).  But 64bit Windows 10, there's some instruction set its missing.  Obviously its not a core function of the OS otherwise 32bit wouldn't work too.  That's all I'm getting at, is that it almost seems as if SOME of these limitations are arbitrary and mostly just to coax people into upgrading hardware.

 

By all means if you're browsing the internet in 2022, have a quad core, SSD, and at least 8GB of RAM.  That's generally a pretty safe "bare minimum" requirement today with how multi-threaded everything is.  But they're still releasing dual cores (or were recently anyway).  If older systems are just as capable hardware wise, just old, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work with a modern OS.  So why would Microsoft "warn users" if their hardware is old?  Just seems like adding extra bloat into the OS that really doesn't need to be there, and disabling of systems that really don't NEED to be disabled.

Edited February 16, 2022 by pioneerisloud

[UltraMega]

9 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Of course, I understand that.   But take for example the Socket 939, this is a problem I ran into recently actually.  32bit Windows 10 works perfectly fine on a Socket 939 dual core.  Runs great with a SSD in the system.  Seriously, just as good or faster than my son's Celery dual core laptop (10th gen).  But 64bit Windows 10, there's some instruction set its missing.  Obviously its not a core function of the OS otherwise 32bit wouldn't work too.  That's all I'm getting at, is that it almost seems as if SOME of these limitations are arbitrary and mostly just to coax people into upgrading hardware.

 

By all means if you're browsing the internet in 2022, have a quad core, SSD, and at least 8GB of RAM.  That's generally a pretty safe "bare minimum" requirement today with how multi-threaded everything is.  But they're still releasing dual cores (or were recently anyway).  If older systems are just as capable hardware wise, just old, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work with a modern OS.  So why would Microsoft "warn users" if their hardware is old?  Just seems like adding extra bloat into the OS that really doesn't need to be there, and disabling of systems that really don't NEED to be disabled.

Are you sure the CPU you're using is a 64 bit CPU? Not all CPUs back then were IIRC. 

[pio]

1 minute ago, UltraMega said:

Are you sure the CPU you're using is a 64 bit CPU? Not all CPUs back then were IIRC. 

Yup, its right in the name of it.  Athlon64 x2.  

 

It was "CMPXCHG16b".  Whatever that was is the reason why in that particular case.  Some people claim Win10 x64 works but you need a USB 2.0 flash drive or use the ODD to install with.  I'm not sure, I wasn't able to get it to work at all.  But again, was just an example.  My 939 dual core is more powerful than a 10th gen Celeron is.  If I'm not using apps that require the missing instructions, there's no reason it shouldn't install the OS at least.  At least IMO anyway.

[UltraMega]

6 minutes ago, pioneerisloud said:

Yup, its right in the name of it.  Athlon64 x2.  

 

It was "CMPXCHG16b".  Whatever that was is the reason why in that particular case.  Some people claim Win10 x64 works but you need a USB 2.0 flash drive or use the ODD to install with.  I'm not sure, I wasn't able to get it to work at all.  But again, was just an example.  My 939 dual core is more powerful than a 10th gen Celeron is.  If I'm not using apps that require the missing instructions, there's no reason it shouldn't install the OS at least.  At least IMO anyway.

It might be more powerful in raw horsepower, but there are instruction sets it lacks that would make a massive difference and on hardware that old, it's probably not hard to find those situations. Most things using newer instruction sets would still run better on the newer hardware even if it's really weak low end hardware. 

 

In anycase, I don't fault MS for having the hardware cut offs they do. The only one that seems questionably is the win11 TPM thing but since win10 is still good until 2025 and win11 offers no real benefits anyway, I see it as a non-issue. You're probably one of few people who would complain about not being able to run newer OSes on hardware that old haha. I'm sure they could reach further back with support if they wanted to but it also makes sense to have a bottom line so devs don't have to write programs for ancient hardware all the time. 

Edited February 16, 2022 by UltraMega

[pio]

22 minutes ago, UltraMega said:

It might be more powerful in raw horsepower, but there are instruction sets it lacks that would make a massive difference and on hardware that old, it's probably not hard to find those situations. Most things using newer instruction sets would still run better on the newer hardware even if it's really weak low end hardware. 

 

In anycase, I don't fault MS for having the hardware cut offs they do. The only one that seems questionably is the win11 TPM thing but since win10 is still good until 2025 and win11 offers no real benefits anyway, I see it as a non-issue. You're probably one of few people who would complain about not being able to run newer OSes on hardware that old haha. I'm sure they could reach further back with support if they wanted to but it also makes sense to have a bottom line so devs don't have to write programs for ancient hardware all the time. 

You'd be surprised how many people run older gear sometimes.

 

And nah, I understand that there's certain things older stuff just can't do.  But in this particular instance, we're talking about even first gen Ryzen and older i5's and i7's that are still absolutely capable today.  Even the FX 8 cores aged quite well and keep right up there with Haswell i5's and i7's now.  I completely understand that Socket 939 is ancient.  But the stuff that they're knocking out with Windows 11 really isn't.  Believe it or not, a LOT of people are still on Sandy Bridge and FX era equipment still and happy with it and the cutoff for "proper" hardware on 11 is much MUCH newer than either of those.

I was just arguing, to a certain extent, that honestly ANY quad core CPU, even a Q6600 or Phenom 9850 SHOULD have absolutely zero problems doing "daily tasks".  Even instructions sets, most of the missing instructions are app specific anyway on Windows 10 (anything that'd be a bother).  What I mean is, if you're missing instruction sets you need, you already know you're missing them.  RDR2 and Crysis Remastered for example won't launch on older CPU's.  But yet I can run my Phenom 9850 and Q9550 rigs on Win10 just fine.  There's nothing really different under the hood for Win11, so why can't they run 11 too?

 

EDIT:
Talking history a little.  Windows XP for example came out in 2002.  10 years prior, in 1992, what did we have?  386 or 486 CPU's right?  You can install XP to those.  Works fine.  Slow, yes.  But works.  Vista, you can install on a Pentium 2, that was a 10 year difference too.  Again, I wouldn't do it but you can.  There's no reason to be cutting off hardware, especially stuff that absolutely is more than capable to run the OS.

Edited February 16, 2022 by pioneerisloud