Avoiding Win 11 and staying with 10

[Andy_Ross]

I also have Win 11 on my Laptop and get along with it fine, in fact compared to 10 it spends much less time taking over my disk to do it's housekeeping.

But the check tells me my PC can't have 11.

As my PC is a good bit of kit and fast enough for everything I do including some intensive 3d modelling and as a music workstation for guitar amp sims, I am not scrapping it to buy a new one just because Microsoft tell me to.

 

[Darat]

It isn't about the horsepower of your CPU/GPU/RAM combo, it's a hardware requirement for increased security. I was lucky that my older PC (it's a PC of Theseus) met the requirements as I had never considered it when checking specifications.

ETA: you could probably just upgrade your motherboard and keep everything else the same.

 

[steenkh]

As my PC is a good bit of kit and fast enough for everything I do including some intensive 3d modelling and as a music workstation for guitar amp sims, I am not scrapping it to buy a new one just because Microsoft tell me to.

The problem is that security updates will stop coming, and I am quite sure that a number of win10 exploits are kept back for the day when they can be unleashed on the world, and there will be nothing to stop them. As a former security specialist I cannot bear the thought, so I need the upgrade.

 

[steenkh]

ETA: you could probably just upgrade your motherboard and keep everything else the same.

I have been thinking the same thing, but I am not sure if I can just put a new motherboard into the machine, and win10 will not notice and make a fuss. At the very least there’ll be a lot of drivers that need to be replaced.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's not the board, it has the security chip required but the processor is gen 6 and they aren't supported. I would have to replace the processor for a gen 8 or later which means I would need a new board as well.

 

[Wudang]

My (refurb) desktop came with Win 11 and I realised later most of the issues were ones I had with Win 10 when I first installed it.
My Windows laptop fails the Win 11 test due to the onboard graphics FFS.
My MacBook and Linux laptops are fine

 

[Orphia Nay]

I received a message saying my hardware is not compatible with win 11.

Same, months ago. I haven't used my computer in months. I also recently received a message saying my "Entra Tenant" was expiring and I need to make a purchase. WTH is that about?

 

[commandlinegamer]

Part of the problem is that machines are a bit more reliable in the terms of the hardware not failing than in the past.

Back in the mid-noughties, there was the electrolytic capacitor fiasco, then a few years later, loads of BGA failures once manufacturers starting using them for CPU/GPU instead of ZIF sockets, while the chips still pumped out massive amounts of heat.

These days, stuff runs cooler, so it's not uncommon to see 10/12/15-year old computers still chugging away. So I can see it might seem a bit unfair when machines not that elderly getting knocked-back for OS updates.

 

[arthwollipot]

Same, months ago. I haven't used my computer in months. I also recently received a message saying my "Entra Tenant" was expiring and I need to make a purchase. WTH is that about?

You should be able to let it expire. Entra tenants are what Microsoft used to call Azure Active Directory. It's a cloud-based method of managing apps and permissions on an enterprise network.

 

[Orphia Nay]

You should be able to let it expire. Entra tenants are what Microsoft used to call Azure Active Directory. It's a cloud-based method of managing apps and permissions on an enterprise network.

If I let it expire, would that affect my ability to use Microsoft programs (Word, Excel) on my mobile devices?

 

[arthwollipot]

If I let it expire, would that affect my ability to use Microsoft programs (Word, Excel) on my mobile devices?

I doubt it. It might affect your ability to give access permissions to other people on your network. Most non-businesses don't need to do that.

 

[steenkh]

These days, stuff runs cooler, so it's not uncommon to see 10/12/15-year old computers still chugging away. So I can see it might seem a bit unfair when machines not that elderly getting knocked-back for OS updates.

Particularly for OS updates that are not intended to improve my system, but to limit it.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It seems Linux users may be about to have problems because of Microsoft updates.

A signing key supporting Secure Boot on Linux is about to expire


Microsoft has a signing key that many Linux distributions use to support Secure Boot, and that key is set to expire on September 11, 2025.

Fixing this problem requires firmware updates from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) but there is a risk that not all OEMs will issue updates - especially those for older, or less popular devices.

Linux users are about to face another major Microsoft Secure Boot issue

A signing key supporting Secure Boot on Linux is about to expire

www.techradar.com

 

[Mongrel]

It is the faster of the two, and is perfect for me, but it can’t be upgraded because it doesn’t have some hardware piece supposed to make piracy impossible

It's probably the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and you may already have it on your motherboard, just disabled.
You can check by going to the BIOS and checking in the Security section and you should see something relating to it somewhere in there

 

[Andy_Ross]

It's probably the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and you may already have it on your motherboard, just disabled.
You can check by going to the BIOS and checking in the Security section and you should see something relating to it somewhere in there

Even if you have it your motherboard may not support an approved processor. If it's older than 8th generation your PC will fail the Windows 11 health check.
If your board won't take a processer above gen 8 then having the TPM won't help.

 

[steenkh]

It's probably the TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and you may already have it on your motherboard, just disabled.
You can check by going to the BIOS and checking in the Security section and you should see something relating to it somewhere in there

Thank you. I switched from “Discrete” to “Firmware” TPM, and that worked! Sort of.

But now Microsoft says that my processor is too old

I’ll have to see if I can get a processor that can fit into the same motherboard, and that would probably save me a lot of work.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Different generation CPUs had different sockets and support chipsets.

 

[steenkh]

Different generation CPUs had different sockets and support chipsets.

Yes. It seems that my Intel i7-7700 (7th gen) can be replaced with an i7-9700 (9th gen). They use the same LGA 1151 socket.

I need to open up the computer and see how the cooling system is done. I am not sure if it is air cooled or with liquid, and I also think that it is glued to the processor, so I need to buy a new one too. You think I also need to find out if there are other considerations such as chipset?

 

[Andy_Ross]

No, if the socket fits it should be ok. The heat sink won't be glued, there will be a thermal paste between it and the processor, this hardens over time but will separate, then clean up the heat sink with alcohol to remove the old paste.

You will need to re-paste the heatsink. You can buy it ready to go in a syringe.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Not really wishing to derail, but mainstream Linux supports Intel CPUs back to the Pentium 5 from 2000. And if you're really pressed for older support you can probably get an older kernel off the internet, but it will be very difficult compiling modern software for it because all the libraries will have made breaking changes in the meantime.

I wonder how many people facing as Windows 11 cliff could actually switch to Linux? There's a lot of software out there now. For games, Steam offers a lot of Linux stuff.

Unfortunately, there are many advanced computer users who have a Windows program that simply can't run on Linux and there's no replacement, so Microsoft has them by the ◊◊◊◊◊.