Windows 11

[mavhc]

Because having people still on Win10 increases MS's workload. They'd prefer to just support 1 OS. No one's writing software for Win 11 when most people are still on Win 10.

 

In the against side: New HW requirements are the only reason Win 10 21h2 has been renamed Win 11. They're supporting HW OEMs by nudging people to buy new computers.

 

On the technical side, those CPUs will be faster when doing sandboxing. TPM 2.0 vs 1.2 is just because 1.2 is kind of a pain I'd bet.

 

As for "supported" or "recommended" hardware vs getting updates, they're not going to let 100s of millions of computers have a security flaw that causes them bad press.

 

Would you downgrade new computers to Win 10 in the near future?

[Dos_Box]

This is quite an interesting situation. Will we end up in the same position that XP users experienced when that went EOL? Will there still be lots of perfectly capable machines out there that won't meet the Windows 11 requirements?

Will W10 users still carry on, just without updates as did many XP users, or will there be a rush to replace hardware?

[mavhc]

No normal person replaces hardware until it's too slow or broken, they don't know what a security update is.

 

The weirdest thing about the world today is 90% of android phones don't appear to be part of a botnet.

 

Is Win 11 similar enough/do your users change computers so little, that a mixed network will be ok?

[Gongalong]

"Normal person" = home user?

[MartinT]

I'm planning on rotating all our non-compliant machines in the 3-4 year window available before W10 is EOL.

[Protec]

I reckon most schools will have many machines that don't support Windows 11, even by the time the deadline comes around. My main home PC doesn't support Windows 11 and these are its specs:

 

i3-3240

16gb DDR3 RAM

GTX - 750 Ti

120Gb SSD

2 x 1080p Monitors (VGA + HDMI)

 

I don't think any of the computers in the house will support W11 and I'm not planning on replacing them all anytime soon when they all work. Most of the computers in the house are 3rd and 4th Gen Pentium, i3 and i5 with 1 E7500 machine which certainly won't support W11 lol.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Protec

[Disaster]

Just testing W11 on an old HP. Spec isn't much of an issue according to Microsoft - see below - it's just a faff updating all BIOS on 350 PC's!!! (this test PC required 2 BIOS updates to make it W11 compatible).

 

Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with two or more cores on a compatible 64-bit processor or system on a chip (SoC).

RAM: 4 gigabytes (GB) or greater.

Storage: 64 GB* or greater available storage is required to install Windows 11.

Additional storage space might be required to download updates and enable specific features.

Graphics card: Compatible with DirectX 12 or later, with a WDDM 2.0 driver.

System firmware: UEFI, Secure Boot capable.

TPM: Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 2.0.

Display: High definition (720p) display, 9" or greater monitor, 8 bits per color channel.

[Gongalong]

Doesn't the processor have to be 8th Gen (for Intel)?

 

Edit: "Compatible 64 bit processor" i.e. Microsoft's list https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

Edited November 4, 2021 by Gongalong

[Norphy]

Officially yes. Unofficially there are workarounds that let you install it on computers with unsupported CPUs but it's unknown how long this will last.

 

Caveat Emptor

[localzuk]

Doesn't the processor have to be 8th Gen (for Intel)?

 

Edit: "Compatible 64 bit processor" i.e. Microsoft's list https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements

 

Depends what you want from it. It will technically run on older chips, but MS says you're more likely to see crashes. Also, they aren't guaranteeing that anyone with an unsupported chip will get updates.

[Gongalong]

Officially yes. Unofficially there are workarounds that let you install it on computers with unsupported CPUs but it's unknown how long this will last.

Yep, forgot to add that those are the supported CPUs, or at least the environments guaranteed to receive updates.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

It'll happily install straight fromm the ISO onto anything that meets the cpu core count and speed, that has TPM 1.2 and has secure boot enabled.

The oldest hardware I've got it running on is a 2012 Lenovo ThinkPad T430 (3rd Gen i5, DDR3 RAM, SSD),

 

Microsoft state that it may not recieve updates and may crash more often.

 

Our tests so far haven't seen a higher incidence of crashes, they're rare indeed.

And currently all the non-certified machines we have tested are receiving exactly the same updates as those that meet the requirements.

 

 

This may change in the future for sure. But at this moment things are working well for the older hardware.

[mavhc]

Higher than running the same hw with Windows 10? Did they make Windows 11 worse? They just mean higher than without a supported CPU, because the new driver model can enforce non terrible drivers a bit more

[Primus]

My worry is MS's documentation on it potentially not receiving updates - I can't put it into production if devices suddenly stop getting updates, they're effectively forcing schools, businesses etc to buy new "compliant" hardware even with their so called softer stance.

[mavhc]

Not for 5 years though

[Primus]

Not for 5 years though

 

Maybe but we've seen devices lasting an awful lot longer than they used to, I think it's less than 4 years now to EoL for Windows 10 - isn't it October 14th 2025?

[Norphy]

Coffee Lake came out four years ago, almost to the day. Any device bought in the last 2-3 years is likely to have 8th gen or newer CPUs installed in them. By the time 2025 comes along, those devices will be 6-7 years old and towards the end of their life cycles anyway.

 

I know that a lot of schools keep devices that age and older through necessity, but it's not as if Microsoft are forcing us to change everything tomorrow. Windows 10 is going to be supported for the next four years which should be enough time for places to put plans into place to replace this stuff. They might not like it and scream every inch of the way but this is the reality of the situation and everyone is either going to have to suck it up or start looking at alternative solutions to Windows.

[mavhc]

By the time win10 is EOL they'll have changed their mind anyway if not enough people upgrade.

 

Just make sure anything you buy from now on is compatible and we'll all meet in the middle in, yes, 4 years time.

[localzuk]

Higher than running the same hw with Windows 10? Did they make Windows 11 worse? They just mean higher than without a supported CPU, because the new driver model can enforce non terrible drivers a bit more

New OS, new features and therefore new bugs. I've had several black screen of deaths on my 2 Windows 11 PCs so far. Far more than I ever got with Windows 10. And they are a Ryzen 3800X and a 10th Gen i5.

[MartinT]

My Windows 11 PC at home (with AMD Ryzen 5 6-core) has been remarkably stable and very fast. Using it for remote admin as well as general Office 365 and Adobe stuff. It's important to get the cumulative updates in as the release version has been heavily patched, but right now it's working fine.

 

I have a test W11 workstation in VMware here at work, and that seems ok with domain login and general testing.

 

Our bigger problem is rotating out old machines from the fleet and performing a lot of BIOS updates.

[mavhc]

You can usually mass bios update HP/Dell/etc computers, as they're designed to have 1000s of them in a company.

[Oaktech]

Perfectly stable on the machines I have it on...

 

3ghz Core2Duo, 8Gb, ram, SSD - PPA machine

 

Gen 1 i7, 16GB ram, ssd - Admin Machine

 

8th gen i5, 8gb ram, NVME - SLT machine

 

5th gen i3, 8gb ram, SSD - Teaching machine

 

5th gen i5, 4gb ram, SSD - Teachers laptop

 

The only machine that has had any problems is an IT suite Core2Duo with integrated graphics - the login screen has blocky artifacts on it. Seems to be OK in use though.

[CHiLL]

I upgraded my home machine to Windows 11 last week. It's been on 24/7 with no issues, though I haven't actually used it that much in that time. It's a relatively modern and powerful machine though (9th gen i7). Edited November 5, 2021 by CHiLL

[supportman]

Mines been on for 3 weeks now 24/7 and had no stability issues. Using an NUC extreme.

[BOOT]

Not even one week, and already a completely broken start button.