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In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? Now you know. Windows 1

by eps 5y ago

In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? Now you know. Windows 11 completes the lock-up of the OS. That's why Windows 11 exists in the first place. All other changes are secondary. Microsoft knows they would've not been able to pull shit like this as a Windows 10 update, so they were effectively forced to do a version increase. Against older promises of W10 being the last Windows version ever. Welcome to the future that Microsoft always wanted, but couldn't have - a platform with airtight control. Just like what Apple has with its AppStore and its wonderful, wonderful 30% commission. Almost there and the lemmings didn't even notice it, distracted by the new and friendly Microsoft front, free upgrades to Windows 10 and centered Start menu in Windows 11. Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not.

pabs3 5y ago
Someone recently got Windows 11 installed and working on a Pentium 4, so it doesn't seem that the restrictions are hard to bypass.
pjmlp 5y ago
But it will be built on top of WSL3 and all hackers will jump of joy with Windows/Linux.
- intricatedetail 5y ago
  Many people only use Windows because the software they have don't have a Linux build. Maybe people should start pressuring vendors to make Linux builds and that could end Windows.
  - gavinray 5y ago
    Bingo. Switched from 10 years of Debian-based linux (mostly Ubuntu, recently Pop_OS) to Windows because of some MIDI driver thing I could not get to install in WINE. I have had a significantly less pleasant time on both Win10 and Win11, and it's slow as hell. Ubuntu/Ubuntu-derivatives with Regolith as a DE + Tiling WM is the best computing experience I've ever had (Disclaimer: Have never used a Mac. Have been told OSx is better than Linux by people who have used both for long time.) https://regolith-linux.org/ https://regolith-linux.org/ The ironic thing is that, I later had a passing convo with a developer of a DAW, who told me that MIDI driver stuff is usually for running specific software from the vendor and that MIDI is universal over USB. So I never even needed to switch in the first place! I was just too hardware-stupid to know this! Oh man it hurts my soul. I could switch back but it takes a whole weekend to properly backup + wipe and setup a machine. I think I am going to go back to Pop_OS or Ubuntu though.
    - swiley 5y ago
      >slow as hell It's surprising how poorly Windows performs. Many people who don't use it may have not noticed how bad it's gotten in the last 5 years.
    - nicolas_t 5y ago
      > (Disclaimer: Have never used a Mac. Have been told OSx is better than Linux by people who have used both for long time.) As someone who used both for a long time, I would agree 2-3 years ago, now though I'd say I prefer Linux. I do really love the new m1 macs in term of temperature control and performance though. The advantage of Linux is that when it doesn't work it's much easier to diagnose and fix by yourself, that didn't use to be a problem on macs because Apple's QA was much better and they were pretty stable (if you skipped the first 3-4 months of a new OS release) but nowadays, it's a lot less stable, my mac cannot even go to deep sleep properly (which ironically used to be a major pain on linux) and it's just a black box that's hard to diagnose but doesn't work well enough to justify it being a black box. And for the mac, I used to use things like SIMBL to modify the system exactly how I liked it but all of that has been slowly removed by Apple. Now I just want the flexibility of Linux.
      - gavinray 5y ago
        > "I would agree 2-3 years ago, now though I'd say I prefer Linux" This is an interesting anecdote. Do you have anything in particular that makes you think this, or is it an overall shift in feel? Also curious to hear which distro you use Call me a heretic, but I am jealous of the M1 performance-for-price being outside the Apple ecosystem and have thought to buy an M1 laptop and wipe it + put Asahi Linux on it hahaha
        nicolas_t 5y ago
        I mostly use Arch Linux. Used to use Gentoo for years before that. Mostly it's the continuous QA problem I've been getting (my mba not going to deep sleep is a big one), the dumbing down of the OS X interface and the fact that I can no longer easily use tools like SIMBL to extend applications. It's a bit the straw that broke the camel back. As time went on, little things became more and more aggravating. I'm eagerly watching Asahi Linux's progress :)
  - dncornholio 5y ago
    You mean, just like Apple did?
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Ironically I have been using Linux via VMWare for about 10 years now, because I got fed up with Year of Linux Desktop, which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling. When my Asus Netbook dies (1215B with XUbuntu), the next UNIX travel laptop will be an Air. So you can spare the talk about how much GNU/Linux has progressed, since I see it every time I take that netbook into use.
    - gavinray 5y ago
      > "which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling." Genuinely curious what doesn't work in IE Ubuntu 21.04 for you? Not one of those raving Linux zealots (don't really care that much about privacy), I've just had positive experiences on Linux -- not using it masochistically for ethical reasons, but because it worked very well for me. So I would be interested in hearing the other side of the coin, since you've been around the block a time or two.
      - blep-arsh 5y ago
        I'm not the person you were replying to, but here's the straw that broke this multilingual camel's back: unless Gnome is running under Wayland, switching the keyboard layout steals the input focus away from the foreground window briefly, causing focus-loss event handlers to fire. This might seem an easily fixable minor issue but it's actually a decade-old hairball which significantly harms the experience and can't be fixed cleanly under X.
        yyyk 5y ago
        I don't recall this ever happening to me in KDE under X, at least not in a way I've noticed.
        blep-arsh 5y ago
        It's a Gnome-specific thing
  - huhtenberg 5y ago
    It obviously won't end Windows. Not will actually make any sizeable dent in Windows marketshare. That's a pipe dream. Vast majority of people use Windows because it comes preinstalled. And it comes preinstalled for business reasons that are very hard to counter or reverse. The only way to weaken Windows is through legislative measures and that ain't likely to happen.
  - Arisaka1 5y ago
    The thing is, vendors will only invest resources required to make Linux builds if there's a market that justifies the investment. The only pressure companies can feel is the pressure that comes from the promise of making more money.
  - peteri 5y ago
    There are several reasons for Windows popularity today: Active Directory - The centralised control it gives corporates. Games and DirectX - Although this seems to be getting to be less of a reason. Backwards compatibility - Windows 16 bit apps are now dead, but you can take the VB6 code I wrote pre-Y2K and run it today. Linux fragmentation - It's difficult to support all the Linux variations with a single binary (or at least it feels that way to me) I suspect it has a very high support cost. Related to this is the GPL and it's potential to force release of source code.
    - Krasnol 5y ago
      There is also one reason many here don't see: you don't have to bother with the console. Everything can be installed and run with a mouse. Don't take me wrong. I understand the good sides of console programs. You can do a lot there but your average user doesn't care.
      - dotancohen 5y ago
        What popular end-user software cannot be installed and run with a mouse in e.g. Ubuntu?
        Krasnol 5y ago
        The fact that you had to narrow it down to some arbitrary "popular" category to not touch the topic speaks for itself.
        dotancohen 5y ago
        Alright then, what unpopular end-user software cannot be installed and run with a mouse in e.g. Ubuntu?
        addicted 5y ago
        I’m also struggling to understand why it would be difficult to create a mouse driven GUI for any CLI based app. In fact, there are apps that can do that automatically. Admittedly these apps tend to create not very good UIs, but the point is that it’s not hard at all.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- gavinray 5y ago
  Relevant tweets from self: https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446459866059612162 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446459866059612162 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446460168389136395 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446460168389136395 WINE and the very popular/well maintained Linux distros have gotten so good in recent years that the scenario is nearly identical to Windows + WSL2, except with the DE reversed. And WINE is never going to run entirely as smooth/easy as regular Windows, though it's pretty damn close. I prefer Linux DE, both for aesthetic and resource (but mostly resource) purposes. I think Win11 looks great despite internet's opinion, but wow-ee I cannot justify/cope with the amount of resources (modern) Windows takes just to idle and run explorer.exe Now -- OLD Windows? Windows 98, Windows 2000? That was (is) some good stuff. ReactOS recently released an x64 compatible build and I've booted into QEMU with it and toyed with the idea of trying to use it as a daily driver/work, even for a week as an experiment. https://reactos.org/blogs/newsletter-101/ https://reactos.org/blogs/newsletter-101/ Feels nearly identical to Windows 2000 or so. Can check news announcement here and get the x64 MSVC build from the nightly page + boot into it using QEMU or whatnot (I used LiveCD to test): https://reactos.org/getbuilds/ https://reactos.org/getbuilds/
  - nmfisher 5y ago
    FWIW, I recently tried WINE/Codeweavers again after hearing everyone rave that it ran practically everything, and it was an absolute disaster. Literally 5/6 of the applications I tried didn’t run (and the sixth was Telegram, which actually already has a Linux client IIRC). I doubt it’s really an option for 99% of people who need Windows for serious work.
    - gavinray 5y ago
      Damn that sounds like bad luck to be honest. Or maybe the opposite -- I got very lucky and the apps I used were almost all compatible. Off the top of my head, I've gotten: - Ableton Live 10 - FL Studio 20 - A lot of popular Windows games To work without any bugs (Borderlands 3 had a bug loading an asset once) The one program I couldn't get working with WINE was Studio One 5. Ableton and FL Studio are multi-GB programs with dozens of .dll's, really complex -- and all I had to do was: wine <installer-name>.exe Then click through them So yeah it could just be a crapshoot as far as what works. Maybe it winds up that a lot of the apps you personally use/need don't run at all, which would really suck =/ But WINE sees constant improvement, including contribution from Valve who have a vested interest in Proton for running games. Not to be cliche, but it's always improving. (I've never used the paid Codeweavers product which is supposedly better, so can't comment on that one. Maybe someone else can chime in with recent experience if they have?)
nix23 5y ago
It's absolutely fascinating that an open OS like windows (not open as opensource, but open to run every program) takes that route. Microsoft really thinks they can compete with platforms like android or iOS, i have to say: Thank you Microsoft!! You accelerate the downfall of Windows! No one will need you in the future, Adobe on M1(Apple), Development on Linux, Gaming on Linux, Workstations Linux maybe some Apple.
- can16358p 5y ago
  Yeah my thoughts! But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. (Not talking about HN community, talking about regular Joe) As long as Microsoft keeps lobbying OEMs to include Windows and there's no good alternative (looking at you, non-tech-savvy user-friendly Linux distros and major software vendors like Adobe, Autodesk etc, they will only keep locked to using Windows. I'd love to see an alternative world where everything has an equivalent open-source software that people can switch to, but let's get facts right, many open-source software is inferior to their counterparts (especially on the design/photography world against Adobe).
  - nix23 5y ago
    >But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. True, but if Windows cannot run the application regular Joe wants, people will just switch to Chrome OS or Apple or Linux (wine?). Sometimes regular Joe's uses more exotic Software we can imagine, and they choose windows because it runs on it since 25 years. Just some examples i have seen: -VisualBasic 6 (for model train automation) -A 20yo siemens software for relay automation -A ~25yo CNC maschine (Windows software to convert CAM to N-language (self-written postprocessor again in VB6)) And much much more
    - can16358p 5y ago
      It's kind of a chicken-egg problem there too: Windows is the most ubiquitous OS when it comes to "computers" as the society knows, and more software gets written for it, and because of it, OEMs would prefer it even if MS doesn't push them anymore. Not sure about the solution.
im3w1l 5y ago
People weren't distracted by the friendly Microsoft front. People were distracted by all the other companies being even worse.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Yes they were and they are. You can see it regularly on HN, saying that today's Microsoft has nothing to do with the ugly beast from the 90s, the times have changed, they are now a completely different company, they contribute to Open Source and even Linux, and they can now be trusted because they built the best code editor in the world. I don't know if people actually are that naive or if it's a part of Microsoft's intensive efforts to game HN.
  - rnd0 5y ago
    It's a little of column "a" and a little of column "b" and also because there's a whole generation which has come and gone since the Halloween Papers and the general MS fuckery of the 90's.
dTal 5y ago
"Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that." --Richard Stallman, "The Right To Read"
- ddalex 5y ago
  Stallman was ALMOST right. The fight is not about which programs the user can run, but who controls the user data
  - temac 5y ago
    There is a fight for both. And the fight to stay in control of your data is far easier when you use Free Software.
  - echelon 5y ago
    Tell that to every iPhone app developer. It's worse than not having the right to execute. You can't even build the program you want. You have to use Apple pay, Apple subscriptions, Apple login. And you don't even get a relationship with your customer. Truly draconian.
    - HeckFeck 5y ago
      And they tell me that automake is bad!
    - DeathArrow 5y ago
      And we don't that to happen to Windows too.
    - depressedpanda 5y ago
      They also prevent installing 3rd party web browsers, while keeping Safari way behind all others in order to ensure that you cannot escape their control. Their behavior is inexcusable but not surprising; what baffles me is that it's allowed.
dhdyychebr 5y ago
I can't bring myself to be sad when the outcome is a more secure os. If anything I want /less/ user power. Imagine a world where you can start a "private" chat and not even need to worry about screenshots. I'd love that personally. And what's the downside? I lose features that only matter to the cyber politicos?
MikusR 5y ago
It started with Vista. Due to DRM you can't play your own videos. Only DRM protected ones.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  How so? I could play all my pirated DVD rips just fine back then (DivX .avi), same how I can play pirated Bluray, Netflix, Amazon, etc. rips on Windows 10 and 11 (.mkv).
  - huhtenberg 5y ago
    I'm guessing GP is referring to the introduction of Protected Media Path stuff in Vista, which broke some existing video players. It didn't break non-DRM videos though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path
  - MikusR 5y ago
    Yes that didn't happen. It was FUD spread around back then. Like with TPM now.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? > Now you know. Windows 11 completes the lock-up of the OS. Stallman[1] and others[2] talked about exactly this 15+ years ago. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html [2] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
- lupire 5y ago
  35 years ago.
watermelon0 5y ago
Or maybe this is related to the security, and Windows is the only widely used platform that didn't enforce TPM until recently? macOS is even more locked down, but they don't impede or force users to use Mac App Store.
- antman 5y ago
  Ofcourse they don’t force anything because of the competing windows platform which is more open up to now. Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. What I infer from your observation is that closing down Windows could also adversely affect Mac users, since Apple would not miss this opportunity.
  - neilalexander 5y ago
    Apple could have done it with the Apple Silicon transition and yet didn’t. More inclined to believe actions over words at this point.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      Not without massive loss of users. Both Microsoft and Apple would love to lock down their platforms, but they have to do it in tandem or users will flock to the other. So we will see a slow lock-in creep until they look like current day smartphones. Only way to stop this is to react strongly, so if most users are apathetic like you then it is inevitable. Of course I believe that you are right and most are this apathetic, so from my perspective this is inevitable. When they roll out the enforced appstore you will say something along the lines of "but this appstore is secure and I can get all the programs I wanted from it anyway, and even if I couldn't would I really want an insecure program?".
      - neilalexander 5y ago
        Apathetic — no. I’m aware of the control creep in the industry, but I do think that it seems unnecessarily alarmist to think that Apple just can’t wait to lock down macOS. There is nothing to gain by them doing so and I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t already know that. iOS is and has always been a closed platform. We knew that the day they announced the first iPhone and they have been consistent in their messaging about that ever since. iPads and iPhones are globally successful though, far more so than the Mac, and with a far wider target audience that encompasses most people. It would be great for power users to be able to side-load without jailbreaking, but there are plenty of less technical people out there for whom side-loading actually presents much more of a risk than a benefit. That’s what makes it a complicated issue. The Mac, on the other hand, doesn’t stand to benefit from that same closed model in the slightest. The real target audiences for the Mac (i.e. software developers, professional photography/cinematography, music production, publishing) all live and depend on software that requires flexibility, plugins etc and they stand a much greater chance of knowing what they’re doing. They would walk away from Macs in an instant if the platform stops being useful to them. Apple Silicon was the perfect opportunity for Apple to close the platform if they really felt strongly enough to do so, but here’s the thing: Microsoft tried to do it with WinRT, it was an absolute disaster and the market spoke accordingly. It doesn’t seem worth the risk.
Arisaka1 5y ago
I saw the writing on the wall the moment they could sloppily justify the TPM requirement. Then I got into arguments with people proclaiming that it's just Microsoft enforcing it for the casual user's safety, and that I'm a Microsoft hater. Who? Me, whose first programming language was C#, who worked as an Windows server administrator for years, and my operating systems have been nothing than Windows for 2 decades. And I'm suddenly a hater for daring to raise an eyebrow and question their design motivation? I'm very convinced that the desktop world is at its worse. You have the commonly owned yet absurdly powerful tool known as a desktop computer have its market dominated by a single company, with no competitors whatsoever. Even worse, Microsoft's deal with hardware vendors ensure that even if a competitor were to rise they'll have to earn their favor as well. The game is lost for any competitor before it even starts. And with the PC dominance under their thumb they test the waters to see with how much they can get away with, an approach they cannot even afford to consider when it comes to their other products like Azure or even the C# programming language. They also did their best to make Visual Studio Code great, until you realize that this also follows the same pattern.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >I saw the writing on the wall the moment they could sloppily justify the TPM requirement. Microsoft doxed itself on the TPM limitation being purely arbitrary when Windows 11 compatibility checks passed on a Pentium 4 CPU and installed just fine due to a mistake from Microsoft where they forgot to blacklist that CPU family lol. https://twitter.com/Carlos_SM1995/status/1448561898035851264?s=20 https://twitter.com/Carlos_SM1995/status/1448561898035851264...
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    >purely arbitrary As if years of experience hasn't taught us that opt-in security is stupid. This would be arbitrary if the TPM was useless, but it isn't.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of the UEFI security chain like Management Engine and Secure Boot in the past, act more like hostile wall-gardening that limit what a user can install on his system (remember how enabling secure boot originally meant you couldn't install any linux distro?) rather than add any meaningful security (will TPM and Secure Boot prevent grandma from getting her PC infected by malware off some shady phishing site? No? Then don't force those requirements for private users)
sgblp 5y ago
We notice the Microsoft front. Microsoft has marched through the "open" source institutions and employs a sufficient number of OSS people. In Python, Microsoft employees (who don't develop much ...) have two seats in the Steering Council and GvR, who still seems to pull strings. Opposition on the mailing lists is shut down ruthlessly and is censored. The new "JIT" project has all the hallmarks of NIH and will end in minor insignificant speedups. The C# guys will be amused.
- keddad 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on the problems with JIT implementation in Python? I'm far from Python development, but it seems intresting
schmorptron 5y ago
Does a TPM chip actually bring any relevant security advantages for end users, or is it just for DRM?
- e2le 5y ago
  Measured boot and secure storage of keys. It's not all bad.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    That's good to hear then! So will most computers having a TPM chip lead to easier integration of secure boot with i.e. linux distros as well?
    - e12e 5y ago
      As long as most computers ship in a manner where the owner can adjust the keys in TPM/SecureBoot - you could argue its a good thing. Eg,like: https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-sign-things-for-secure-boot https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-sign-things-for-secure-boot
    - rightbyte 5y ago
      I had to disable secure boot to get Nvidia's drivers to work. So I guess the end result might be more hardware trouble for distros, with a subsystem that tries to prevent usage of the computer when it is not happy.
      - vetinari 5y ago
        You can also enroll your MOK (Machine-Owner-Key) to UEFI and then sign the nvidia driver with it. That way, you can leave Secure Boot enabled. However, leaving the secret part of MOK on the machine and let the dkms or whatever updater of kernel modules to use it unattended kind of defeats the purpose.
        ziml77 5y ago
mickotron 5y ago
We all won't be, only those still choosing to run windows. For those not doing so, we are not affected.
aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago
B-but they supposed to have changed for good! :’( Haven’t you heard? They love™ open source! They write JavaScript! Surely it’s just some misunderstanding…
FDSGSG 5y ago
This reads exactly like the crazy conspiracy theory nonsense that FOSS-clowns were pushing out regarding Secure Boot. How did that end up? Well, turns out that they can now safely be called clowns.
- no_time 5y ago
  The water is getting so hot the frog is having problems breathing from all the steam. "Crazy conspiracy!" He yells between two heavy gasps for air.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    Oh piss off, nonsense like this is why we still don't have any Linux distros shipping reasonable FDE implementations. I sure hate to be able to kind of trust my computer http://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encryption-on-linux.html http://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encrypt...
    - no_time 5y ago
      I like how the author acknowledges that some people claim that TPMs are evil but doesn't actually refute it. As long as I can't extract the Endorsement Keys from a TPM I legally own you are not convincing me otherwise.
zigzag312 5y ago
I find it interesting that, one one hand they are implementing features "in the name of security" that limit the owner of a computer what he/she can do with it and on the other hand they are adding backdoors so that government agencies (or anyone with right information) can spy on citizen that use this "secure" OS.
- ryanlol 5y ago
  I will personally pay you twenty thousand US dollars (in the cryptocurrency of your choice, bank transfer, western union, whatever) if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Microsoft has ever secretly shipped a backdoor in their OS so government agencies could spy on their users. Perhaps you will be the first person to actually prove the existence of the NSAKEY backdoor? (I doubt it.)
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    What about this old NSA backdoor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG If MS or Apple or Google or some hardware makers or some communication equipment makers have some backdoors for NSA, why would you think they would do such a poor job that anyone can pay $20k to prove it?
    - ryanlol 5y ago
      I feel like convincing the world to use your backdoored encryption algorithms is a bit more interesting than planting yet another RCE bug in Windows.
  - iforgotpassword 5y ago
    Why would this even be necessary to prove? At least for me that's not required, NSA_KEY plus Snowden leaks are enough. Microsoft is known to have no problems cooperating with governments requests, or how do you think they can operate all their services in China? Any hard evidence for such a backdoor wouldn't really change anything towards Microsoft for me.
no_time 5y ago
Correct. It's one thing that the general population doesn't know what a TPM is but I just can't fathom how do governments deal with the fact that their entire nation's computing is about to be run under lock and key controlled by an american company. You could make the argument that up until this point it was possible to coexist with window's BS because despite it's closed nature, it was extensively documented and had workarounds to all to all treachorous functionality. But it's about to get a LOT worse with 11.
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  In my experience most people at government orgs simply follow the recommendations of 'someone' else. Said someone is in the pocket of some vendor, and 'champions' their cause. The relatively few folk that actually understand the details, are usually not the type to be able to wine n dine their management (because no vendor supported expense budget). Or worse, are single handedly tasked with the responsibility, and no reward (outside of securing your 'country', which effort will be diluted in front of your eyes anyway). Everyone just buys the ABC company's TPM to put it into their heads and out of their minds.
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  >Correct. It's one thing that the general population doesn't know what a TPM is but I just can't fathom how do governments deal with the fact that their entire nation's computing is about to be run under lock and key controlled by an american company. And the said company would oblige to help NSA getting access to some users data. Both China and Russia demand users with sensitive information to use their own operating systems and they also build their own hardware because they don't trust the hardware.
robertlagrant 5y ago
> In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? Except of course some older Surface line hardware, because why even be subtle?
jeroenhd 5y ago
Microsoft is doing its absolute best to move everyone to the Windows store by packaging the new apps everyone should be making into weird formats such as appx and msix which can't or previously couldn't be easily installed without command line funkiness. Luckily, Microsofts own incompetence is preventing this plan from working. There's another part to the exclusion of old hardware, which is that modern chips are a lot more reselient against crashes according to the telemetry Microsoft collects. The same is true for secure boot and other security lockdowns every Linux user disables. You could make the argument that this means that Microsoft is failing to provide stability for this older hardware, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it makes business sense for MS to put money and resources towards resolving the issue. Not making Windows 11 available on old chips doesn't hurt sales, helps them boast with great stability and security statistics and barely makes a dent in their reputation. Most people with a negative opinion of the company here were hating on Microsoft long before Windows 11 was even announced. The TPM story makes sense from a Windows Hello standpoint. I don't think there's any doubt that the hardware trust system is more secure than the previous system. However, that trust is completely useless because Microsoft STILL doesn't enable Bitlocker unless you pay extra. It's current_year and Microsoft still hasn't brought data security to the masses. This is an area where proper use of the TPM can be benefit users massively. Linux is having the exact opposite problem, I want to use my TPM and secure boot to leverage the hardware security built into my devices but it's as if every part of the Linux boot chain has implemented some kind of limitation to make the process difficult. Bitlocker works great, and I want it on Linux too, but nobody writing code for the Linux ecosystem seems to share my preferences here.
- croutonwagon 5y ago
  TPM, at least older version <1.2 were still subject to physical key exfil attacks [1] because the chips communications with other parts of the board were done in the clear. So it was/is recommended to use a pin/key and/or recovery key to ensure the security of the data. Unless your only threat model was to protect against common thievery and assume the attack had no technical prowess (and that’s perfectly fine, I do this for my company). Not to mention they were kinda used as a warranty canary for Truecrypt [2]. There were suspicions that nation states may have hardware bypasses worked out. Later there were implementations of hardware encryption found to be vulnerable. So even now bitlicker does everything in software by default. [3] So I understand why FOSS devs would rely more on standard practice (shared keys) with LUKS and not embrace hardware enclave options like TPM. They haven’t been the most reliable over the long term and are harder to patch/fix. [1] https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/articles/TPM-sniffing https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/articles/TPM-sniffing [2] https://threatpost.com/of-truecrypt-and-warrant-canaries/106355/ https://threatpost.com/of-truecrypt-and-warrant-canaries/106... [3] https://www.technadu.com/bitlocker-to-use-software-encryption-on-windows-10/54907/ https://www.technadu.com/bitlocker-to-use-software-encryptio...
DeathArrow 5y ago
>Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not. This would be stupid. People use Windows because it's usable and because they can use software they want. But forcing the users and developers going through an app store won't be taken lightly neither by users, nor by developers. If Adobe and Autodesk would sense something like this is planned, they would start porting their software to Linux. Microsoft doesn't have a chance to lock their system down. What would be the next step? Use Windows only on MS hardware? They can't pull an Apple and I think they've realized it.
- anonymousab 5y ago
  > People use Windows because it's usable and because they can use software they want Most people already use computers that, by default, only allow them to install signed software through app stores. For perhaps a majority of them, that's their primary or only computer.
shin_lao 5y ago
It can be installed without a TPM chip. My computer does not have a TPM and they say it will soon be eligible for Windows 11. If you can't wait, you can do a full install using an ISO image.
- vetinari 5y ago
  You can't install W11, not even from ISO, if your computer doesn't meet all the requirements (yes, I tried).
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    There are some remastered ISOs floating around.
DeathArrow 5y ago
>Just like what Apple has with its AppStore and its wonderful, wonderful 30% commission. At least Google is planning to lower their 30% commission for a bit.
kenjackson 5y ago
People always say this sort of stuff, but I feel like never really ask, is there any reason why Microsoft would do this? Desktop revenue from apps is small and will get smaller. MS gets that the web will continue to grow larger. I just don’t believe the App Store angle. I don’t think Satya does either. The cloud runs the company now. They did this for a different reason. I just feel like people aren’t even trying to reason through what it is.
- fendy3002 5y ago
  My 2 cents, if MS control the app and store, it means no pirated office / sql server running on both servers and development machines. Open source solutions may also meet a hindrance when they somehow collides with MS's line of business (postgres). Theoretically Microsoft can get a cut from adobe subscription (no longer puchase, screw them too). They can also potentially force valve or epic for a fee or shared revenue, which is why steamOs are there. Netflix and spotify are also potential targets. Then no telemetry can be published if MS said so, forcing third parties to deal somehow with MS.
  - kenjackson 5y ago
    But for Office they are already trying to move all the revenue to O365. That's the future and there you don't have to deal with piracy. I've never heard pirated copies of SQL Server being an issue. And then, sure there's Adobe, but 99% of apps are pure web apps. No desktop client needed. Netflix Windows dekstop usage is small compared to their webpage and if MS pushed hard on this, they could just pull the app altogether. The app store angle just isn't going to be this revenue monster for them long term. When I look at my desktop the only apps I have open are Microsoft and Adobe apps. That's it -- and the occassional game. IMO, I think the thing they should care about the most is preventing ransomware/malware on their devices. Apps will be in the cloud, but the entry point is the device. Enterprises will want to have the most secure and easy to use entrypoint.
blame-troi 5y ago
Back to the Mac for me. Yeah, they have the walled garden problem too, but *nix environment for my development hobby is better there than I have on Windows 10. I’m not willing to go all the way to Linux for my main system since my wife has to be able to use it. Numerically developer desktops aren’t significant, but mindshare is.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  Apple are doing exactly the same thing. I'd even say they're slightly ahead of Microsoft on the storification of their desktop OS.
- fsflover 5y ago
  > I’m not willing to go all the way to Linux for my main system since my wife has to be able to use it. What is the problem with using it? My non-technical relatives are quite happy with their Debian which I installed for them.
sn_master 5y ago
Call me paranoid, but I am completely certain that TPM has a backdoor disguised as a very sophisticated bug for plausible deniability. I'll never trust BitLocker or anything that relies on TPM to encrypt any data I actually care about not being compromised (read: my very personal data, not work data).
- surajrmal 5y ago
  You're in luck then! Everyone seems to be ditching TPMs in favor of their own security chip technology. Google has titan, Apple has T1/T2, and Microsoft now has Pluton. While the TPM is a well defined spec, I have no idea how fair.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I doubt it. A much more likely suspect is the Intel Management Engine, which unlike a TPM module, runs an entire operating system alongside your computer and hides it's outgoing traffic as encrypted TLS data. Yikes. A much more likely explanation for TPM is that it can enforce weak and vulnerable cryptography at a hardware level. It's an open secret by this point that the NSA weakens elliptic keypairs to make them vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis. With TPM, software can now be forced to use hardware crypto, which is almost always weaker than the programmable software crypto we had before.
29athrowaway 5y ago
Microsoft fanboys will finally get the maximum security digital prison they asked for, built with their own money. We tried to tell you, but you were too busy playing your dumb DirectX games. It's not that those same games could not have developed for Linux, though. Let's see how long you tolerate having to kiss Satya Nadella's ring every day now that you have forced choices.
fuzzfactor 5y ago
SecureBoot and UEFI were foisted to dampen continued viability of Windows XP and Windows 7, plus functioning as roadblocks to Linux booting and adoption as has been seen. It's been years but Linux remains much more badly sidelined compared to working under BIOS, rather than UEFI. TPM is to hasten the demise of Windows 8 & 10 and the hardware that dragged them in.
passivate 5y ago
>Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not. People have been saying that forever. At our company we rely on windows backwards compat to run older commercial software which has saved tens of thousands of dollars for us. It seems to me like people are not exposed to a large swath of the computing landscape that uses industry specific commercial software that isn't going anywhere. Also who are the "lemmings" in your analogy? Hopefully you're not referring to normal people who make rational decisions based on their needs.

by eps 5y ago

pabs3 5y ago

Someone recently got Windows 11 installed and working on a Pentium 4, so it doesn't seem that the restrictions are hard to bypass.

pjmlp 5y ago

But it will be built on top of WSL3 and all hackers will jump of joy with Windows/Linux.

intricatedetail 5y ago
Many people only use Windows because the software they have don't have a Linux build. Maybe people should start pressuring vendors to make Linux builds and that could end Windows.
- gavinray 5y ago
  Bingo. Switched from 10 years of Debian-based linux (mostly Ubuntu, recently Pop_OS) to Windows because of some MIDI driver thing I could not get to install in WINE. I have had a significantly less pleasant time on both Win10 and Win11, and it's slow as hell. Ubuntu/Ubuntu-derivatives with Regolith as a DE + Tiling WM is the best computing experience I've ever had (Disclaimer: Have never used a Mac. Have been told OSx is better than Linux by people who have used both for long time.) https://regolith-linux.org/ https://regolith-linux.org/ The ironic thing is that, I later had a passing convo with a developer of a DAW, who told me that MIDI driver stuff is usually for running specific software from the vendor and that MIDI is universal over USB. So I never even needed to switch in the first place! I was just too hardware-stupid to know this! Oh man it hurts my soul. I could switch back but it takes a whole weekend to properly backup + wipe and setup a machine. I think I am going to go back to Pop_OS or Ubuntu though.
  - swiley 5y ago
    >slow as hell It's surprising how poorly Windows performs. Many people who don't use it may have not noticed how bad it's gotten in the last 5 years.
  - nicolas_t 5y ago
    > (Disclaimer: Have never used a Mac. Have been told OSx is better than Linux by people who have used both for long time.) As someone who used both for a long time, I would agree 2-3 years ago, now though I'd say I prefer Linux. I do really love the new m1 macs in term of temperature control and performance though. The advantage of Linux is that when it doesn't work it's much easier to diagnose and fix by yourself, that didn't use to be a problem on macs because Apple's QA was much better and they were pretty stable (if you skipped the first 3-4 months of a new OS release) but nowadays, it's a lot less stable, my mac cannot even go to deep sleep properly (which ironically used to be a major pain on linux) and it's just a black box that's hard to diagnose but doesn't work well enough to justify it being a black box. And for the mac, I used to use things like SIMBL to modify the system exactly how I liked it but all of that has been slowly removed by Apple. Now I just want the flexibility of Linux.
    - gavinray 5y ago
      > "I would agree 2-3 years ago, now though I'd say I prefer Linux" This is an interesting anecdote. Do you have anything in particular that makes you think this, or is it an overall shift in feel? Also curious to hear which distro you use Call me a heretic, but I am jealous of the M1 performance-for-price being outside the Apple ecosystem and have thought to buy an M1 laptop and wipe it + put Asahi Linux on it hahaha
      - nicolas_t 5y ago
        I mostly use Arch Linux. Used to use Gentoo for years before that. Mostly it's the continuous QA problem I've been getting (my mba not going to deep sleep is a big one), the dumbing down of the OS X interface and the fact that I can no longer easily use tools like SIMBL to extend applications. It's a bit the straw that broke the camel back. As time went on, little things became more and more aggravating. I'm eagerly watching Asahi Linux's progress :)
- dncornholio 5y ago
  You mean, just like Apple did?
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Ironically I have been using Linux via VMWare for about 10 years now, because I got fed up with Year of Linux Desktop, which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling. When my Asus Netbook dies (1215B with XUbuntu), the next UNIX travel laptop will be an Air. So you can spare the talk about how much GNU/Linux has progressed, since I see it every time I take that netbook into use.
  - gavinray 5y ago
    > "which to this day still doesn't provide a proper experience to anyone that cares about graphics programming and usable UI/UX tooling." Genuinely curious what doesn't work in IE Ubuntu 21.04 for you? Not one of those raving Linux zealots (don't really care that much about privacy), I've just had positive experiences on Linux -- not using it masochistically for ethical reasons, but because it worked very well for me. So I would be interested in hearing the other side of the coin, since you've been around the block a time or two.
    - blep-arsh 5y ago
      I'm not the person you were replying to, but here's the straw that broke this multilingual camel's back: unless Gnome is running under Wayland, switching the keyboard layout steals the input focus away from the foreground window briefly, causing focus-loss event handlers to fire. This might seem an easily fixable minor issue but it's actually a decade-old hairball which significantly harms the experience and can't be fixed cleanly under X.
      - yyyk 5y ago
        I don't recall this ever happening to me in KDE under X, at least not in a way I've noticed.
        blep-arsh 5y ago
        It's a Gnome-specific thing
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  It obviously won't end Windows. Not will actually make any sizeable dent in Windows marketshare. That's a pipe dream. Vast majority of people use Windows because it comes preinstalled. And it comes preinstalled for business reasons that are very hard to counter or reverse. The only way to weaken Windows is through legislative measures and that ain't likely to happen.
- Arisaka1 5y ago
  The thing is, vendors will only invest resources required to make Linux builds if there's a market that justifies the investment. The only pressure companies can feel is the pressure that comes from the promise of making more money.
- peteri 5y ago
  There are several reasons for Windows popularity today: Active Directory - The centralised control it gives corporates. Games and DirectX - Although this seems to be getting to be less of a reason. Backwards compatibility - Windows 16 bit apps are now dead, but you can take the VB6 code I wrote pre-Y2K and run it today. Linux fragmentation - It's difficult to support all the Linux variations with a single binary (or at least it feels that way to me) I suspect it has a very high support cost. Related to this is the GPL and it's potential to force release of source code.
  - Krasnol 5y ago
    There is also one reason many here don't see: you don't have to bother with the console. Everything can be installed and run with a mouse. Don't take me wrong. I understand the good sides of console programs. You can do a lot there but your average user doesn't care.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      What popular end-user software cannot be installed and run with a mouse in e.g. Ubuntu?
      - Krasnol 5y ago
        The fact that you had to narrow it down to some arbitrary "popular" category to not touch the topic speaks for itself.
        dotancohen 5y ago
        Alright then, what unpopular end-user software cannot be installed and run with a mouse in e.g. Ubuntu?
        addicted 5y ago
        I’m also struggling to understand why it would be difficult to create a mouse driven GUI for any CLI based app. In fact, there are apps that can do that automatically. Admittedly these apps tend to create not very good UIs, but the point is that it’s not hard at all.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
gavinray 5y ago
Relevant tweets from self: https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446459866059612162 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446459866059612162 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446460168389136395 https://twitter.com/GavinRayDev/status/1446460168389136395 WINE and the very popular/well maintained Linux distros have gotten so good in recent years that the scenario is nearly identical to Windows + WSL2, except with the DE reversed. And WINE is never going to run entirely as smooth/easy as regular Windows, though it's pretty damn close. I prefer Linux DE, both for aesthetic and resource (but mostly resource) purposes. I think Win11 looks great despite internet's opinion, but wow-ee I cannot justify/cope with the amount of resources (modern) Windows takes just to idle and run explorer.exe Now -- OLD Windows? Windows 98, Windows 2000? That was (is) some good stuff. ReactOS recently released an x64 compatible build and I've booted into QEMU with it and toyed with the idea of trying to use it as a daily driver/work, even for a week as an experiment. https://reactos.org/blogs/newsletter-101/ https://reactos.org/blogs/newsletter-101/ Feels nearly identical to Windows 2000 or so. Can check news announcement here and get the x64 MSVC build from the nightly page + boot into it using QEMU or whatnot (I used LiveCD to test): https://reactos.org/getbuilds/ https://reactos.org/getbuilds/
- nmfisher 5y ago
  FWIW, I recently tried WINE/Codeweavers again after hearing everyone rave that it ran practically everything, and it was an absolute disaster. Literally 5/6 of the applications I tried didn’t run (and the sixth was Telegram, which actually already has a Linux client IIRC). I doubt it’s really an option for 99% of people who need Windows for serious work.
  - gavinray 5y ago
    Damn that sounds like bad luck to be honest. Or maybe the opposite -- I got very lucky and the apps I used were almost all compatible. Off the top of my head, I've gotten: - Ableton Live 10 - FL Studio 20 - A lot of popular Windows games To work without any bugs (Borderlands 3 had a bug loading an asset once) The one program I couldn't get working with WINE was Studio One 5. Ableton and FL Studio are multi-GB programs with dozens of .dll's, really complex -- and all I had to do was: wine <installer-name>.exe Then click through them So yeah it could just be a crapshoot as far as what works. Maybe it winds up that a lot of the apps you personally use/need don't run at all, which would really suck =/ But WINE sees constant improvement, including contribution from Valve who have a vested interest in Proton for running games. Not to be cliche, but it's always improving. (I've never used the paid Codeweavers product which is supposedly better, so can't comment on that one. Maybe someone else can chime in with recent experience if they have?)

nix23 5y ago

It's absolutely fascinating that an open OS like windows (not open as opensource, but open to run every program) takes that route. Microsoft really thinks they can compete with platforms like android or iOS, i have to say: Thank you Microsoft!! You accelerate the downfall of Windows! No one will need you in the future, Adobe on M1(Apple), Development on Linux, Gaming on Linux, Workstations Linux maybe some Apple.

can16358p 5y ago
Yeah my thoughts! But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. (Not talking about HN community, talking about regular Joe) As long as Microsoft keeps lobbying OEMs to include Windows and there's no good alternative (looking at you, non-tech-savvy user-friendly Linux distros and major software vendors like Adobe, Autodesk etc, they will only keep locked to using Windows. I'd love to see an alternative world where everything has an equivalent open-source software that people can switch to, but let's get facts right, many open-source software is inferior to their counterparts (especially on the design/photography world against Adobe).
- nix23 5y ago
  >But on the other hand people also use Windows because its the default that comes with their new computer. True, but if Windows cannot run the application regular Joe wants, people will just switch to Chrome OS or Apple or Linux (wine?). Sometimes regular Joe's uses more exotic Software we can imagine, and they choose windows because it runs on it since 25 years. Just some examples i have seen: -VisualBasic 6 (for model train automation) -A 20yo siemens software for relay automation -A ~25yo CNC maschine (Windows software to convert CAM to N-language (self-written postprocessor again in VB6)) And much much more
  - can16358p 5y ago
    It's kind of a chicken-egg problem there too: Windows is the most ubiquitous OS when it comes to "computers" as the society knows, and more software gets written for it, and because of it, OEMs would prefer it even if MS doesn't push them anymore. Not sure about the solution.

im3w1l 5y ago

People weren't distracted by the friendly Microsoft front. People were distracted by all the other companies being even worse.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
Yes they were and they are. You can see it regularly on HN, saying that today's Microsoft has nothing to do with the ugly beast from the 90s, the times have changed, they are now a completely different company, they contribute to Open Source and even Linux, and they can now be trusted because they built the best code editor in the world. I don't know if people actually are that naive or if it's a part of Microsoft's intensive efforts to game HN.
- rnd0 5y ago
  It's a little of column "a" and a little of column "b" and also because there's a whole generation which has come and gone since the Halloween Papers and the general MS fuckery of the 90's.

dTal 5y ago

"Dan would eventually find out about the free kernels, even entire free operating systems, that had existed around the turn of the century. But not only were they illegal, like debuggers—you could not install one if you had one, without knowing your computer's root password. And neither the FBI nor Microsoft Support would tell you that." --Richard Stallman, "The Right To Read"

ddalex 5y ago
Stallman was ALMOST right. The fight is not about which programs the user can run, but who controls the user data
- temac 5y ago
  There is a fight for both. And the fight to stay in control of your data is far easier when you use Free Software.
- echelon 5y ago
  Tell that to every iPhone app developer. It's worse than not having the right to execute. You can't even build the program you want. You have to use Apple pay, Apple subscriptions, Apple login. And you don't even get a relationship with your customer. Truly draconian.
  - HeckFeck 5y ago
    And they tell me that automake is bad!
  - DeathArrow 5y ago
    And we don't that to happen to Windows too.
  - depressedpanda 5y ago
    They also prevent installing 3rd party web browsers, while keeping Safari way behind all others in order to ensure that you cannot escape their control. Their behavior is inexcusable but not surprising; what baffles me is that it's allowed.

dhdyychebr 5y ago

I can't bring myself to be sad when the outcome is a more secure os. If anything I want /less/ user power. Imagine a world where you can start a "private" chat and not even need to worry about screenshots. I'd love that personally. And what's the downside? I lose features that only matter to the cyber politicos?

MikusR 5y ago

It started with Vista. Due to DRM you can't play your own videos. Only DRM protected ones.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
How so? I could play all my pirated DVD rips just fine back then (DivX .avi), same how I can play pirated Bluray, Netflix, Amazon, etc. rips on Windows 10 and 11 (.mkv).
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  I'm guessing GP is referring to the introduction of Protected Media Path stuff in Vista, which broke some existing video players. It didn't break non-DRM videos though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_Media_Path
- MikusR 5y ago
  Yes that didn't happen. It was FUD spread around back then. Like with TPM now.

heavyset_go 5y ago

> ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? You know, the ones that don't have a TPM chip? > Now you know. Windows 11 completes the lock-up of the OS. Stallman[1] and others[2] talked about exactly this 15+ years ago. [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html [2] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html

lupire 5y ago
35 years ago.

watermelon0 5y ago

Or maybe this is related to the security, and Windows is the only widely used platform that didn't enforce TPM until recently? macOS is even more locked down, but they don't impede or force users to use Mac App Store.

antman 5y ago
Ofcourse they don’t force anything because of the competing windows platform which is more open up to now. Apple assumed market dominance and locked everything down on mobile. What I infer from your observation is that closing down Windows could also adversely affect Mac users, since Apple would not miss this opportunity.
- neilalexander 5y ago
  Apple could have done it with the Apple Silicon transition and yet didn’t. More inclined to believe actions over words at this point.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    Not without massive loss of users. Both Microsoft and Apple would love to lock down their platforms, but they have to do it in tandem or users will flock to the other. So we will see a slow lock-in creep until they look like current day smartphones. Only way to stop this is to react strongly, so if most users are apathetic like you then it is inevitable. Of course I believe that you are right and most are this apathetic, so from my perspective this is inevitable. When they roll out the enforced appstore you will say something along the lines of "but this appstore is secure and I can get all the programs I wanted from it anyway, and even if I couldn't would I really want an insecure program?".
    - neilalexander 5y ago
      Apathetic — no. I’m aware of the control creep in the industry, but I do think that it seems unnecessarily alarmist to think that Apple just can’t wait to lock down macOS. There is nothing to gain by them doing so and I would be incredibly surprised if they didn’t already know that. iOS is and has always been a closed platform. We knew that the day they announced the first iPhone and they have been consistent in their messaging about that ever since. iPads and iPhones are globally successful though, far more so than the Mac, and with a far wider target audience that encompasses most people. It would be great for power users to be able to side-load without jailbreaking, but there are plenty of less technical people out there for whom side-loading actually presents much more of a risk than a benefit. That’s what makes it a complicated issue. The Mac, on the other hand, doesn’t stand to benefit from that same closed model in the slightest. The real target audiences for the Mac (i.e. software developers, professional photography/cinematography, music production, publishing) all live and depend on software that requires flexibility, plugins etc and they stand a much greater chance of knowing what they’re doing. They would walk away from Macs in an instant if the platform stops being useful to them. Apple Silicon was the perfect opportunity for Apple to close the platform if they really felt strongly enough to do so, but here’s the thing: Microsoft tried to do it with WinRT, it was an absolute disaster and the market spoke accordingly. It doesn’t seem worth the risk.

Arisaka1 5y ago

I saw the writing on the wall the moment they could sloppily justify the TPM requirement. Then I got into arguments with people proclaiming that it's just Microsoft enforcing it for the casual user's safety, and that I'm a Microsoft hater. Who? Me, whose first programming language was C#, who worked as an Windows server administrator for years, and my operating systems have been nothing than Windows for 2 decades. And I'm suddenly a hater for daring to raise an eyebrow and question their design motivation? I'm very convinced that the desktop world is at its worse. You have the commonly owned yet absurdly powerful tool known as a desktop computer have its market dominated by a single company, with no competitors whatsoever. Even worse, Microsoft's deal with hardware vendors ensure that even if a competitor were to rise they'll have to earn their favor as well. The game is lost for any competitor before it even starts. And with the PC dominance under their thumb they test the waters to see with how much they can get away with, an approach they cannot even afford to consider when it comes to their other products like Azure or even the C# programming language. They also did their best to make Visual Studio Code great, until you realize that this also follows the same pattern.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>I saw the writing on the wall the moment they could sloppily justify the TPM requirement. Microsoft doxed itself on the TPM limitation being purely arbitrary when Windows 11 compatibility checks passed on a Pentium 4 CPU and installed just fine due to a mistake from Microsoft where they forgot to blacklist that CPU family lol. https://twitter.com/Carlos_SM1995/status/1448561898035851264?s=20 https://twitter.com/Carlos_SM1995/status/1448561898035851264...
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  >purely arbitrary As if years of experience hasn't taught us that opt-in security is stupid. This would be arbitrary if the TPM was useless, but it isn't.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    We have to disagree here. The threat models where the security that TPM offers are mostly applicable to the enterprise and business sectors where all devices on the network/AD/VPN have to be trusted and their storage encrypted. There TPM makes perfect sense. You average consumer/home user does not benefit at all from the features of TPM since they're not subject to the same threat model. Here TPM, and also stuff of the UEFI security chain like Management Engine and Secure Boot in the past, act more like hostile wall-gardening that limit what a user can install on his system (remember how enabling secure boot originally meant you couldn't install any linux distro?) rather than add any meaningful security (will TPM and Secure Boot prevent grandma from getting her PC infected by malware off some shady phishing site? No? Then don't force those requirements for private users)

sgblp 5y ago

We notice the Microsoft front. Microsoft has marched through the "open" source institutions and employs a sufficient number of OSS people. In Python, Microsoft employees (who don't develop much ...) have two seats in the Steering Council and GvR, who still seems to pull strings. Opposition on the mailing lists is shut down ruthlessly and is censored. The new "JIT" project has all the hallmarks of NIH and will end in minor insignificant speedups. The C# guys will be amused.

keddad 5y ago
Can you elaborate on the problems with JIT implementation in Python? I'm far from Python development, but it seems intresting

schmorptron 5y ago

Does a TPM chip actually bring any relevant security advantages for end users, or is it just for DRM?

e2le 5y ago
Measured boot and secure storage of keys. It's not all bad.
- schmorptron 5y ago
  That's good to hear then! So will most computers having a TPM chip lead to easier integration of secure boot with i.e. linux distros as well?
  - e12e 5y ago
    As long as most computers ship in a manner where the owner can adjust the keys in TPM/SecureBoot - you could argue its a good thing. Eg,like: https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-sign-things-for-secure-boot https://ubuntu.com/blog/how-to-sign-things-for-secure-boot
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    I had to disable secure boot to get Nvidia's drivers to work. So I guess the end result might be more hardware trouble for distros, with a subsystem that tries to prevent usage of the computer when it is not happy.
    - vetinari 5y ago
      You can also enroll your MOK (Machine-Owner-Key) to UEFI and then sign the nvidia driver with it. That way, you can leave Secure Boot enabled. However, leaving the secret part of MOK on the machine and let the dkms or whatever updater of kernel modules to use it unattended kind of defeats the purpose.
      - ziml77 5y ago

mickotron 5y ago

We all won't be, only those still choosing to run windows. For those not doing so, we are not affected.

aaaaaaaaaaab 5y ago

B-but they supposed to have changed for good! :’( Haven’t you heard? They love™ open source! They write JavaScript! Surely it’s just some misunderstanding…

FDSGSG 5y ago

This reads exactly like the crazy conspiracy theory nonsense that FOSS-clowns were pushing out regarding Secure Boot. How did that end up? Well, turns out that they can now safely be called clowns.

no_time 5y ago
The water is getting so hot the frog is having problems breathing from all the steam. "Crazy conspiracy!" He yells between two heavy gasps for air.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Oh piss off, nonsense like this is why we still don't have any Linux distros shipping reasonable FDE implementations. I sure hate to be able to kind of trust my computer http://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encryption-on-linux.html http://0pointer.net/blog/authenticated-boot-and-disk-encrypt...
  - no_time 5y ago
    I like how the author acknowledges that some people claim that TPMs are evil but doesn't actually refute it. As long as I can't extract the Endorsement Keys from a TPM I legally own you are not convincing me otherwise.

zigzag312 5y ago

I find it interesting that, one one hand they are implementing features "in the name of security" that limit the owner of a computer what he/she can do with it and on the other hand they are adding backdoors so that government agencies (or anyone with right information) can spy on citizen that use this "secure" OS.

ryanlol 5y ago
I will personally pay you twenty thousand US dollars (in the cryptocurrency of your choice, bank transfer, western union, whatever) if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Microsoft has ever secretly shipped a backdoor in their OS so government agencies could spy on their users. Perhaps you will be the first person to actually prove the existence of the NSAKEY backdoor? (I doubt it.)
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  What about this old NSA backdoor? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG If MS or Apple or Google or some hardware makers or some communication equipment makers have some backdoors for NSA, why would you think they would do such a poor job that anyone can pay $20k to prove it?
  - ryanlol 5y ago
    I feel like convincing the world to use your backdoored encryption algorithms is a bit more interesting than planting yet another RCE bug in Windows.
- iforgotpassword 5y ago
  Why would this even be necessary to prove? At least for me that's not required, NSA_KEY plus Snowden leaks are enough. Microsoft is known to have no problems cooperating with governments requests, or how do you think they can operate all their services in China? Any hard evidence for such a backdoor wouldn't really change anything towards Microsoft for me.

no_time 5y ago

Correct. It's one thing that the general population doesn't know what a TPM is but I just can't fathom how do governments deal with the fact that their entire nation's computing is about to be run under lock and key controlled by an american company. You could make the argument that up until this point it was possible to coexist with window's BS because despite it's closed nature, it was extensively documented and had workarounds to all to all treachorous functionality. But it's about to get a LOT worse with 11.

AwaAwa 5y ago
In my experience most people at government orgs simply follow the recommendations of 'someone' else. Said someone is in the pocket of some vendor, and 'champions' their cause. The relatively few folk that actually understand the details, are usually not the type to be able to wine n dine their management (because no vendor supported expense budget). Or worse, are single handedly tasked with the responsibility, and no reward (outside of securing your 'country', which effort will be diluted in front of your eyes anyway). Everyone just buys the ABC company's TPM to put it into their heads and out of their minds.
DeathArrow 5y ago
>Correct. It's one thing that the general population doesn't know what a TPM is but I just can't fathom how do governments deal with the fact that their entire nation's computing is about to be run under lock and key controlled by an american company. And the said company would oblige to help NSA getting access to some users data. Both China and Russia demand users with sensitive information to use their own operating systems and they also build their own hardware because they don't trust the hardware.

robertlagrant 5y ago

> In related news - ever wondered why Windows 11 can't be installed on "older computers"? Except of course some older Surface line hardware, because why even be subtle?

jeroenhd 5y ago

Microsoft is doing its absolute best to move everyone to the Windows store by packaging the new apps everyone should be making into weird formats such as appx and msix which can't or previously couldn't be easily installed without command line funkiness. Luckily, Microsofts own incompetence is preventing this plan from working. There's another part to the exclusion of old hardware, which is that modern chips are a lot more reselient against crashes according to the telemetry Microsoft collects. The same is true for secure boot and other security lockdowns every Linux user disables. You could make the argument that this means that Microsoft is failing to provide stability for this older hardware, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it makes business sense for MS to put money and resources towards resolving the issue. Not making Windows 11 available on old chips doesn't hurt sales, helps them boast with great stability and security statistics and barely makes a dent in their reputation. Most people with a negative opinion of the company here were hating on Microsoft long before Windows 11 was even announced. The TPM story makes sense from a Windows Hello standpoint. I don't think there's any doubt that the hardware trust system is more secure than the previous system. However, that trust is completely useless because Microsoft STILL doesn't enable Bitlocker unless you pay extra. It's current_year and Microsoft still hasn't brought data security to the masses. This is an area where proper use of the TPM can be benefit users massively. Linux is having the exact opposite problem, I want to use my TPM and secure boot to leverage the hardware security built into my devices but it's as if every part of the Linux boot chain has implemented some kind of limitation to make the process difficult. Bitlocker works great, and I want it on Linux too, but nobody writing code for the Linux ecosystem seems to share my preferences here.

croutonwagon 5y ago
TPM, at least older version <1.2 were still subject to physical key exfil attacks [1] because the chips communications with other parts of the board were done in the clear. So it was/is recommended to use a pin/key and/or recovery key to ensure the security of the data. Unless your only threat model was to protect against common thievery and assume the attack had no technical prowess (and that’s perfectly fine, I do this for my company). Not to mention they were kinda used as a warranty canary for Truecrypt [2]. There were suspicions that nation states may have hardware bypasses worked out. Later there were implementations of hardware encryption found to be vulnerable. So even now bitlicker does everything in software by default. [3] So I understand why FOSS devs would rely more on standard practice (shared keys) with LUKS and not embrace hardware enclave options like TPM. They haven’t been the most reliable over the long term and are harder to patch/fix. [1] https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/articles/TPM-sniffing https://pulsesecurity.co.nz/articles/TPM-sniffing [2] https://threatpost.com/of-truecrypt-and-warrant-canaries/106355/ https://threatpost.com/of-truecrypt-and-warrant-canaries/106... [3] https://www.technadu.com/bitlocker-to-use-software-encryption-on-windows-10/54907/ https://www.technadu.com/bitlocker-to-use-software-encryptio...

DeathArrow 5y ago

>Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not. This would be stupid. People use Windows because it's usable and because they can use software they want. But forcing the users and developers going through an app store won't be taken lightly neither by users, nor by developers. If Adobe and Autodesk would sense something like this is planned, they would start porting their software to Linux. Microsoft doesn't have a chance to lock their system down. What would be the next step? Use Windows only on MS hardware? They can't pull an Apple and I think they've realized it.

anonymousab 5y ago
> People use Windows because it's usable and because they can use software they want Most people already use computers that, by default, only allow them to install signed software through app stores. For perhaps a majority of them, that's their primary or only computer.

shin_lao 5y ago

It can be installed without a TPM chip. My computer does not have a TPM and they say it will soon be eligible for Windows 11. If you can't wait, you can do a full install using an ISO image.

vetinari 5y ago
You can't install W11, not even from ISO, if your computer doesn't meet all the requirements (yes, I tried).
- DeathArrow 5y ago
  There are some remastered ISOs floating around.

DeathArrow 5y ago

>Just like what Apple has with its AppStore and its wonderful, wonderful 30% commission. At least Google is planning to lower their 30% commission for a bit.

kenjackson 5y ago

People always say this sort of stuff, but I feel like never really ask, is there any reason why Microsoft would do this? Desktop revenue from apps is small and will get smaller. MS gets that the web will continue to grow larger. I just don’t believe the App Store angle. I don’t think Satya does either. The cloud runs the company now. They did this for a different reason. I just feel like people aren’t even trying to reason through what it is.

fendy3002 5y ago
My 2 cents, if MS control the app and store, it means no pirated office / sql server running on both servers and development machines. Open source solutions may also meet a hindrance when they somehow collides with MS's line of business (postgres). Theoretically Microsoft can get a cut from adobe subscription (no longer puchase, screw them too). They can also potentially force valve or epic for a fee or shared revenue, which is why steamOs are there. Netflix and spotify are also potential targets. Then no telemetry can be published if MS said so, forcing third parties to deal somehow with MS.
- kenjackson 5y ago
  But for Office they are already trying to move all the revenue to O365. That's the future and there you don't have to deal with piracy. I've never heard pirated copies of SQL Server being an issue. And then, sure there's Adobe, but 99% of apps are pure web apps. No desktop client needed. Netflix Windows dekstop usage is small compared to their webpage and if MS pushed hard on this, they could just pull the app altogether. The app store angle just isn't going to be this revenue monster for them long term. When I look at my desktop the only apps I have open are Microsoft and Adobe apps. That's it -- and the occassional game. IMO, I think the thing they should care about the most is preventing ransomware/malware on their devices. Apps will be in the cloud, but the entry point is the device. Enterprises will want to have the most secure and easy to use entrypoint.

blame-troi 5y ago

Back to the Mac for me. Yeah, they have the walled garden problem too, but *nix environment for my development hobby is better there than I have on Windows 10. I’m not willing to go all the way to Linux for my main system since my wife has to be able to use it. Numerically developer desktops aren’t significant, but mindshare is.

IshKebab 5y ago
Apple are doing exactly the same thing. I'd even say they're slightly ahead of Microsoft on the storification of their desktop OS.
fsflover 5y ago
> I’m not willing to go all the way to Linux for my main system since my wife has to be able to use it. What is the problem with using it? My non-technical relatives are quite happy with their Debian which I installed for them.

sn_master 5y ago

Call me paranoid, but I am completely certain that TPM has a backdoor disguised as a very sophisticated bug for plausible deniability. I'll never trust BitLocker or anything that relies on TPM to encrypt any data I actually care about not being compromised (read: my very personal data, not work data).

surajrmal 5y ago
You're in luck then! Everyone seems to be ditching TPMs in favor of their own security chip technology. Google has titan, Apple has T1/T2, and Microsoft now has Pluton. While the TPM is a well defined spec, I have no idea how fair.
smoldesu 5y ago
I doubt it. A much more likely suspect is the Intel Management Engine, which unlike a TPM module, runs an entire operating system alongside your computer and hides it's outgoing traffic as encrypted TLS data. Yikes. A much more likely explanation for TPM is that it can enforce weak and vulnerable cryptography at a hardware level. It's an open secret by this point that the NSA weakens elliptic keypairs to make them vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis. With TPM, software can now be forced to use hardware crypto, which is almost always weaker than the programmable software crypto we had before.

29athrowaway 5y ago

Microsoft fanboys will finally get the maximum security digital prison they asked for, built with their own money. We tried to tell you, but you were too busy playing your dumb DirectX games. It's not that those same games could not have developed for Linux, though. Let's see how long you tolerate having to kiss Satya Nadella's ring every day now that you have forced choices.

fuzzfactor 5y ago

SecureBoot and UEFI were foisted to dampen continued viability of Windows XP and Windows 7, plus functioning as roadblocks to Linux booting and adoption as has been seen. It's been years but Linux remains much more badly sidelined compared to working under BIOS, rather than UEFI. TPM is to hasten the demise of Windows 8 & 10 and the hardware that dragged them in.

passivate 5y ago

>Mark my words - Windows 12 will severely impede direct installation even of an user-space software, funnelling everyone to go through the store. That's the end goal and we will all be there in a couple of years, whether we want it or not. People have been saying that forever. At our company we rely on windows backwards compat to run older commercial software which has saved tens of thousands of dollars for us. It seems to me like people are not exposed to a large swath of the computing landscape that uses industry specific commercial software that isn't going anywhere. Also who are the "lemmings" in your analogy? Hopefully you're not referring to normal people who make rational decisions based on their needs.