A day early, Microsoft has decided to release Windows 11.
Today marks an exciting milestone in the history of Windows. As the day becomes October 5 in each time zone around the world, availability of Windows 11 begins through a free upgrade on eligible Windows 10 PCs and on new PCs pre-installed with Windows 11 that can be purchased beginning today.
This is the first release of Windows I haven’t personally used or even tested, but much like Android 12 that’s also been released today, it seems to be a version heavily focused on giving Windows a fresh coat of paint, while sadly removing features and customisations and adding strict system requirements. As the detailed Ars Technica review concludes:
Here’s the thing: I actually like Windows 11 pretty well, and as I’ve dug into it and learned its ins and outs for this review, I’ve warmed to it more. The window management stuff is a big step forward, the new look is appealing and functional, and the taskbar regressions mostly don’t bother me (the more you customized the taskbar and Start menu in Windows 10, though, the more the new version’s lack of flexibility will irritate you).
Unfortunately for Microsoft, Windows 11 is going to be starting its life with some of the same public perception problems that made Windows Vista and Windows 8 relatively unpopular.
Meanwhile, AnandTech concludes:
I’ve only a had a short time with Windows 11, and that is partially due to how short of a public beta that it got compared to Windows 10. Already there are some features that I really enjoy. The new interfaces are well thought out and easy to use. But for me, the true test is using a new version of the OS and then stepping back to an older version. How painful is it? How many of the new features do I miss? There is no single item right now that is a must-have, so swapping between Windows 10 and Windows 11 is not a huge deal. And that’s good because Windows 10 is going to be around for years to come still. Some of the biggest new features announced for Windows 11 won’t even be shipping until next year. Perhaps if and when they arrive that will make the difference.
Windows 11 just doesn’t seem like that big of a release to me, and depending on how much you enjoy using Windows, that can be a good thing or a bad thing. To me, it seems like this new UI theme is skin-deep, and underneath it all still lie countless layers of UI cruft dating all the way back to Windows 3.x.
I agree with the general sentiments, I’ve little interest in Win 11 mostly for the oppressive hardware requirements. Maybe time is passing me by, but I like things that can run on lightweight hardware or improve performance on older hardware. This seems to be going in the wrong direction, maybe this is the vertical market forces of trying to be too Apple like with the Surface collection.
I don’t get it, they already have probably 85% of the computer marketplace, why risk doing damage to the 85% to get some small percentage of the remaining 15%!
Are Linux and Android really that big of a threat to traditional MS markets?
It’s certainly not Apple, it’ll never be Apple.
On another aspect, I think many creative types massively over-estimate the utility of hybrid type interfaces, they spend too much time poking their finger around and forgetting that 99% of work happens at a keyboard!
In before HollyB rages about it.
HollyB : “I’m not sure what else to say really.” here https://www.osnews.com/story/134002/fynedesk-an-open-source-desktop-environment-in-go/#comments
+1
And here I am not upgrading because I would probably lose a few fps on games while there are still barely any GPUs available. It’s like it doesn’t affect anyone that doesn’t think about it, because it doesn’t.
Meh, i still run 7
So the countdown begins to when Windows comes off all my systems for good. I’ve already trialed Linux Mint a few times and got a good setup to the point where I confused myself which OS I was using at the time.
There’s a few niggles to examine such as whether I can run my eGPU or maybe a few other gotchas I need to document. Other than that it’s a good enough solution for my needs. I have no interest at all in learning any Linux techno nonsense or getting involved in Linux internal politics but then I never had any interest in being anyone’s free beta tester when using Windows or propping up Microsoft MVP’s income streams so no real policy change there either.
Install Kali.
@Kochise
I will install what I like without micromanagement thank you!
Then stop complaining about this and that.
What have the half dozen comment from some of you here got to do with the topic? Nothing so park it where the sun doesn’t shine.
Do you ever post a comment that isn’t directly about you and you only?
I too use Mint as the goto option for users who want to move or need to moved off Windows, it’s a great option excluding one obvious hiccup.
But I remain a fan of Win 10, primarily because as it has evolved it’s remained or become even more usable on legacy hardware. I never really bother to look into the why or who is responsible for that evolution, it could well be 3rd party devs, but I just appreciate the effort of getting a newish OS on older hardware that is actually usable.
If you really want to care for the environment, you can’t be throwing out or mothballing 5 year old systems just because the latest and greatest is released, even worse is Apples unethical model! I actually saw someone try to claim the new iPhone is green because you charge it less often! There goes another drawer full of rare earth metals, or do as good Apple people do, and send your old iPhone to Africa!
You shouldn’t consider Africa your waste bin and just use your “old” phone until it dies from age. Those devices are now powerful enough to be used more than the couple of years of lifespan they are purposed for.
> “So the countdown begins to when Windows comes off all my systems for good. I’ve already trialed Linux Mint a few times and got a good setup to the point where I confused myself which OS I was using at the time.”
I recommend the XFCE edition.
M.Olty,
I like XFCE a lot. To the extent that trying desktops isn’t a problem there’s value in trying gnome and kde as well. But for a windows convert specifically I’d recommend KDE since I think it’s closest to what windows users are used to.
HollyB, what have you tried so far?
Requirements are too stringent, they violated the heck out of fitts law with the taskbar centered. I’m hoping the task bar gets fixed by the time I replace my windows pc, but I may be tempted to just have windows on vm inside of macos on arm for when I need it. Or possibly if the price comes down a VM in the could that I pay only while using it.
> they violated the heck out of fitts law with the taskbar centered
So your biggest complaint is a simple default option they changed? And you can change back)
For those that have single monitors or just like the bar aligned left and across (instead of centered), just set it that way. That’s what I did.
I used the win11 am I ready app and basically none of the computers in my organization will be supported. I made management aware of the hardware requirements and the fact our hardware won’t be supported which they were just thrilled about. We are going to run on 10 as long as possible.
I have no interest at home as I mainly use Linux so it will be some time till I ever see windows 11. Big shrug on this release.
I’m just happy that we live in an age where there is genuine choice for many of us. Not everyone can get away with using Linux, but it’s serviceable for more people than ever. Long may it continue.
To be fair there has not been a big release of windows since win 2000. And nor shoul;d there be.
I guess vista may have been classed as one but that was just mostly sane but a bit OTT overthought but needed changed than were fine by SP1.
I was shocked by The Verge’s summary of user upgrade and installation experiences for Windows 11 —
theverge.com/22705148/windows-11-upgrade-beta-release-preview-impressions
The hoops that some users had to jump through to get it installed is truly ridiculous, like harder-than-Arch-Linux-installation level of hard. One user claims to have repacked a Windows 10 ISO with the Windows 11 payload to install it on a laptop that wasn’t all that old. The tables have really been turned on Windows vs. Linux ease of use **in some aspects** (there are obvious exceptions in favor of and against both sides still).
I’ve noticed nothing alarming in the article to be honest except for his systems which failed to meet all the requirements.
Artem S. Tashkinov,
To be fair, it’s a superficial requirement on microsoft’s part. Sure a vendor can impose whatever arbitrary requirements they want, but it doesn’t mean it was logically necessary to do so. Many (if not most) people want to keep using their existing hardware.
Also sidebar:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/tpm-modules-unobtainable-expensive-windows-11
I don’t understand buying a TPM just to run Windows 11. MS releases have been fairly hit or miss for the last decade. There are no guarantees that Win 11 will run even after the TPM is added.
I understand MS’s goal of trying to keep from having to support 20+ years of hardware for a given OS release.
I don’t understand it either as computers with TPM 1.2 generally also have unsupported chipsets. All the computer at my org I tested (Lenovo and Dell) failed for both. For the Lenovo’s there’s a process to update to TPM 2.0 but there’s no point as the procs are not supported.
krebizfan,
I don’t care to run the latest version of windows either, but a lot of people do.
Personally I feel a good operating system manages hardware but gets out of the way. I don’t want my computer phoning home to an outside corporation to handle my credentials, monitor my PC, push ads, etc.
I remain suspicious of the underlying motives, but as an outsider I can only speculate.
In any case some people are enabling TPM2 only to find out their CPU is still unsupported. The CPU models supported seems a bit arbitrary and it seems quite likely there’s some planned obsolescence at play. Most new windows licenses are sold with new OEM hardware bundles and after so many users upgraded to windows 10 for free, there may be more pressure to increase OEM sales this time around.
Is TPM really a problem? Most modern CPUs include at least firmware based implementations, you need only enable it in the BIOS. You need external module only if you really want independent implementation.
BlackV,
Reading the comments it seems more people are annoyed about the CPU requirements. Regardless, I would say yes it can be a problem. There are times when requirements make logical sense, but then there are times when they are arbitrary and seem to be more about planned obsolescence.
If they simply made bitlocker dependent upon TPM2, they wouldn’t be getting all of this criticism. But making it a requirement for all of windows? I have a strong feeling they’re not telling us the real reason they want everyone to have TPM, like future updates that push DRM and new platform restrictions. I think these are very likely goals that they aren’t telling us about.
Let’s call it Windows 10SE, because it’s what it really is.
Was it intentional to not include a link to the Ars review? It seems much more thorough than AnandTech. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/windows-11-the-ars-technica-review/
Thanks, in fact reading this article at least enlightened me why enabling core isolation could slowdown Windows 10 on first gen Ryzen CPU. It was bugging me why Ryzen 7 3700X in some tasks were twice as fast as R7 1700, while running same OS version on the similar SSDs (same make and model) and not limited by RAM.
I hope Microsoft get slapped hard by the EU for this. It is very definately an abuse of market position.
There’s a lot of thing Microsoft should be slapped hard for. Abusing their position as an OS vendor to actively pressure people into using their browser. Locking people into yearly contracts just to use a dated office suite. Buying up major game publishers to force Windows/XBox exclusive games. These are all serious issues that should be dealt with by the courts.
However, making some old and dated hardware obsolete is not one of them. You don’t expect Apple to support hardware older than a decade with new OS releases. And if you’re in the Android camp, you’re lucky to get security patches 3 years after the device’s release. Some other smaller manufacturers are even worse.
The TPM requirements are really not a big deal. And ultimately this is one of the few times i can say Microsoft is trying to do a good thing. See, a lot of the hardware that’s been made “obsolete” is hardware with known hardware bugs (meltdown, spectre) which can be exploited by bad actors, especially bad government actors (Naming no names, but they largely tend to be in Asia and have a history of communism). By forcing governments and large corporations to move to newer, less vulnerable hardware, with the added addition of hardware security provided by the TPM, Microsoft is essentially bolstering the security of the world and making it much more difficult to instigate government-backed hacking and spying attacks on a large scale.
Security is a bullshit argument and we’ve discussed the realities and mitigations a million times. Also 99% of security problems are at the application level.
Microsoft are NOT going to force me to spend my money on new hardware I don’t need when what I already own is good enough for the applications I want to run and has been for some years now as hardware requirements passed their peak around a decade ago.
Throwing in buzzwords like “bad actors” doesn’t make you clever.
I am in complete agreement with you regarding Microsoft. I am not a fan of Microsoft – I skipped Windows 8, 8.1 and 10, However, out of curiosity I installed Windows 11 on my old ThinkPad T410 (Intel Core i5-520M, Nvidia NVS 3100M). This is a perfectly usable laptop without Secure Boot, TPM 2.0, DirectX 12. Apart from the Ricoh Multi Card reader, Fingerprint Coprocessor, Power management driver and Intel ME driver, everything seems to be running just fine.
Correction: Windows Update found the remaining drivers. They were just ‘hiding’ under Windows Update>Advanced Options>Optional Updates. Now, I have to figure out how to turn off all the telemetry crap and tweak the taskbar and content menu. Just goes to show that a ThinkPad from 2010 is still able to run W11.
Nobody’s forcing you to migrate to Windows 11, Windows 1o will continue to be supported for years to come. Just like OSX Lion stopped supporting PPC Macs, that didn’t mean Snow Leopard stopped getting regular security updates for a few years after Lion’s release.
The123king,
I agree with you this is not something MS should be slapped for. (although I don’t think you have to go back a decade to find people affected by the requirements).
I agree with HollyB on this, there is a lot of security theater going on that I’m not comfortable with. If a computer isn’t safe enough to run windows 11, then microsoft should come out and say it’s not safe under windows 10 either. However for most people, their computer is genuinely good enough for them and they don’t even care if their data is encrypted.
To the extent that a person were actually being targeted by 3 letter agencies, then it’s very unlikely to make any difference with zero day exploits anyways.
I think it would be best for microsoft to suggest TPM, particularly for enterprise A/D use cases, but not force it on those who have no need for it.
Maybe they should, but you’ll have a hell of a lot of backlash when Microsoft turns around and says your current paid-for OS is insecure. It’s better to roll these changes in with new hardware bundled with a new OS. It’s better from a PR standpoint to force these things with new OS installs than it is to blatantly say your current hardware is totally insecure and you need to upgrade. We had the same sort of backlash when Apple dropped the floppy disk, and then when they dropped the optical drive. Now everyone is in on it. Apple have been enforcing a TPM-like chipset on all Macs and iOS devices for years now with the Tx series of chips. It’s about time the Microsoft world caught up.
Most of those people don’t know, nor care, what a TPM chip is either, let alone the differences between Windows 10 and 11 (or even what version of Windows they’re running entirely). They’ll carry on happily getting updates for Windows 10, in lieu of a copy of the shiny new OS that they probably don’t even know about.
It’s not individuals that this change is primarily targeted at. Their current Windows 10 installs will continue to get updates, and frankly they have no need to upgrade until they get a new PC. It’s those corporations that buy hardware regularly in cycles that this is aimed for. By gradually requiring all machines to be TPM compliant with a new Windows 11 install, Microsoft are surreptitiously bolstering security of large scale corporations (like big manufacturing companies like GM or utility companies) that may otherwise have lacklustre security and be leaking IP through insecure computers.
You can “suggest” all you like, but if it costs more but is optional, companies will negate putting it in. There will always be penny pinchers who see the $20 TPM module as an expense they could save, and on the scale of 100-200 new PC’s, that’s $2000-$4000 you’re saving off of the bill. Make it a requirement, and then you have no choice but have one.
The123king,
I disagree that windows 10 is “totally insecure”..
Most leaks happen because either people or systems having legitimate access to the data got exploited. TPM can protect from, say, stealing a hard drive and copying the data from it. But TPM does not protect from leaks in systems that are normally supposed to have access and TPM’s unlocking of the keys is intended. Furthermore TPM does not protect from zero day exploits since we’re talking about exploiting signed & approved code that passes attestation/hash checks. People are going to be disappointed if they think TPM is going to stop these kinds of leaks.
A) So what? It’s their business they can do what they want.
B) The vast majority of buyers will never need a separate TPM module over an integrated one.
C) The costs are so marginal that even the cheapest new motherboard sold by newegg supports both integrated and modular TPM.
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813157875?Item=N82E16813157875
https://www.onlogic.com/company/io-hub/tpm-for-windows-11-what-is-it-and-what-about-intel-ptt-and-amd-ftpm/
New hardware is already covered, that is not a good reason to deny software upgrades to consumers using existing hardware.
Alfman
But your computer, we at least many of it’s various Apps and Browsers, have been doing this since OAuth was in nappies. We are told it’s(OAuth2 and OpenID) are the most secure way!
cpcf,
I think I’ve been pretty consistent on this, be it google, apple, microsoft, even mozilla, etc. While one may argue it’s been this way for a while, it’s getting more egregious and more difficult to bypass. Look at the forced use of microsoft accounts in the latest versions of windows. Something that had started out as an optional feature transformed into a coercive one. I don’t think this was merely an evolutionary change, I think microsoft planned for it to happen and executed the plan incrementally. They need to roll it out incrementally in order to minimize the resistance and spread the pushback over a longer period of time such that the criticism gets diluted and becomes un-newsworthy. Our powerful tech corporations are playing the long game, this is the model by which anti-consumer changes can take root over time, changing the defacto norms.
Downloads Windows 11 Update. Everything goes fine. Has a working latest version of Windows. Functionality is there. All my data safe. Apps work just fine.
Gee wiz. I must have done something wrong.