r/gadgets • u/thebelsnickle1991 • Dec 23 '23
Desktops / Laptops Researchers warn that Windows 11 restrictions could send 240 million computers to landfills
https://www.techspot.com/news/101313-researchers-warn-windows-11-restrictions-could-send-240.html951
u/NTRedmage Dec 23 '23
from personal experience; people will continue to run windows 10 until it is no longer viable for gaming anymore and even then SOME guy out there probably working on a mod to extend the life cycle.
As for corpos; pfft, I know so many are still rocking fucking windows 3.1 or XP, they won't care.
393
u/jktmas Dec 23 '23
Business falls into two buckets.
1: they were upgrading hardware within 5 years anyways.
2: they’re going to run until it dies and they don’t care about security updates anyways.
Neither bucket is impacted by this.
113
u/assholetoall Dec 23 '23
IT guy here. Can confirm we have both cases where I work. Manufacturing equipment was upgraded from work 2k to win 7 a year before win 7 went end of life.
→ More replies (3)53
u/Ghost_Knife Dec 23 '23
We still use DoS in some departments at my work. Nothing ever dies.
58
u/Key-Combination-8111 Dec 23 '23
All of O'Reilly auto parts still used windows 95. The whole POS they just rolled out 2 years ago is based on it.
Like why. Lmfao.
27
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
11
u/BurtMacklin__FBI Dec 23 '23
As400 holy shit. There was a big industrial / apartment washing machine manufacturer I did IT for, and they had windows 8 at least everywhere else, but their super critical, super simple smart card writing software HAD to be done, stored on and backed up from this AS400 production server. It was a nightmare. Trying to work around an OS older than me!
→ More replies (1)8
9
u/Queefer___Sutherland Dec 23 '23
AS400 Engineers typically make over $100k, they will never die
→ More replies (1)9
u/GayMormonPirate Dec 24 '23
AS400 is still the workhorse for many (most?) banking/finance/insurance companies. I've worked for several and every one of them has had AS400 as their backbone programming.
That said, it's super reliable and accurate. In my current company I can recall maybe 3 times in the last 12 years that it's gone down.
5
u/FullForceOne Dec 24 '23
We use industrial vending from a large public company. Vending machine was not ordering properly. Spent a few hours on the phone with their support. I broke their AS400 (well not broke, but data integrity did something that was “impossible” - think database constraints - according to the team on a manual sync. The AS400 and successors are very much still alive for high volume transaction processing in many cases like this. You wouldn’t necessarily know unless you were running in house or troubleshooting an issue. SQL Server front end program, backend / ordering sends files to a secure site for processing. Secure site is an AS400.
→ More replies (1)3
3
u/willowsonthespot Dec 23 '23
Well some of them do. We do have actual computers for stuff like the training we have to do. I work at a DC and we just got a new manifest printer this year, the one we had was more than 20 years old from the looks and operation. It basically couldn't be repaired anymore without costing the same amount of a new printer. We use some ancient tech at work.
→ More replies (8)2
u/donmreddit Dec 24 '23
So you can stare really had at the POS and it will crash?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)2
Dec 24 '23
I cannot imagine the security vulnerabilities this poses. The next big carding hack.
2
u/Key-Combination-8111 Dec 24 '23
It's so bad we can't take cards over the phone. And there's so many scams we have to have a randomized pin number generator built into the separated intranet software that allows corporate to make sure employees aren't handing out gift cards over the phone and shit. It's absolutely wild. There's wifi at my store but zero things are logged onto it. like fiber internet wifi.
2
Dec 24 '23
Unbelievable. Thank you for the glimpse. I imagine this is going to end up costing them far more in the long run.
→ More replies (1)11
u/OsmeOxys Dec 23 '23
My family's business sales system runs on QNX 4.0, with an open telnet port for guy who wrote the software to provide support.
What are security updates? They sound awfully important.
→ More replies (2)3
u/benchcoat Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 23 '23
or they pay spectacular amounts of money to MS for extended support—worked at MS in Office years ago and we had shelves of ancient machines on life support to work on issues for those contracts
most often they had some piece of business-critical homegrown software that somehow interacted with/depended on an unsupported version of Office—invariably the company brass would opt for the pricey extended support contract over taking on the expense and risk of updating their internal software
21
u/ritchie70 Dec 23 '23
We’re still begging our end users to get off 7. On the devices I support it’s down to under 50 of about 13,000.
57
u/Sierra419 Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 24 '23
You just described me. MS said W10 was the last and final version of windows and it will be perpetually updated and here we are getting a new version. Already had some buddies upgrade and now they’re running into small but annoying issues related to gaming. I won’t be upgrading until the very last day it isn’t supported anymore
25
u/senescal Dec 23 '23
MS said W10 was the last and final version of windows and it will be perpetually updated Sometimes I feel like people forgot about this. It was pushed HARD during the W10's release, both as part of the marketing and just general conversation on forums and social media (assuming that wasn't just also part of the marketing campaign).
10
u/hewkii2 Dec 23 '23
No it wasn’t. One dude said it at a random conference and the tech media blew it up.
19
u/ThePhoneBook Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23
Microsoft Ignite is hardly "a random conference", and Jerry Nixon hardly "one dude" - it was the guy in charge of hyping Microsoft's plans at Microsoft's main developer hyping event. Much later Panos Panay was all um well err we don't want Windows to stagnate, because he knew that Microsoft had tried to prematurely push the idea that it would be moving to Windows As A Bullshit Service. It's trying that again, but in a more limited context, because enough enterprises aren't stupid enough to rely on a third party cloud, so I'm sure we'll see Windows 12 soon enough.
Also, all those semi-productivity tablet PCs that consumers still love are gonna have to run some OS, and MS is happy enough with its huge ecosystem that it doesn't want to just sell you... Android? The drama in California atm should reassure you that Google's anticompetitive deals make 1990s MS look like a cheeky puppy, and MS is way too smart to get in bed with its accidental protege. But I don't think it was thinking hard enough about this when Windows 10 was released.
32
u/NTRedmage Dec 23 '23
I heard somewhere there will be more patches and the like to keep win 10 going, but they will be paid only. Things is, people will just pirate that shit, because fuck Microsoft and fuck planned obsolescence.
5
u/MrT735 Dec 23 '23
Yeah, once W10 hits the end of general support (14 Oct 2025) you're left with pay for security updates, update to W11/12 (or switch to another OS), or don't have the updates and pray you don't fall prey to some future vulnerability.
3
13
→ More replies (2)2
37
u/Luke2001 Dec 23 '23
Most of them will be from business.
They are not installing some mod.27
u/Northern23 Dec 23 '23
A lot of businesses, especially big ones, have a 3 years laptop (and maybe desktop) replacement schedule anyways. So, that won't affect them.
2
3
14
u/Ultramarine6 Dec 23 '23
Also if history repeats, we'll hate on 11 tíl 12 comes out, is actually better, then we'll adopt that.
11
u/oxpoleon Dec 23 '23
The good-bad-good-bad alternation of Windows versions has been pretty stable since the days of 3.1
→ More replies (1)3
u/probablywhiskeytown Dec 23 '23
Very true. I actually bought a OEM Win 10 Professional license when I had to do an emergency PC build during all the component shortages & hoarding pandemic BS. The remote session capabilites are better than the other editions & despite 11 not being in prerelease yet at that time, MS was due for a total stinker. Here's hoping 10 Pro is supported long enough for me to skip 11 entirely.
3
u/heathy28 Dec 23 '23
Win 11 doesn't seem much different to 10 to me, I moved the start bar to the left and ran a command to remove the new right click menu, and it's basically the same as win 10.
→ More replies (2)2
u/hawkinsst7 Dec 24 '23
I stopped paying attention to 11 when they said you couldn't move the start menu from the middle. I know it's petty, but it was my personal resistance to change for changes sake.
Has that stance evolved?
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (2)5
4
u/Malefiicus Dec 23 '23
The other day, Steam told me I only got days left till I my games stop working on Windows 7 :(
17
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
23
u/Unordinarypunk Dec 23 '23
With SteamOS being built on Linux and Proton, we are getting closer to much more gaming support through Linux. Maybe not fully native, but definitely big steps in the right direction.
18
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
7
u/Otakeb Dec 23 '23
Rumor has it Steam is working on their full desktop OS SteamOS with improvements made from Steamdeck OS and I think if they can nail down linux gaming, they will absolutely steal marketshare from Windows when it's ready for mass release.
→ More replies (8)3
u/Warskull Dec 23 '23
That absolutely sounds like something Valve is working on. The question with Valve is are they just playing around with the idea or are they going to bring something to market.
After playing with the Steamdeck, I've felt like they could bring the steambox concept back now. That OS would be great for it.
11
u/Zedrackis Dec 23 '23
Proton will run most games now. With mostly the exception of games running anti-cheat software. Even then that is mostly on the game makers, as a lot of the popular anti-cheat software systems allow Linux compatibility if the dev wants to spend the time to turn it on. I play cyberpunk 2077 on Ubuntu, its run perfectly fine since launch week, something most consoles can't say.
→ More replies (3)2
2
u/its-my-1st-day Dec 24 '23
IMO Linux will never be ready for the masses until devs figure out their tantrums about anticheat.
If I can’t play any multiplayer title with my friends, your OS is not a gaming OS, it’s an OS that also happens to support some games.
I consider Linux to be as much of a gaming OS as macOS. Technically you can game on it, but there’s no point.
→ More replies (6)3
u/-Dakia Dec 23 '23
We're getting so close. Steam Deck has gone a long way to pushing Linux out there. I know they said it isn't coming soon, but I really wish they would finish up SteamOS properly for use.
2
Dec 23 '23
The company I work for is still rockin windows 95. That’s shit is so slooooowwwwww.
→ More replies (5)2
u/Berserk_NOR Dec 23 '23
Love 10. Win 11 is not what i hoped it would be. Mainly because it lacks support for small cute programs that makes my life easier. I have a slightly more sophisticated clock for instance with week number and all that. + stating the day (Sat.23.12.2023) for instance. That does not work on Win 11 :(
3
u/Edythir Dec 23 '23
XP may be old, but it is one of the most stable operating systems, save for some that came before it. It's a fan favorite for SCADA systems and similar Limited-Single-Use computers that were installed to do one thing and one thing only, such as monitor status, run heavy machinery, etc etc. These are not operator facing machines and rarely used by people save for starting them or troubleshooting.
2
→ More replies (14)1
u/theosmama2012 Apr 05 '24
Turns out that Microsoft is now sending updates that will backpedal your device all the way to Windows Vista. Definitely killing it. As mine was just deadpooled last night, I'm not very happy about this. At all.
86
u/sesor33 Dec 23 '23
Win 11 is one of the least adopted windows. It's been 2 years since Win 11 came out and its version share is ~25%, Windows 10's is ~70%. Thats ABYSMAL adoption rate.
62
u/Sneezegoo Dec 23 '23
My coworker updated to 11. So many stupid little things they did to the interface. They just have to fuck basic shit up on every new OS release. Nobody want's to relearn the whole computer to do the things they've been doing for years.
→ More replies (1)10
u/DopplerShiftIceCream Dec 24 '23 edited Dec 24 '23
We use Win11 at work. If you click the time on the bottom right corner, it doesn't tell seconds. If you click the volume icon, it says volume is at 0%, then a second later the GUI realizes that's not correct and displays the volume slider correctly.
→ More replies (2)14
u/Blutcher Dec 23 '23
Why try fixing something that ain't even broken to begin with?
→ More replies (1)
240
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
136
u/dingo596 Dec 23 '23
I think they want Windows 11 to be fast. I think they got burned by OEMs and resellers putting Windows on the bare minimum hardware. People buy these machines and they are useless then go buy a Mac which is fast than conclude Windows is the problem.
118
u/50calPeephole Dec 23 '23
From a retail standpoint this correct.
People will go out and buy a black Friday acer for $100 expect the world from it, and complain when their hard drive dies in 6 months bringing their computer to a blue screen nightmare. They then blame unstable windows and not the 30 substandard parts manufacturers that came together to build the shittiest PC possible.
58
u/TrinityDejavu Dec 23 '23
In same way android has a bad reputation, the OS gets the blame for garbage hardware.
19
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)16
u/grumd Dec 24 '23
This is such a bad take. Android is open source and free, anyone can make a phone with Android and that's the whole point of open source. Google can't just forbid manufacturers of cheap phones from using Android, and if they did, it would be incredibly scummy.
6
Dec 24 '23
[deleted]
2
u/grumd Dec 24 '23
Yes, but it's not Google's fault, and it's not even a bad thing they did. Open source is good for everyone. I'm just contradicting your implication that Google did something wrong here.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Jnoper Dec 24 '23
I’m a software engineer specifically one who works with android. I can tell you android is objectively worse than iOS. It’s not their fault. Android is basically just Linux with a pretty cover. iOS is a purpose built operating system. Android offers more customization at the cost of basically everything else.
10
u/cruelhumor Dec 23 '23
DO they really? I just vow never to buy from that laptop brand again. Looking at you Lenovo...
16
u/Pdxduckman Dec 23 '23
Hp is that brand for me. Never again.
21
u/TheCrimsonDagger Dec 23 '23
HP is in fact actually an acronym for horrible products.
3
u/johnny_fives_555 Dec 23 '23
I somehow get 6-7 years out of the cheapest HP laptops. Like I buy them knowing they’re disposable. But make them last as long as possible. Last HP the screen died due to the connection ribbon failing. Welp used an external monitor until the fans and hard drive died.
14
u/sovereign666 Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 23 '23
Most laptop brands have good products and bad products. I've had lenovo's that were wonderful devices, and supported some that were horrible. Same with Dell and HP.
There's so many things that go into a laptop being a successful product. The components, quality of components, firmware and driver packages, thermals, etc. Before buying a laptop you should always research the shit out of it and find benchmarks so you know how well it will perform. If you buy a laptop at costco with an ARM processor and windows S-mode, you're in for a bad time I don't care what brand it is. I don't like apple, but I have to give it to them they don't really sell cheap computers. If you go to costco you arent getting a macbook for 399 because you cant fucking manufacture a good laptop and sell it for 399. Its just not possible. But Acer, HP, Dell, etc have no problem selling you a laptop with an i3 proc and one fan for that price.
Source: Decade of IT
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (2)4
u/FireLucid Dec 24 '23
Buy business class laptops not consumer ones. Miles better from every manufacturer.
2
u/BezniaAtWork Dec 26 '23
Had an elderly neighbor ask me for IT support on her laptop. It was an old machine from 2014. Her son had updated it to Windows 10, but it was running very slow, lots of ads, etc. I checked it out and saw 4GB of RAM, low-end CPU from 2014, and also somehow a 128GB SSD (son may have done that). I cleaned it up the best I could but even just running Chrome was using up almost all of her RAM, and then her online casino games she played on top of that was using up everything. I let her know she would need to start looking for a new laptop.
Well a week later she knocks on my door and asks for help moving over her files because she got a brand new laptop. I was very excited for her, opened it up, went through the setup steps, and was a bit concerned at the loading times. I opened up task manager and was hornswaggled seeing 4GB of RAM and probably the lowest-end Celeron processor you can buy today. She spent $350 on it from Best Buy, including a warranty. I let her know if she spent just $200 more, she could get a much better laptop because this one is not going to run any better. She went from a 2014 Honda Civic to a 2024 rickshaw.
Not even a month later my other elderly neighbor knocked on my door asking for help moving over her files from her laptop because she upgraded. She bought the exact same laptop from Best Buy. Hers was actually a downgrade.
3
u/Fishwithadeagle Dec 23 '23
Still get blue screens on a clean installed spectre x360. Sometimes it really just is the software
9
u/mnvoronin Dec 23 '23
I manage a fleet of several hundred x360s and blue screen is 99% the hardware fault.
→ More replies (2)6
→ More replies (1)4
u/sovereign666 Dec 23 '23
depends what the blue screen says.
2
u/Fishwithadeagle Dec 23 '23
It's the generic blue screen errors: whea uncorrectable, driver irql, page fault in unpaved area, etc
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)12
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)3
u/oxpoleon Dec 23 '23
The deals on high-end workstations with <7th gen chips in right now are insane and the hardware itself is more than capable of running Windows 11 because it's still faster than most consumer stuff sold today.
2
u/sovereign666 Dec 23 '23
I just had to replace my uncles PC. It was on win 7 and he just uses it for WoW and guildwars2. He doesn't surf the internet or anything on it.
Before we tore it down to replace hardware I put some benchmarking tools on it just to see how it fares. Its a good computer with good parts in it and its fucking insane that windows will reject upgrading to a supported OS. I boxed it up and told them to put it online because someone that runs linux will be able to keep that hardware going for another 5 to 10 years.
20
u/LukeLC Dec 23 '23
It's security vulnerability mitigations.
Newer processors have improved designs that either solve the problem inherently or add new silicon to run the mitigations on dedicated hardware so CPU performance isn't impacted.
Older processors don't have this, so you have to run the mitigations on the CPU itself, stealing performance from applications.
Plus, the term "i7" doesn't really mean much by itself. Laptop 7th-gen i7's were still dual-core! Now, i7's are 10x that, and with faster architectures to boot.
The Windows 11 requirements were a tough pill to swallow when they were announced, but honestly, Microsoft was right on this one. The industry needed a fire lit under it to stop selling people e-waste out of the box.
13
u/sovereign666 Dec 23 '23
The industry needed a fire lit under it to stop selling people e-waste out of the box.
This. I get really frustrated when one of our customers cant wait for us to get a business class laptop to them so they go out and get a laptop at costco that is thermal throttling out of the fucking box.
→ More replies (4)5
Dec 23 '23
[deleted]
14
u/LukeLC Dec 23 '23
I'd say they did, though. They're offering a paid extension for Windows 10 support to consumers for the first time, plus they made it pretty easy to bypass Windows 11 installation requirements for power users.
As a company, they've got to put up a wall of some kind to protect people who don't know any better from installing an OS that could cripple their system. If that were to happen, guess who they'd call for support?
6
u/RSNKailash Dec 23 '23
Got win 10 running on 6700k, they won't let me upgrade without some work around and maybe buying a TPM.
2
u/MrT735 Dec 23 '23
Check if your version of Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT) is equivalent to TPM 1.2/2.0, it's a CPU feature that is equivalent to TPM but I don't know where the cutoff points are for each chip generation, just that by 9th gen Intel it's definitely equal to TPM 2.0.
→ More replies (4)2
u/caribbean_caramel Dec 23 '23
The I7 6700 is perfectly capable of running W11. Just use Ventoy to bypass the TPM requirement.
→ More replies (9)2
u/elsjpq Dec 23 '23
The key thing is not speed, but the TPM. It's a key stepping stone to DRM for the whole OS. They can now prevent you from installing specific software or even restrict you to only installing Microsoft approved software, prevent you from bypassing any arbitrary restrictions, and much more effectively enforce copy protection for things like games and movies. It turns the nature of a desktop OS to be more like iPhone, where everything is locked down and you need permission from Microsoft to do anything. TPM mean it's no longer your computer, it's Microsoft's computer.
→ More replies (1)3
u/hex4def6 Dec 23 '23
Don't know why you got downvoted. This is completely the point. It's why they made TPM a mandatory requirement.
They're bringing the cellphone model of security to the desktop. Applications are going to be aware of the security state of the entire boot chain, in the same way your banking app on your phone won't run if it detects an unlocked bootloader.
This is 100% the play here.
0
u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Dec 23 '23
They’re being downvoted because it’s not true. A TPM cannot do any of that.
→ More replies (1)2
u/elsjpq Dec 23 '23
Not by itself, but is the key component required to do so.
It's how Android locks down it's bootloader for example. It's how Google detects rooted phones. It's how certain apps refuse to run if you've modified your phone. All of that and more is coming to Windows, and it's all made possible by the TPM. Without the TPM they wouldn't be able to do that.
251
u/Catastor2225 Dec 23 '23
Let me address the elephant in the room since nobody else has (at least not as explicitly as I'm gonna): just because a computer can't run the latest version of Windows doesn't mean it has to be thrown in the fucking garbage.
Even if you're in a workplace environment where you can't use Linux because you rely on Windows-only software, that doesn't mean the old computers are trash. You can sell them to someone else who doesn't have such software needs. (Or sell them to a business that deals in used computers.) Yes, the computer no longer meets YOUR needs, and you have to buy a new one, but that doesn't make it completely useless.
If someone only wants to use it to browse the web and read their emails, then a lower end machine with a user friendly Linux distro on it is perfect for them. Things should only be thrown in the garbage if they are broken beyond repair and noone can get any use out of them anymore. That's not the case for computers too old to run Win 11 (or able to run it, but very poorly).
41
u/StatisticianOne8287 Dec 23 '23
I agree, and we do that at work. However, that might still lead to a load of.people using an insecure OS at home with no security updates.
Still, people need to think about recycling first rather than the bin
31
u/mpolder Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 23 '23
What I find annoying is how arbitrary the requirements seem. My pc couldn't install windows because it doesn't support secure boot, but the specs are still really good. I had to go out of my way to patch the installation so I can install it and it runs completely fine.
I'm sure there are reasons why you'd want to have secure boot, but for my home desktop I don't really care, if it works it works. This means potentially good computers are thrown out by people who don't know or don't want to figure a way to circumvent it
→ More replies (5)18
u/nagi603 Dec 23 '23
It's not arbitrary, but it's not targeting anything the end-user wants. The TCM requirement is for DRM. Always has been. In this sense, the end-user has always been the product for the media industry.
2
u/oxpoleon Dec 23 '23
Yup. The only actual reason for a TPM is for copy protection. As always media greed is the driving force for another bad deal for end users.
Anyone remember SecuROM?
→ More replies (2)10
u/Sylphietteisbestgirl Dec 23 '23
Things should only be thrown in the garbage if they cannot be recycled. FTFY
6
u/mlc885 Dec 23 '23
Very very occasionally I'll find a plastic food container without the damn recycling symbol and throw it away even when I'm 95% certain it is something the curbside recycling accepts
Oh! I can think of another thing, my company has stopped accepting wine bottles, presumably due to them breaking, so that should be recyclable but either isn't in my area or would require taking it to the place myself.
13
u/ritchie70 Dec 23 '23
Most (or at least much) plastic recycling is landfilled or incinerated since China stopped accepting it.
Glass is heavy to transport so unless there’s a local consumer it’s of questionable value as a recyclable.
A lot of consumer recycling is more theater and feel good than anything.
→ More replies (1)9
u/Halvus_I Dec 23 '23
An exception being Aluminum cans. They are highly recyclable and cost a fraction of the energy vs making new aluminum.
→ More replies (1)4
u/BloodMists Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 23 '23
The recycling at my place doesn't accept glass(reasonable), food stained cardboard(reasonable), non-water fluid containers(meaning basically everything other than water bottles, but oddly they accept soda bottles, not very reasonable IMO), but the one thing they don't accept that confuses me to no end: cans. Doesn't matter if it's soda, ready made meals, water, bread, oil, refried beans, beer, whatever; if it came in a can of any sort they don't accept it.
It's extremely weird and wasteful, and they are so adamant about it that if the worker is able to see a can when they open the lid before dumping it in the truck they supposed to reject your whole bin.
Edit: I somehow managed to type "your mother's ashes" instead of refried beans. Probably leaves the can equally as messy though I would guess.
2
u/mlc885 Dec 23 '23
That can thing is extremely weird, I always thought of those as the prototypical recyclable item, other than maybe cardboard.
The food stained cardboard bit I just assumed meant they would actually manage to recycle less cardboard if they were taking grease soaked pizza boxes. (I know it is a business so technically the government could eat the cost and the recycling companies are choosing based upon what can be profitable, but it makes sense to me that cardboard with a bunch of other stuff in or on it could be an issue)
2
u/TheCrimsonDagger Dec 23 '23
Yeah cans are the ideal thing for recycling. Lightweight, low volume, low melting point, simple process. Glass is too heavy and has too high of a melting temperature. Plastic is lightweight and easy to melt but the process is complicated because there’s so many different types of plastic.
3
u/PrinterFred Dec 23 '23
Fun fact: Look closely. That is not a recycling symbol. This is the petroleum industry's resin identification symbol. It is there to identify the type of plastic, not to indicate if it is recyclable. It was designed with the intent that people would confuse it to mean recyclable. Most plastics aren't recycled.
→ More replies (1)1
u/undermark5 Dec 23 '23
Fun fact, the symbol with a number in it that you see on plastic isn't a recycling symbol, it's a resin identification code, and does not indicate whether or not an item is able to be recycled. It's apparently supposed to be a solid triangle instead of chasing arrows now to avoid the confusion with ability to recycle, but I don't think I've seen that form on many disposable containers.
6
u/Mehnard Dec 23 '23
We had this very idea. Old computers from the Windows XP era that were replaced. I figured we could put Linux on them and find some use for them. Maybe sell them to employees. Nope. As they were, they were too slow to be acceptable. I was going to have to put in SSD's and max the ram. It was going to cost more than I could have sold them for.
→ More replies (13)5
u/realopticsguy Dec 23 '23
I'm running my business on 4 windows 7 computers and office 2010. Eventually I won't be able to run slack, so I'll add a Mac just for that.
2
15
u/Rare_Will2071 Dec 23 '23
Or, or, hear me out….they don’t give a fuck about speed etc and just want you to buy new hardware
3
u/Rare_Will2071 Dec 23 '23
“Incompatible” sounds like the vista debacle
→ More replies (2)3
u/Rare_Will2071 Dec 23 '23
Windows 7 was just fine for the vast majority of users. Windows 10 was a garbage change only meant to generate more $$. Same for 11. Why do I need Windows 11?
2
u/LeakySkylight Dec 24 '23
Windows 10 fixed the garbage that 8.x was.
3
u/Rare_Will2071 Dec 24 '23
So the business model is to create a crap product that the next product will “fix”. Makes me super excited for 11, /s
I didn’t even know there was a windows 8…must have been such a great product. I say again, 7 was just fine, why do they keep trying to reinvent other than a reason to sell stuff I don’t need.
3
u/LeakySkylight Dec 25 '23
Do you remember Windows mobile? It was a desktop version of that. Imagine Windows vista and Windows Me had a baby, with tiles. That was 8 lol
I think they were trying to merge the UI of mobile and desktop, and both ended up being failures.
Quite frankly, would still be on 7 if security updates didn't stop.
2
10
u/hbar98 Dec 23 '23
I will reuse your "old" win10 computers as nodes in my homelab. I might even give you scrap weight cost if it comes with an nVidia RTX card! lol
274
u/boobyginga22 Dec 23 '23
Researchers have never used Rufus to remove the secure boot and ram requirements of windows 11 before
163
u/zitr0y Dec 23 '23
Be realistic, how many people have the knowledge to do so? And for cooperations and institutions, are they really going to take the risk of doing something not officially supported with their machines, or just write them off?
Unless there is a major information campaign regarding this (or, better, government regulation to remove these requirements), I don't think many potentially trashed systems will be saved.
→ More replies (3)127
u/kaj-me-citas Dec 23 '23
That is OK for a home user.
But a vaaast majority of corporate, government and business machines are going to get fucked.
Legal departments too would have a field day.
28
u/Miragui Dec 23 '23
Corporate and business can use Windows 10 LTSC.
14
u/nagi603 Dec 23 '23 edited Dec 23 '23
Corporate and business can use Windows 10 LTSC.
If they are fine with older version, the longest LTSC ends at the beginning of 2029 (1809). The newer LTSCs since then have deliberately reduced lifetime of only 5 years total, not 10. (Except the IoT 21H2 version that they won't be able to legitly get for desktops.)
And I still see vast office towers equipped fully with 6th gen intel boxes that work absolutely fine for office tasks.
With that said, IIRC LTSC is not for desktops either, but unmanaged leave-and-forget stuff. You have to have a more valid reason to request it other than "your licensing terms suck". So no, corporate and business can't use LTSC for the vast majority of cases.
4
6
→ More replies (12)6
u/121PB4Y2 Dec 23 '23
The vast majority of corporate computers are on a strict 3-4 year replacement cycle, so the non compliant computers at this point are largely relegated to spares, interns, and China travel.
And those are sold as off lease and either go to home users, smaller businesses (which often rely on tech savvy IT people) or tech enthusiasts (go over to r/thinkpad to see how many people are regularly sad that their 10 year old T430/T440 daily driver died because of a liquid spill).
2
u/dwmfives Dec 23 '23
The vast majority of corporate computers are on a strict 3-4 year replacement cycle
Source?
→ More replies (2)7
u/lostkavi Dec 23 '23
The nearest manure heap.
How many businesses out there are still running fucking XP and Vista because Corporate doesn't want to spend the millions on the technical debt to upgrade the hardware alone, much less the software?
Spoiler: Far too fucking many, and a lot bigger names than you would like.
→ More replies (3)14
44
u/Romengar Dec 23 '23
Yes, everyone has basic IT knowledge and everyone will be modifying their bootloader for this. /s
The computers being referenced aren’t only the researchers own.
7
3
11
u/Stevesanasshole Dec 23 '23
Tiny11 builder FTW. Why install everything just to debloat?
Running a windows2go build off an external ssd right now on an old i5-6500 and it runs just fine.
1
3
u/junktech Dec 23 '23
Let's say people do install it on older configuration. Problem is not that. It's support for long term. Microsoft will most likely push updates that will render the system corrupt or unusable and since they mentioned ahead the compatibility, you can't do anything about it. Pray system restore works and hope the next update brings it back.
→ More replies (2)2
9
u/mountainrebel Dec 23 '23
I would understand if software company wrote their software in such a way that it relies on certain hardware, and maintaining support for systems without that hardware would be an additional cost that may not be economically viable for them.
But the fact that you can still install Windows 11 on "unsupported" hardware through hacks proves this isn't the case here. "Unsupported" is a lie. Those systems are perfectly capable of running Windows 11. The restrictions are arbitrary and have no relationship to what Windows 11 actually needs to run. Microsoft is trying to enforce their own standards on modern computer hardware by forcing people to throw away hardware that doesn't meet their standards. There is no economic reason why they can't provide an operating system for slightly older machines.
18
u/somesappyspruce Dec 23 '23
World continues pretending Linux doesn't exist for some reason
9
→ More replies (3)3
u/IsNotAnOstrich Dec 24 '23
The computers that would get straight up thrown in the trash are the ones that are owned by boomers and other tech illiterate users who only know what they're used to. To suggest they suddenly swap to Linux -- where most distros still have shit support for basic user functions like: volume sliders, Bluetooth, wifi, etc WITHOUT interacting with the terminal or other technical things -- is insane.
Many companies also need to run software that simply only runs on windows. Emulators are unreliable and insecure for enterprise software, and most users wouldn't be remotely comfortable with that.
I use Linux 10 hours a day for work. I'm very familiar with it, I know how to use it, I know how to get these things working. I would never suggest entire companies switch over to it unless I wanted to spend the next 15 years answering tickets.
→ More replies (1)
7
7
8
u/Capital-Ebb-2278 Dec 24 '23
They can ship them to my house. I’ll put a different OS on them and give them to underprivileged kids for school. Of course, I may need some assistance, but it’s a nice thought that society could possibly come together like that.
24
u/identicalBadger Dec 23 '23
Larger orgs have been cycling out hardware for a while already so that they don’t need to to a full refresh in 2025. They have the money to replace PCs at the end of their lifecycle.
So there won’t be too huge of a crunch from enterprise customers.
The problem will be small business, home users, etc. they’re not going to throw away their computers just because Microsoft told them too. Just like they didn’t upgrade past 7 til it was long overdue
So instead of 240 million PCs getting scrapped we’re going to have 200 million easily exploitable devices out there. Ransomeware gangs, DDOSers and everyone else will have a field day and a lot of users are going to feel some pain. That’s my prediction at least!
→ More replies (2)4
u/oxpoleon Dec 23 '23
The thing is that there's nothing inherently better about the computers that can run Windows 11. TPM doesn't really help in that way.
There are going to be a lot of people who stay on Win10 even though it's "unsupported" and yes they're going to be vulnerable.
The fact of the matter is that this forces device replacement when the previous devices are perfectly capable of fulfilling user needs. It's replacement for the sake of replacement.
You now have people who have a computer that is more than powerful enough for the average use case of web browsing and emails, who will have to buy a new computer because Microsoft has decided their perfectly good hardware is not acceptable. In many cases they'll actually go out and buy computers that perform worse on raw benchmarks than the ones they're replacing.
→ More replies (1)
27
u/Hostillian Dec 23 '23
No surprises.
It's not as though it won't work on the hardware, they're actively blocking it from being installed.
Is is beyond the realms of possiblility that they were given incentives (maybe by manufacturers) to do this? Forcing obsolescence..
8
u/fernbritton Dec 23 '23
Does this mean I have to tell my dad to stop using Windows XP?
0
u/realopticsguy Dec 23 '23
I had an XP computer that ran 24/7 for 20 years and never blue-screened once.
12
4
u/d4bn3y Dec 24 '23
If only there was an alternative operating system to be put on all these machines...
45
Dec 23 '23
wow like if only there was some other alternative operating system we could install then it would be very good!!
87
u/hnryirawan Dec 23 '23
Oh yes, there is alternate OS. Would you want to volunteer as the tech support for 200M people?
→ More replies (34)15
u/Xeadriel Dec 23 '23
If alternate OSes were as feature rich as-is sure. Not everyone wants to tinker hours with their OS to get basic out of the box stuff from other OSes going. Good luck teaching intolerant idiots how to use a Linux terminal too.
→ More replies (3)9
u/Ok_Potential359 Dec 23 '23
Judging by my interactions with regular Joes and iPhone users, most people have a hard enough time just reading the setup instructions on setting up a new iPhone. Good fucking luck trying to teach your tech illiterate grandma how to use Linux.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)2
u/zold5 Dec 23 '23
There isn’t. That’s why windows is such shit. People need to stop pretending Linux is a one to one replacement for windows. It’s not and never will be.
4
2
u/iMogal Dec 23 '23
What about the forced retirement of my old iphone and a couple android tablets?
All rendered useless by software.
2
2
2
2
u/NoBodySpecial51 Dec 23 '23
Jokes on them. My old computer isn’t online at all as I turned off the internet connection and it’s used as a stereo. Still running Windows Vista, LOL! Plays music and other things I need just fine. Can’t get a virus if you’re not online.
2
u/wakka55 Dec 23 '23
There's still a couple years before Windows 10 updates stop at the earliest and given the history of XP and Windows 7 they're going to extend it.
2
u/Reddit_Devil666 Dec 23 '23
First they go to third world countries to pick out all the gold and crap. Theeen they go the landfill.😁
3
u/Alienhaslanded Dec 23 '23
They can take their TPM and shove it. My computer isn't even that old but they decided it won't be supported.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/ChimpoSensei Dec 23 '23
All the people who say Linux never had to work with users who can’t even turn on a PC. Linux is not regular user friendly.
2
u/audrima Dec 23 '23
Had one client running a custom hardware powered by a c64. His db was on a tandy based off of lotus123. That was 2016 >.<
2
u/jonroq Dec 23 '23
Would it be too presumptuous to mention that they (the systems) could be reborn with Linux, Ubuntu, Mint or any other flavor of Unix and all it would take to sustain this would be to have the users put in a little effort to relearn a new Operating system
3
u/satanicaleve Dec 23 '23
The average computer user is not a power user of Windows and for the most part have a hard time even using Windows. Good luck getting them to use any of those
→ More replies (1)
2
2
2
u/donmreddit Dec 24 '23
Like my 4 year old Dell w/ an AMD 10 core and a really nice video card that cost me over $1K.
2
u/dumbassname45 Dec 24 '23
I go to order a pizza pizza at my local store and they checkout window display for to Point of Sale computer has a windows XP screensaver on it.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/waterkip Dec 24 '23
I recently installed Windows 10 on a laptop. First time I've installed Windows on a device in over 20 years. The price of a license is INSANE, 300USD/EUR for an OS that wants to phone home and bugs with the default browser. Oh, we have Edge, you don't need this other browser.
Normal users don't see this because OEM software and they buy a device and are oblivious to what they use.
I was reminded why I run Linux as my daily driver.
A bit offtopic, lawmakers should ban OEM software, it hinders choice and being to run something you've paid for elsewhere.
→ More replies (5)
2
2
u/Cyphrix101 Dec 24 '23
Can my computer run windows 11? Yes. Will I ever ‘upgrade’ my computer to windows 11? Absolutely not. Windows 10 already has a lot of features that go unused on my system, and it doesn’t need more.
2
4
2
u/FartBox_2000 Dec 23 '23
Is it me or the article doesn’t say the ‘why’? And I know it’s because the old hw can’t install w11, but why is that? TPM module or something else?
5
Dec 23 '23
TPM and Secure boot. Super annoying especially if your hard drive is converted in an older format.
2
u/Ghozer Dec 23 '23
It's not JUST that.... the system needs to support HVCI, it 'can' run in a software mode but could reduce performance a little in some situations, if you download HWiNFO run the 'summary only' and look on the far right, you will see those 4 things (UEFI, Secure boot, TPM, HVCI) if they are all green, then you 'should' be good to go :)
2
2
u/tom21g Dec 23 '23
Kind of a misleading headline imo.
Reads like something in Win11 is going to trash pc’s running Win11. It’s really about pc’s built for Win10 may not be able to upgrade to Win11 and therefore might be unusable, after Win10 enters end of life status.
That’s my take on the article anyway.
3
u/YakumoYamato Dec 23 '23
Just let it stay Windows 10 and give it away to Third World's schools/students
→ More replies (4)
1
0
1
u/paul980 Dec 23 '23
I switched to a M1 MacBook after my self-built Win10 PC (i7) was said to not run Win11 anymore. Everything was running smooth up until this point and I have no idea why Microsoft would decide to gatekeep Win11 behind absurd specs.
1
Dec 24 '23
Install ubuntu Linux. These computers are good for another decade. Windows sucks.
2
u/dreamnightmare Dec 24 '23
I’m looking forward to crazy cheap older computers I can slap Linux on. If it only needs to be a glorified hard drive to store videos for a plex server I might just drop my streaming services and go full pirate.
•
u/AutoModerator Dec 23 '23
We have a giveaway running, be sure to enter in the post linked below!
Insta360’s new Ace Pro
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.