6 ms·

Microsoft begins cracking down on people dodging Windows 11 system requirements

42 points by taubek 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41278379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41278379
t1c 2y ago
And why aren't more people switching to an OS that respects them (like Linux)?
- shaism 2y ago
  Because for most users the costs of getting used to a new OS outweigh the benefit of switching.
  - throwuxiytayq 2y ago
    No, it’s because people approximate the costs badly. Pretty much everyone I know is biased towards inaction even if the action provides immediate as well as long term benefit. Especially when it comes to technology. Even the technology oriented people.
    - brookst 2y ago
      What was that about respecting users?
    - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
      > No, it’s because people approximate the costs badly. "Why doesn't everyone switch to Linux? They must be stupid" is just as short-sighted now as it was 30 years ago. Linux is great, but there are and were plenty of good reasons why it's not optimal for the average user. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283651
      - throwuxiytayq 2y ago
        I didn’t say it’s stupid. Everyone’s assessment is inaccurate every once in a while. Or pretty much always, when it comes to certain biases. You say “average user” and then point to a comment where someone’s disappointed that they can’t get their professional software to work. The average user these days needs a web browser, and doesn’t care which one.
        PhasmaFelis 2y ago
        > I didn’t say it’s stupid. You're claiming that the main reason most people don't switch to Linux is some sort of deficiency of judgment rather than anything practical, and that's not true and it's never been true. You dismissed the costs of getting used to a new OS right off the bat, and that's a real thing. In my link that you dismissed, the first sentence ("while Windows is very hostile ... to its users, it's rarely broken or buggy") is relevant to most users. Professionals may have trouble getting their apps to work, gaming has gotten better but still has the same problem. If user literally only cares about running a web browser, then yeah, Linux would be fine; but Windows is already fine, so why bother switching? I like Linux. I've used it at home and professionally. I'm a huge fan of FOSS principles, and I think it would be better for everyone if more people used open systems. But Windows works well enough to satisfy most people, and they're not going to change purely for ideological reasons. Maybe it'd be a better world if they did! But it's not reasonable to expect them to, or to cast that as a failure of judgment.
      - consteval 2y ago
        If we're talking purely about the average user it's perfect for them. They use a browser primarily, which work great. The trouble is the slightly above average user who is not technical. They think they know computers because they can click around in some random Windows GUI and get something to work. But they don't actually know much in a general "how stuff works" way. And then there's the highly technical like SWE who thrive under Linux. So really it's just the weird middle ground that struggles. You know, your MBAs who can use Excel but get scared at plaintext files.
    - cortesoft 2y ago
      I am not sure how you can be so certain that it would be an immediate benefit to those users… how are you measuring the cost of having to learn something new and the benefit of knowing how everything works?
- ohashi 2y ago
  Because a lot of the software that people are used to or want to run don't work on it. Gaming being a huge one.
  - anthk 2y ago
    Lutris. Fedora Bazzite + Flatpak = problem solved. Libreoffice? Flatpak. Updates? Seamlessly. Anything fails? Rollback.
    - hightrix 2y ago
      Agreed. There are plenty of good solutions for gaming on Linux today. But these solutions are lot more complex than the default windows experience of download steam, install game, play. Many people don’t want to tinker, they want to play their game, not the operating system.
  - cma 2y ago
    Many games written for Windows run faster on linux now, but the biggest limitation is anti cheat for some of the larger titles. Fortnite, despite all its open platform push, probably holds linux back the most.
    - mepian 2y ago
      Apparently Fortnite has two different anti-cheats, and one of them works on Linux.
      - jsheard 2y ago
        Both of them (EAC and Battleye, with EAC being Epics own product) can work on Linux if the developer integrating them chooses to allow it, but Epic has chosen not to allow it in Fortnite citing them being less secure when running on Linux. Which isn't an unfounded concern, judging by the state of cheating in Apex Legends ever since they started allowing Linux clients, nearly every cheat chooses to attack the Linux version now despite the vast majority of Apex players in general being Windows users. Most cheaters dual boot Linux for no reason other than to cheat.
- jabwd 2y ago
  I recently tried. After hours of trying my xbox controller still can't connect. Steam doesn't detect my Gullikit controller and frankly, I have to literally decide to go down this pain again to hopefully maybe switch one day.
  - mepian 2y ago
    Strange, my PlayStation 5 controller just works on openSUSE Tumbleweed.
    - jabwd 2y ago
      Don't have one of those (and really don't want one, AA ftw in a controller tbh), from what I read during my journey is that the xbox controller uses some weird DRM in their chipset but I have honestly no clue what that means in the context of bluetooth.
      - mysterydip 2y ago
        I'm not surprised microsoft would make linux compatibility with their controllers difficult. A shame, though.
      - goosedragons 2y ago
        Odd. Are you sure it's Linux? Or at least totally Linux? I've had no issues pairing MS Series X controllers (or Xbox One) over Bluetooth to my Steam Deck or Linux PCs or using them plugged in. Maybe the Gullikit controllers don't operate quite the same as the MS versions that the drivers don't play nice?
        jabwd 2y ago
        Honestly I connected it to both macOS and windows before. I recently got a new WiFi card so I'm thinking it just has a crappy chipset in terms of Linux support (Asus PCE-AXE59BT is all my store had at the time). Playing around with Mint and tried the xpadneo kmod.
  - 2y ago
- glimshe 2y ago
  Linux is still a hard sell if you don't have easy access to people who know it well. Even things like adding an app to the app bar can require editing a text config. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and my kid uses it, but it's STILL more painful than Windows for a lot of things.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Right click -> Pin to Task Manager? If you're using something like i3, sure, but you know what you're getting into. If you're using something like KDE, it just works.
  - wlesieutre 2y ago
    Decision making like Gnome’s “you can’t put things on the desktop, why would you want that anyway, you’re using the desktop wrong” don’t do it any favors with getting people to switch from Windows or Mac.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  I know you said Linux, and maybe have the same opinion of Apple, but if the OS does actually require TPM 2.0 (and much of MSFT's stuff tries to degrade decently, for all their faults, so this might not be immediately obvious), it's not much different than the hardware requirements Apple imposes (which to be fair, some people also see as arbitrary, and in some cases, I would agree).
- minkles 2y ago
  Because half the shit I use only works on windows. And no I can’t change it because I have to work with other people who’s shit only works on windows.
- analog31 2y ago
  For me, it's touch screen support. I try it out periodically to see if it's improved. Battery life is the second issue.
  - t1c 2y ago
    Touch screen support depends on your desktop environment, I'd recommend giving a modern GNOME + Wayland setup a try. As for battery life...yeah, that's hit or miss. There's some management tools that can help sometimes.
- zbrozek 2y ago
  My personal experience is that while Windows is very hostile (and getting worse) to its users, it's rarely broken or buggy. The system lets me get work done and not fidget with the system itself. Linux-on-the-desktop has made great strides. But I still get screen tearing when scrolling in my browser. I still tend to find that I need 0.5 to 1 generation old hardware for the drivers to work. I don't get good battery life on laptops unless I spend way too much time fiddling with things. And of course, a lot of professional tools don't work on Linux at all. I'm an electrical engineer and while I'm not a designer for my day job any more, I do still use professional-level tools for personal projects. They run in Windows, and Windows only. So basically no matter how much strength of will I have, those tools ultimately keep me on Windows as my daily driver. I love a lot of Linux command-line tools and always have WSL w/Debian on my Windows machines. No more dual-booting.
  - SECProto 2y ago
    Yep, all this. I've tried linux half a dozen times over the last couple decades, several times it even seems to work out of the box - then a day or week later, I realize my printer doesn't work, or I unplug the ethernet and realize the wifi doesnt work, or something that had worked great suddenly stops because of some update. All problems relying on searching through decade-out of date forum posts, hoping someone else's commandline solution fixes my issue. It's too much work, so I use windows 10.
    - r2_pilot 2y ago
      >All problems relying on searching through decade-out of date forum posts, hoping someone else's commandline solution fixes my issue I've been fortunate that Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been an excellent troubleshooter for my problems so far.
- 9dev 2y ago
  Because for the vast majority of normal people a computer is equivalent to Windows. Many of them don’t even memorise concepts, but areas on the screen where to click, in the order required to achieve a specific outcome. Those are stumped when Microsoft modifies the layout of the task bar or a context menu. And now someone tells them to install Linux, on a separate partition perhaps, with a shared boot manager, migrate their data from NTFS to ext4 into the correct folders, install their apps or equivalents in the package manager, and get used to a myriad of different interface design approaches? This is just not going to happen, unless the onboarding experience is improved by a few orders of magnitude, and desktop applications use a single, consistent, UI framework.
  - baal80spam 2y ago
    I'd say that for most users the main blocker is the inane (from Windows point of view) Linux partition setup and management.
    - 9dev 2y ago
      The whole system setup is just borderline arcane. Tell my girlfriend to do that or hack the government, it will be on the same level of impossible to her. And she’s a smart, digital native. And that comes before all the user interface struggles mentioned above.
      - Izkata 2y ago
        "Digital native" is more a marketing term than anything else, and because of the age group it referred to, it ended up meaning the opposite of what was originally intended: it's people who didn't experience technology's growing pains, only the simple slick interfaces, and so don't really understand how it works.
        9dev 2y ago
        There’s a difference to prior generations, though. My parents grew up with machines being brittle; you could break something permanently by operating it the wrong way. That is fundamentally different with computers: Younger people I like to refer to as digital natives have been raised on software and usually just mess around until something works. That doesn’t mean they really understand it, but the mindset around human-technology interaction is fundamentally different, and devoid of the angst of breaking stuff older people tend to show. So my point here is that even people open to experimenting with technology will be absolutely helpless in setting up and using a Linux distribution, because the onboarding experience demands so much implicit knowledge.
- lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
  I just spent a week trying to share a new hard drive via samba and failed completely. "Respects them" my ass.
- attendant3446 2y ago
  I can only think of one reason: gaming. Gaming on Linux is much better now, but still nowhere near as good as gaming on Windows.
  - t1c 2y ago
    Yeah, definitely for multiplayer. Love what Valve is doing though, hopefully more companies will follow suit.
- GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
  Linux respects everything except for the user's time
  - t1c 2y ago
    Idk, I think most beginner distros are fine. If my dad (who primarily uses Apple products, browses the web, checks email, that's it) can figure out Fedora + GNOME, I think anyone can.
Synaesthesia 2y ago
So now what? Have to install Windows 10? Edit: this is for the installer of the latest (canary) branch. Not sure if it will be an issue for updates on existing installs.
fifticon 2y ago
that site xda-developers has one of the worst GDPR interfaces I have ever seen?! You scroll through 1974! (2000..) list items to uncheck them all.. after 25%, I gave up and left
- stanac 2y ago
  You can block third-party cookies in browser and install extension "i still don't care about cookies". (not sure if and how it works on mobile)
- talideon 2y ago
  I recommend the Consent-O-Matic plugin. It automatically rejects consent on almost all sites I interact with on a semi-regular basis.
- attendant3446 2y ago
  uBlock and nothing bothers you (at least not on this site)
analog31 2y ago
I've been assuming that Windows 11 incompatibility was a gift from above, since my system has stopped bothering me about updating.
debo_ 2y ago
I currently use various Ubuntus, Mac OS, Windows 10 and Windows 11 more or less evenly. Windows 11 is by far the most hostile and frustrating of these. I quite like Windows 10. It's unassuming and everything more or less works. I was somewhat shocked at how much worse Windows 11 is, despite not looking that different at first glance.
- nightski 2y ago
  Windows 10 was fantastic. Unfortunately some nice features (maybe critical depending on your needs) are limited to Windows 11 only. Such as WiFi 6e/7 support and WSL 2 graphics/cuda support.
  - baal80spam 2y ago
    > Windows 10 was fantastic. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Windows 7 was fantastic. Windows 10 was... OK at best. I'll never forgive MS for what they did with the UI from Windows 8 onward.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      I think I can install windows 7 these days and marvel at the amazing upgrade it is from win 11. It’d be like they completely corrected course and fixed all their mistakes.
  - daulis 2y ago
    WSL2 graphics support was backported and supports Win10. I’m not sure about CUDA though
beardyw 2y ago
Perhaps they could stop everyone using Windows 11 and make the world a better place.
almatabata 2y ago
I have trouble understanding the point of this move from Microsoft's perspective. You actively stop people from re-using older hardware to run windows 11. Those users have 3 options. Continue running windows 10, install alternative OS or buy new hardware. I cannot see how they would want option 1 or 2, then I have to deduct that they want people to buy new hardware to run the latest OS version. Do they want to force the increase in TPM 2.0 share in the PC market quicker? Do they want to increase hardware sales because they get more money from those than from older licenses?
- quohort 2y ago
  Sure, it's motivated by a bit of license turnover like you suggest. But mostly it's a case of securing their OS against adversaries (including their users). You can lock down the system a lot more with TPM on your side: Now you can keep secrets away from users reliably. I think we are seriously nearing the point of no return. Once you have manufacturers start implementing TC, that will really hamper reverse engineering efforts. Over time, the side channels will get ironed out. Enforcing TPM requirements isn't about making users make changes, it's to scare OEMs into including TPMs by default so they don't get complaints from users. Microsoft wants a more controlled hardware environment like Apple does, because it's more profitable for a variety of reasons.
  - almatabata 2y ago
    > Enforcing TPM requirements isn't about making users make changes, it's to scare OEMs into including TPMs by default so they don't get complaints from users. Would any OEM dare to use workarounds to install windows 11 on not officially supported hardware? I feel like most OEMs would simply upgrade the hardware no questions asked. Simply because should any problem occur, Microsoft would just tell them your problem not ours. > Once you have manufacturers start implementing TC, that will really hamper reverse engineering efforts. Doesn't 90% of the push for this come from Media companies to implement DRM?
    - quohort 2y ago
      > Would any OEM dare to use workarounds to install windows 11 on not officially supported hardware? I feel like most OEMs would simply upgrade the hardware no questions asked. Simply because should any problem occur, Microsoft would just tell them your problem not ours. Well on a basic level, if the consumer buys your motherboard or laptop and it doesn't work out of the box (but your competitors do) then you are going to have a massive customer satisfaction problem. > Doesn't 90% of the push for this come from Media companies to implement DRM? I don't think so. DRM is an old lens of understanding the problem from the last generation. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg . The new methods use a softer approach. Consider something like iOS where the developers can just make it very uncomfortable to do something like download a video and watch it. There's no bittorrent app or p2p file-sharing, there's no real filesystem, and there is no real standalone video player. So users rely on streaming services to do this for them, and you can charge money to middle-man that service. You don't need to strictly enforce copyright like with DRM, just use trusted computing so that the entire system discourages general computer-like operations (including copying files, running programs, etc.) and encourages acting like a thin client to some server. This is a much better model because some small fraction of users still DO need to have general-purpose computing to make consumables in the first place (for example, video editors or musicians, writers, programmers) but the majority of the user-base is discouraged for a variety of reasons. The more you can separate the creator of information from the user of information, the more you can charge the user to access the creator. You can't replace the OS or any of the parts of the machine because of trusted computing, so you cannot really use reverse engineering to simply break the system (and if you do, it may break the trust chain you now need to access now-networked services). Another example is that on a lot of phones and laptops these days, you can't add removable storage, so you are heavily encouraged to use cloud storage. And you are discouraged from using cloud services from any third party (usually on an API level, as services provided from the OS vendor can integrate better with the system). Consider how Apple pushes iCloud and Microsoft pushes OneCloud.
wslh 2y ago
I discovered that in a weird limbo: I updated to Windows 11 on an "old" XPS 13, and never used that device again in Windows. Several years later tried to use Windows 11 there for a specific purpose and it says that I don't have the required hardware. It is interesting that around this time (COVID age) I started using the MB Air M1 and couldn't connect many external monitors while my "old" XPS 13 could be plugged to any Thunderbolt dock and works incredible well, even without configuring anything special in Linux. I don't think this is a benefit for a Microsoft strategy but that many people there should be layoff. It is completely contrary with their current developer strategy. Also, privacy-wise you cannot now for sure if they are sending your keystrokes via telemetry... as a negligence.
Paianni 2y ago
They still provide directions on downgrading the TPM check from 2.0 to 1.2: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ways-to-install-...
mihaic 2y ago
At this point, Windows 11 is the Vista of this generation. I wonder how longer I can stay on 10 until they either fix it with Windows 12 or I'll get used to native Ubuntu with KDE.
edflsafoiewq 2y ago
I don't think the title is accurate. The article says that the trick of adding "/product server" no longer works in the Canary branch, but its pure speculation that this is a "crack down".
rwaksmunski 2y ago
Windows 10 LTSC for my testing machine, MacOS for me and ChromeOS Flex for the friends and family Thinkpads. This pretty much solves our personal computing needs. Throw in a few vintage Brother laser printers where needed.
lousken 2y ago
the more people trying out alternatives OSes, the better thanks, msft
big-green-man 2y ago
How do you "enforce" system requirements? Either the machine will run the software or it won't. Is Microsoft actively blacklisting hardware specifications to force people to buy new hardware even if they don't need it? Why in the world would anyone continue to rely on this company?
Gud 2y ago
I am one of those people. I keep a Windows partition around only for gaming. Looks like I’ll have to replace it with a Linux partition. Essentially all I need is Steam and discord. Let me know what Linux distributions is most suitable? FreeBSD is my daily driver but I’m well familiar with the entire OS jungle by now :-)
- techjamie 2y ago
  Most of them, really. Both steam and discord are readily available in package managers.

42 points by taubek 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41278379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41278379

t1c 2y ago

And why aren't more people switching to an OS that respects them (like Linux)?

shaism 2y ago
Because for most users the costs of getting used to a new OS outweigh the benefit of switching.
- throwuxiytayq 2y ago
  No, it’s because people approximate the costs badly. Pretty much everyone I know is biased towards inaction even if the action provides immediate as well as long term benefit. Especially when it comes to technology. Even the technology oriented people.
  - brookst 2y ago
    What was that about respecting users?
  - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
    > No, it’s because people approximate the costs badly. "Why doesn't everyone switch to Linux? They must be stupid" is just as short-sighted now as it was 30 years ago. Linux is great, but there are and were plenty of good reasons why it's not optimal for the average user. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41283651
    - throwuxiytayq 2y ago
      I didn’t say it’s stupid. Everyone’s assessment is inaccurate every once in a while. Or pretty much always, when it comes to certain biases. You say “average user” and then point to a comment where someone’s disappointed that they can’t get their professional software to work. The average user these days needs a web browser, and doesn’t care which one.
      - PhasmaFelis 2y ago
        > I didn’t say it’s stupid. You're claiming that the main reason most people don't switch to Linux is some sort of deficiency of judgment rather than anything practical, and that's not true and it's never been true. You dismissed the costs of getting used to a new OS right off the bat, and that's a real thing. In my link that you dismissed, the first sentence ("while Windows is very hostile ... to its users, it's rarely broken or buggy") is relevant to most users. Professionals may have trouble getting their apps to work, gaming has gotten better but still has the same problem. If user literally only cares about running a web browser, then yeah, Linux would be fine; but Windows is already fine, so why bother switching? I like Linux. I've used it at home and professionally. I'm a huge fan of FOSS principles, and I think it would be better for everyone if more people used open systems. But Windows works well enough to satisfy most people, and they're not going to change purely for ideological reasons. Maybe it'd be a better world if they did! But it's not reasonable to expect them to, or to cast that as a failure of judgment.
    - consteval 2y ago
      If we're talking purely about the average user it's perfect for them. They use a browser primarily, which work great. The trouble is the slightly above average user who is not technical. They think they know computers because they can click around in some random Windows GUI and get something to work. But they don't actually know much in a general "how stuff works" way. And then there's the highly technical like SWE who thrive under Linux. So really it's just the weird middle ground that struggles. You know, your MBAs who can use Excel but get scared at plaintext files.
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    I am not sure how you can be so certain that it would be an immediate benefit to those users… how are you measuring the cost of having to learn something new and the benefit of knowing how everything works?
ohashi 2y ago
Because a lot of the software that people are used to or want to run don't work on it. Gaming being a huge one.
- anthk 2y ago
  Lutris. Fedora Bazzite + Flatpak = problem solved. Libreoffice? Flatpak. Updates? Seamlessly. Anything fails? Rollback.
  - hightrix 2y ago
    Agreed. There are plenty of good solutions for gaming on Linux today. But these solutions are lot more complex than the default windows experience of download steam, install game, play. Many people don’t want to tinker, they want to play their game, not the operating system.
- cma 2y ago
  Many games written for Windows run faster on linux now, but the biggest limitation is anti cheat for some of the larger titles. Fortnite, despite all its open platform push, probably holds linux back the most.
  - mepian 2y ago
    Apparently Fortnite has two different anti-cheats, and one of them works on Linux.
    - jsheard 2y ago
      Both of them (EAC and Battleye, with EAC being Epics own product) can work on Linux if the developer integrating them chooses to allow it, but Epic has chosen not to allow it in Fortnite citing them being less secure when running on Linux. Which isn't an unfounded concern, judging by the state of cheating in Apex Legends ever since they started allowing Linux clients, nearly every cheat chooses to attack the Linux version now despite the vast majority of Apex players in general being Windows users. Most cheaters dual boot Linux for no reason other than to cheat.
jabwd 2y ago
I recently tried. After hours of trying my xbox controller still can't connect. Steam doesn't detect my Gullikit controller and frankly, I have to literally decide to go down this pain again to hopefully maybe switch one day.
- mepian 2y ago
  Strange, my PlayStation 5 controller just works on openSUSE Tumbleweed.
  - jabwd 2y ago
    Don't have one of those (and really don't want one, AA ftw in a controller tbh), from what I read during my journey is that the xbox controller uses some weird DRM in their chipset but I have honestly no clue what that means in the context of bluetooth.
    - mysterydip 2y ago
      I'm not surprised microsoft would make linux compatibility with their controllers difficult. A shame, though.
    - goosedragons 2y ago
      Odd. Are you sure it's Linux? Or at least totally Linux? I've had no issues pairing MS Series X controllers (or Xbox One) over Bluetooth to my Steam Deck or Linux PCs or using them plugged in. Maybe the Gullikit controllers don't operate quite the same as the MS versions that the drivers don't play nice?
      - jabwd 2y ago
        Honestly I connected it to both macOS and windows before. I recently got a new WiFi card so I'm thinking it just has a crappy chipset in terms of Linux support (Asus PCE-AXE59BT is all my store had at the time). Playing around with Mint and tried the xpadneo kmod.
- 2y ago
glimshe 2y ago
Linux is still a hard sell if you don't have easy access to people who know it well. Even things like adding an app to the app bar can require editing a text config. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and my kid uses it, but it's STILL more painful than Windows for a lot of things.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Right click -> Pin to Task Manager? If you're using something like i3, sure, but you know what you're getting into. If you're using something like KDE, it just works.
- wlesieutre 2y ago
  Decision making like Gnome’s “you can’t put things on the desktop, why would you want that anyway, you’re using the desktop wrong” don’t do it any favors with getting people to switch from Windows or Mac.
FireBeyond 2y ago
I know you said Linux, and maybe have the same opinion of Apple, but if the OS does actually require TPM 2.0 (and much of MSFT's stuff tries to degrade decently, for all their faults, so this might not be immediately obvious), it's not much different than the hardware requirements Apple imposes (which to be fair, some people also see as arbitrary, and in some cases, I would agree).
minkles 2y ago
Because half the shit I use only works on windows. And no I can’t change it because I have to work with other people who’s shit only works on windows.
analog31 2y ago
For me, it's touch screen support. I try it out periodically to see if it's improved. Battery life is the second issue.
- t1c 2y ago
  Touch screen support depends on your desktop environment, I'd recommend giving a modern GNOME + Wayland setup a try. As for battery life...yeah, that's hit or miss. There's some management tools that can help sometimes.
zbrozek 2y ago
My personal experience is that while Windows is very hostile (and getting worse) to its users, it's rarely broken or buggy. The system lets me get work done and not fidget with the system itself. Linux-on-the-desktop has made great strides. But I still get screen tearing when scrolling in my browser. I still tend to find that I need 0.5 to 1 generation old hardware for the drivers to work. I don't get good battery life on laptops unless I spend way too much time fiddling with things. And of course, a lot of professional tools don't work on Linux at all. I'm an electrical engineer and while I'm not a designer for my day job any more, I do still use professional-level tools for personal projects. They run in Windows, and Windows only. So basically no matter how much strength of will I have, those tools ultimately keep me on Windows as my daily driver. I love a lot of Linux command-line tools and always have WSL w/Debian on my Windows machines. No more dual-booting.
- SECProto 2y ago
  Yep, all this. I've tried linux half a dozen times over the last couple decades, several times it even seems to work out of the box - then a day or week later, I realize my printer doesn't work, or I unplug the ethernet and realize the wifi doesnt work, or something that had worked great suddenly stops because of some update. All problems relying on searching through decade-out of date forum posts, hoping someone else's commandline solution fixes my issue. It's too much work, so I use windows 10.
  - r2_pilot 2y ago
    >All problems relying on searching through decade-out of date forum posts, hoping someone else's commandline solution fixes my issue I've been fortunate that Claude 3.5 Sonnet has been an excellent troubleshooter for my problems so far.
9dev 2y ago
Because for the vast majority of normal people a computer is equivalent to Windows. Many of them don’t even memorise concepts, but areas on the screen where to click, in the order required to achieve a specific outcome. Those are stumped when Microsoft modifies the layout of the task bar or a context menu. And now someone tells them to install Linux, on a separate partition perhaps, with a shared boot manager, migrate their data from NTFS to ext4 into the correct folders, install their apps or equivalents in the package manager, and get used to a myriad of different interface design approaches? This is just not going to happen, unless the onboarding experience is improved by a few orders of magnitude, and desktop applications use a single, consistent, UI framework.
- baal80spam 2y ago
  I'd say that for most users the main blocker is the inane (from Windows point of view) Linux partition setup and management.
  - 9dev 2y ago
    The whole system setup is just borderline arcane. Tell my girlfriend to do that or hack the government, it will be on the same level of impossible to her. And she’s a smart, digital native. And that comes before all the user interface struggles mentioned above.
    - Izkata 2y ago
      "Digital native" is more a marketing term than anything else, and because of the age group it referred to, it ended up meaning the opposite of what was originally intended: it's people who didn't experience technology's growing pains, only the simple slick interfaces, and so don't really understand how it works.
      - 9dev 2y ago
        There’s a difference to prior generations, though. My parents grew up with machines being brittle; you could break something permanently by operating it the wrong way. That is fundamentally different with computers: Younger people I like to refer to as digital natives have been raised on software and usually just mess around until something works. That doesn’t mean they really understand it, but the mindset around human-technology interaction is fundamentally different, and devoid of the angst of breaking stuff older people tend to show. So my point here is that even people open to experimenting with technology will be absolutely helpless in setting up and using a Linux distribution, because the onboarding experience demands so much implicit knowledge.
lylejantzi3rd 2y ago
I just spent a week trying to share a new hard drive via samba and failed completely. "Respects them" my ass.
attendant3446 2y ago
I can only think of one reason: gaming. Gaming on Linux is much better now, but still nowhere near as good as gaming on Windows.
- t1c 2y ago
  Yeah, definitely for multiplayer. Love what Valve is doing though, hopefully more companies will follow suit.
GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
Linux respects everything except for the user's time
- t1c 2y ago
  Idk, I think most beginner distros are fine. If my dad (who primarily uses Apple products, browses the web, checks email, that's it) can figure out Fedora + GNOME, I think anyone can.

Synaesthesia 2y ago

So now what? Have to install Windows 10? Edit: this is for the installer of the latest (canary) branch. Not sure if it will be an issue for updates on existing installs.

fifticon 2y ago

that site xda-developers has one of the worst GDPR interfaces I have ever seen?! You scroll through 1974! (2000..) list items to uncheck them all.. after 25%, I gave up and left

stanac 2y ago
You can block third-party cookies in browser and install extension "i still don't care about cookies". (not sure if and how it works on mobile)
talideon 2y ago
I recommend the Consent-O-Matic plugin. It automatically rejects consent on almost all sites I interact with on a semi-regular basis.
attendant3446 2y ago
uBlock and nothing bothers you (at least not on this site)

analog31 2y ago

I've been assuming that Windows 11 incompatibility was a gift from above, since my system has stopped bothering me about updating.

debo_ 2y ago

I currently use various Ubuntus, Mac OS, Windows 10 and Windows 11 more or less evenly. Windows 11 is by far the most hostile and frustrating of these. I quite like Windows 10. It's unassuming and everything more or less works. I was somewhat shocked at how much worse Windows 11 is, despite not looking that different at first glance.

nightski 2y ago
Windows 10 was fantastic. Unfortunately some nice features (maybe critical depending on your needs) are limited to Windows 11 only. Such as WiFi 6e/7 support and WSL 2 graphics/cuda support.
- baal80spam 2y ago
  > Windows 10 was fantastic. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Windows 7 was fantastic. Windows 10 was... OK at best. I'll never forgive MS for what they did with the UI from Windows 8 onward.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    I think I can install windows 7 these days and marvel at the amazing upgrade it is from win 11. It’d be like they completely corrected course and fixed all their mistakes.
- daulis 2y ago
  WSL2 graphics support was backported and supports Win10. I’m not sure about CUDA though

beardyw 2y ago

Perhaps they could stop everyone using Windows 11 and make the world a better place.

almatabata 2y ago

I have trouble understanding the point of this move from Microsoft's perspective. You actively stop people from re-using older hardware to run windows 11. Those users have 3 options. Continue running windows 10, install alternative OS or buy new hardware. I cannot see how they would want option 1 or 2, then I have to deduct that they want people to buy new hardware to run the latest OS version. Do they want to force the increase in TPM 2.0 share in the PC market quicker? Do they want to increase hardware sales because they get more money from those than from older licenses?

quohort 2y ago
Sure, it's motivated by a bit of license turnover like you suggest. But mostly it's a case of securing their OS against adversaries (including their users). You can lock down the system a lot more with TPM on your side: Now you can keep secrets away from users reliably. I think we are seriously nearing the point of no return. Once you have manufacturers start implementing TC, that will really hamper reverse engineering efforts. Over time, the side channels will get ironed out. Enforcing TPM requirements isn't about making users make changes, it's to scare OEMs into including TPMs by default so they don't get complaints from users. Microsoft wants a more controlled hardware environment like Apple does, because it's more profitable for a variety of reasons.
- almatabata 2y ago
  > Enforcing TPM requirements isn't about making users make changes, it's to scare OEMs into including TPMs by default so they don't get complaints from users. Would any OEM dare to use workarounds to install windows 11 on not officially supported hardware? I feel like most OEMs would simply upgrade the hardware no questions asked. Simply because should any problem occur, Microsoft would just tell them your problem not ours. > Once you have manufacturers start implementing TC, that will really hamper reverse engineering efforts. Doesn't 90% of the push for this come from Media companies to implement DRM?
  - quohort 2y ago
    > Would any OEM dare to use workarounds to install windows 11 on not officially supported hardware? I feel like most OEMs would simply upgrade the hardware no questions asked. Simply because should any problem occur, Microsoft would just tell them your problem not ours. Well on a basic level, if the consumer buys your motherboard or laptop and it doesn't work out of the box (but your competitors do) then you are going to have a massive customer satisfaction problem. > Doesn't 90% of the push for this come from Media companies to implement DRM? I don't think so. DRM is an old lens of understanding the problem from the last generation. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg . The new methods use a softer approach. Consider something like iOS where the developers can just make it very uncomfortable to do something like download a video and watch it. There's no bittorrent app or p2p file-sharing, there's no real filesystem, and there is no real standalone video player. So users rely on streaming services to do this for them, and you can charge money to middle-man that service. You don't need to strictly enforce copyright like with DRM, just use trusted computing so that the entire system discourages general computer-like operations (including copying files, running programs, etc.) and encourages acting like a thin client to some server. This is a much better model because some small fraction of users still DO need to have general-purpose computing to make consumables in the first place (for example, video editors or musicians, writers, programmers) but the majority of the user-base is discouraged for a variety of reasons. The more you can separate the creator of information from the user of information, the more you can charge the user to access the creator. You can't replace the OS or any of the parts of the machine because of trusted computing, so you cannot really use reverse engineering to simply break the system (and if you do, it may break the trust chain you now need to access now-networked services). Another example is that on a lot of phones and laptops these days, you can't add removable storage, so you are heavily encouraged to use cloud storage. And you are discouraged from using cloud services from any third party (usually on an API level, as services provided from the OS vendor can integrate better with the system). Consider how Apple pushes iCloud and Microsoft pushes OneCloud.

wslh 2y ago

I discovered that in a weird limbo: I updated to Windows 11 on an "old" XPS 13, and never used that device again in Windows. Several years later tried to use Windows 11 there for a specific purpose and it says that I don't have the required hardware. It is interesting that around this time (COVID age) I started using the MB Air M1 and couldn't connect many external monitors while my "old" XPS 13 could be plugged to any Thunderbolt dock and works incredible well, even without configuring anything special in Linux. I don't think this is a benefit for a Microsoft strategy but that many people there should be layoff. It is completely contrary with their current developer strategy. Also, privacy-wise you cannot now for sure if they are sending your keystrokes via telemetry... as a negligence.

Paianni 2y ago

They still provide directions on downgrading the TPM check from 2.0 to 1.2: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ways-to-install-windows-11-e0edbbfb-cfc5-4011-868b-2ce77ac7c70e https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/ways-to-install-...

mihaic 2y ago

At this point, Windows 11 is the Vista of this generation. I wonder how longer I can stay on 10 until they either fix it with Windows 12 or I'll get used to native Ubuntu with KDE.

edflsafoiewq 2y ago

I don't think the title is accurate. The article says that the trick of adding "/product server" no longer works in the Canary branch, but its pure speculation that this is a "crack down".

rwaksmunski 2y ago

Windows 10 LTSC for my testing machine, MacOS for me and ChromeOS Flex for the friends and family Thinkpads. This pretty much solves our personal computing needs. Throw in a few vintage Brother laser printers where needed.

lousken 2y ago

the more people trying out alternatives OSes, the better thanks, msft

big-green-man 2y ago

How do you "enforce" system requirements? Either the machine will run the software or it won't. Is Microsoft actively blacklisting hardware specifications to force people to buy new hardware even if they don't need it? Why in the world would anyone continue to rely on this company?

Gud 2y ago

I am one of those people. I keep a Windows partition around only for gaming. Looks like I’ll have to replace it with a Linux partition. Essentially all I need is Steam and discord. Let me know what Linux distributions is most suitable? FreeBSD is my daily driver but I’m well familiar with the entire OS jungle by now :-)

techjamie 2y ago
Most of them, really. Both steam and discord are readily available in package managers.