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My Take on Microsoft's Windows 11 Hot Mess
- Steve_Baker77 5y agopaywall
- zeusk 5y agoGuy built custom computer but ran Windows 10 on a MBR disk with legacy boot (BIOS/CSM) and TPM disabled. Ran 11 compatibility check and was surprised that Windows 11 won't work with that. Also advocating that MS sells a version that relaxes this requirement (AFAIK - Windows will run on the system anyway but support people may* turn you away and your system will be less secure). For reference, the insider preview build works just fine on my 7700k system with TPM disabled.
- tbrownaw 5y agoOpening it in politics mode (previously known as porn mode) works fine.
- dstaley 5y ago> Unless you have a recent store-bought PC that has Secure Boot and TPM enabled out of the box, you probably aren’t going to be able to upgrade, even if your hardware is theoretically compatible. The vast majority of Windows devices are "store bought". TPM 2.0 has been an OEM requirement from Microsoft for almost five years now, so the only people that need to worry about enabling it are people who built their own PC, as in the exact type of people that would know how to do so.
- kayone 5y agoIt doesn't make any sense. He contradicts himself. If you bought a computer in the store (not tech savvy) then you are fine. If you built your own computer (tech savvy) then you can't figure out the bios settings?
- zeusk 5y agoExactly my thoughts. He builds a "custom" computer, mix matches parts but is unaware of the difference between CSM/UEFI or MBR/GPT? UEFI and GPT have been on the scene since Vista (2007).
- cbmuser 5y agoAssembling a computer from parts doesn’t really require in-depth knowledge these days thanks to true plug’n’play. No jumpers to set for CPU multipliers, IDE master/slave or IRQ/DMA/IO etc.
- zeusk 5y agoMBR/GPT and BIOS/UEFI aren't anywhere in-depth as clock multiplier, bus master/slave or IRQ/DMA/IO. MBR/GPT and BIOS/UEFI along with SecureBoot are neatly explained in the UEFI and motherboard manuals. Also custom parts imply you're running XMP memory and need to enter UEFI to enable the advertised clocks anyway (Hello! JEDEC).
- rektide 5y ago
- tbrownaw 5y agoYes, MBR and BIOS have been on the way out for quite a while now. It's about time new stuff started dropping support. And yes, the compat checker really ought to say why it doesn't like a system.
- iwasakabukiman 5y agoThey recently updated it [1] so that it does tell you why. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/25/22550951/microsoft-pc-health-checkup-app-update-windows-11-compatibility-tool-details https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/25/22550951/microsoft-pc-hea...
- cbmuser 5y agoBad article. Author doesn’t seem to understand the difference between legacy BIOS and UEFI and how these two boot. He enabled SecureBoot and disabled CSM (BIOS emulation) and was surprised he couldn’t get his system which was obviously installed in legacy mode to boot anymore. I stopped reading after that. Oh, and he confused SecureBoot and TPM, too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wmf 5y agoAlmost no one understands those distinctions, so this article is representative of the hassles that many many PC enthusiasts face from Windows 11.
- andai 5y agoIf you stopped reading in the middle, then you missed the best part of the article, which is at the end.
- georgyo 5y agoI agree with you, I gave up on the article. However the the point he was trying to make is still valid. He considers himself "computer savvy" and learning all these new concepts is not going to be approachable to most people. And as such hardware that could run will not have the user knowledge to get it working. That said, I think Microsoft is doing the right thing here. The only way to move physical security forward is to make it mandatory. The same users who consider themselves technical are the most likely to implement the least possible security.
- ittan 5y agoMy honest opinion is, We should consider the Ycombinator demographic that is going to go ever younger. There are going to be younger programmers, what do we do about them? I have learned a lot from the articles here, but at the cost of being burnt most times, we need a handle or method to make Ycombinator accesible for new learners. Ask HN Noob?
- amanzi 5y agoIf you're building your own PC and you don't know the difference between BIOS and UEFI, you're going to have a bad time regardless of whether you upgrade to Windows 11.
- sagarpatil 5y agohttps://github.com/rcmaehl/WhyNotWin11 https://github.com/rcmaehl/WhyNotWin11 This tool helped me figure out what exactly needed to be fixed. 1. Disable CSM 2. Enable TPM 3. Enable Secure Boot. 4. Convert MBR partition to GPT using mbr2gpt.exe without data loss
- zipityzi 5y agoThis is purely a DIY problem for six-month old systems. Not a single OEM desktop or laptop sold in the past six months as new should have any of these issues. UEFI is non-negotiable, TPM 2.0 is virtually universal, and you only need to be Secure Boot capable—not actually have Secure Boot on. This tool expects the person that built the computer (Dell, HP, Lenovo, or the DIY enthusiast) to understand the terms. But, credit to the author, it presents them in a very poor way. It should’ve noted UEFI / GPT wasn’t enabled first before any other error. But it assumes you know UEFI requires GPT which means using mbr2gpt.exe.