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Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs
- waynesonfire 2y agoHow would we deploy Windows 11 if we couldn't bypass CPU/TPM on a bhyve vm under FreeBSD?
- mrweasel 2y agoDoes TPM support/requirements actually have any meaningful impact on a home user? I could understand being a requirement for Windows 11 Pro (which I believe has Bitlocker, but Home does not). I don't see why it would be required for Home, maybe some features just wouldn't be available, but are those features that people actually care about?
- RobotToaster 2y ago> but are those features that people actually care about? The users? No. The corporations that make DRM? Yes.
- Cumpiler69 2y agoTo corporations period regardless if they make DRM or not. Enterprises want any and all features under the security umbrella for their fleets.
- gruez 2y agoWhat are some examples of DRM that uses TPM? What does TPM provide that stuff like SGX (which is already used in DRM) doesn't provide?
- mkopec 2y agoThere are none. It's so immensely frustrating to me that so many people believe that a TPM is a DRM device. I'm sure Richard Stallman's Treacherous Computing article played a big part in this. A TPM is useless for DRM, and there are way more suited solutions like Intel's PAVP that takes an encrypted video stream and puts it on the screen directly, yet I don't see nearly as much uproar about that.
- zinekeller 2y agoIn a sense, graphics cards are the root-of-trust for PC-based DRMs (as they implement the necessary components such as HDCP authentication), not the TPM (which is useless for this task). In fact, PlayReady (which is Microsoft's DRM solution) does this exact thing: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-camera/hardware-drm#:~:text=Windows%20implements%20the%20OEM%20proxy%20layer%20and%20transfers%20the%20serialized%20PRITEE%20functions%20calls%20to%20a%20user%20mode%20driver%20in%20the%20Windows%20Media%20Foundation%20subsystem.%20This%20will%20eventually%20get%20routed%20to%20either%20the%20Windows%20TrEE%20(Trusted%20Execution%20Environment)%20driver%20or%20the%20OEM%E2%80%99s%20graphics%20driver. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/audio-video-ca... (...or use things such as the already-dead Intel SGX, which never touched TPMs at all)
- deno 2y agoIt goes TPM → OS Integrity (dm-/fs-verity) → Browser Attestation (Web Integrity) → Your banking website no longer working on Linux because of "security". It’s Play Integrity for the PC. Encrypted video is a red herring. The real long game is to also get your "secure" video player to refuse playback if it detects watermark in the pirated video. This patches the analog hole. If you have attested Windows it can just refuse to download "freeworld" VLC because it can be used for piracy and/or even watching child pornography. Imagine that! Of course you can use Linux instead but now you have to use the approved distro that also won’t let you run "dangerous" apps. This is of course slippery slope argument and Microsoft would not be able to force all that right now, but better get started on the foundations. Some future government can then just force them to implement the rest, but by then it will be just a flip of a switch. "TPM is not DRM" argument seriously lacks imagination.
- mkopec 2y agoGoogle SafetyNet is basically swiss cheese with lots of bypass solutions for custom ROMs. A TPM may only attest that it has received an expected set of measurements (hashes). As long as discrete TPMs or PCs with unlocked CPUs exist (w/o Boot Guard), one may simply take a TPM and replay "golden" measurements to it. Bypassing this would be trivially easy. A TPM does not have control over execution on the CPU. It only receives data from the CPU. If you have control over execution on the CPU from the reset vector, you can just replay whatever you want to a TPM and extract secrets that way. That's why TPM backed disk encryption without configuring a PIN is insecure. Microsoft does not have the same level of control over the entire PC ecosystem as Google has over Android. That's why it's important to support open source alternatives.
- reginald78 2y agoValorant requires it for anticheat. The purpose is to prevent users from running unauthorized software on the computers they allegedly own. I wouldn't expect many examples to exist yet. You want to wait until almost everyone is on Windows 11 before you get up to those shenanigans.
- p_ing 2y agoValorant uses VBS, which in turn requires TPM 2.0. Valorant isn't directly leveraging TPM. https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/16941220890899-Addressing-Virtualization-based-security-VBS-settings-on-Windows-10-VAN9005-VALORANT https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/169...
- Avamander 2y agoThey're leveraging TPMs in the sense that they're banning specific ones.
- reginald78 2y agoI can't remember if this was Valorant related but I recall an article voicing concerns that physical hardware in PCs being used to identify users to ban and that the ban would persist when you purchased a used motherboard. Not a great general concern to me for games but the idea has much more sinister potential than just that.
- techjamie 2y ago> The purpose is to prevent users from running unauthorized software on the computers they allegedly own. I've maintained for several years now that the actual corporate wet dream is that they can lock down the average PC architecture/OS to the same degree they have on phones. Because unfortunately, in the phone sector, the market has already shown the majority of users don't care who really owns their devices. My hope is that Linux gets wide enough adoption to prevent that from becoming a feasible option for them in the future.
- bluescrn 2y agoGiven trends of everything going subscription-only, is it unreasonable to suspect that the future of Windows could be subscription-only and a lot harder to pirate than previously?
- beretguy 2y agoI hope windows will become subscription only so that people finally stop using it.
- bayindirh 2y agoIIRC widewine requires TPM for highest quality (level1)?
- p_ing 2y agoWidevine Level 1 requires a Trusted Execution Environment. Nothing to do with TPM.
- bayindirh 2y agoMy bad, then.
- mkopec 2y agoWidevine L1 requires a trusted execution environment for decrypting video and only showing it on HDCP monitors. It's built on top of Intel PAVP, AMD secure display, or ARM TrustZone in the case of ARM chromebooks and Android devices. TPM is not involved, except in the ARM case where I believe it is used for antirollback counters (on x86, the security coprocessor would probably have that responsibility).
- toast0 2y agoSGX is used for DRM in official Blu-Ray 4K playback on PCs, and Intel removed SGX from client cpus in 11th gen (Ice Lake) which means if you want to play those discs on a PC, you either need an older processor or a Xeon or to give in and use unauthorized software. I'm not sure that tying their horse to SGX is good for adoption of the format.
- deno 2y agoIce Lake is 10th gen and last gen with SGX on consumer SKUs.
- naikrovek 2y agoRemember boot-sector viruses? The TPM helps prevent those. DRM is not something that the TPM enables or helps with or facilitates in any way. Please read this, and do your part to make the world a bit more educated, on average: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Overvi... If you don't dismiss my comment as the comment of a corporate shill, you might learn something, and in the future that knowledge may help you. I don't know, I can't predict the future, but I do know that ignorance is dumb.
- LegionMammal978 2y ago> Remember boot-sector viruses? The TPM helps prevent those. DRM is not something that the TPM enables or helps with or facilitates in any way. ¿Porque no los dos? As noted elsewhere in this thread, TPM certainly facilitates VBS [0], and games like Valorant are already using that for anticheat [1]. As long as application programs can use it to help detect the environment being 'tampered' with (as opposed to the system just wrapping it up in a report for the user), they can use it to protect their particular application state, and I don't see why that shouldn't include DRM state. [0] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-vbs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de... [1] https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/16941220890899-Addressing-Virtualization-based-security-VBS-settings-on-Windows-10-VAN9005-VALORANT https://support-valorant.riotgames.com/hc/en-us/articles/169...
- cesarb 2y ago> Remember boot-sector viruses? The TPM helps prevent those. What prevents boot sector viruses is Secure Boot, not TPM.
- Avamander 2y agoTrue, but someone disabling Secure Boot will cause the TPM not to release BitLocker keys. Making attempts at subverting it noisier.
- mkopec 2y ago> Does TPM support/requirements actually have any meaningful impact on a home user? Disk encryption, Windows Hello and PIN bruteforce prevention. I have no love Microsoft and avoid using Windows whenever I can, but I think making those features accessible to more people is a good thing.
- p_ing 2y agoVBS also requires it, which is a big improvement to Windows' security. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-vbs https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/de...
- mrweasel 2y agoBut Hyper-V is also a Windows 11 Pro feature (I get that it can be enabled on Home).
- p_ing 2y agoThat isn't the virtualization VBS is referring to. Hyper-V is a separate feature from VBS. More context: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/virtualization/virtualization-based-security-enabled-by-default/890167 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/virtualization/virt...
- mrweasel 2y agoI was under the impression that Bitlocker wasn't available on Windows Home? If you have an older computer, without TPM 1.2/2.0, then you already don't things like Windows Hello, but you might have secure boot and some brute force prevention, so you wouldn't be worse of as a home user if Microsoft allowed you to run Windows 11. For new computers I can completely understand that Microsoft would demand that vendors ship systems with TPM 2.0. For upgrades I just struggle to see any really compelling reason, it's not like Apple where Microsoft is trying to also sell hardware, that's mostly on the OEMs.
- 2y ago
- pieenjoyer 2y agoMicrosoft has made device encryption available to Home edition users if they sign in with a Microsoft account. It relies on the TPM to seal the volume key. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/device-encryption-in-windows-cf7e2b6f-3e70-4882-9532-18633605b7df https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/device-encryptio...
- Avamander 2y agoIf I'm not misremembering, Home can use BitLocker on W11. The existence of a TPM also lets DPAPI use it, which in turn lets things like browsers and other software protect user data (from malware for example). It also makes new features like Device Bound Session Credentials (DBSC) possible. But there's also VBS and by extension things like Device Guard. Which in turn entails things like ESS (Enhanced Sign-in Security, more secure biometric auth), Trusted Boot, HVCI, Credential Guard and so on. DRM is like the last thing it's actually good for, if you actually look into it.
- ale42 2y agoAs a side note, Windows Server 2025 appears to share the OS base with Windows 11, but it doesn't seem to have the same requirements of CPU/TPM? Or am I wrong? (not that I'm suggesting to use Windows Server as a client OS, especially given its price tag)
- ch_123 2y agoI suspect this is because servers have a more predictable refresh cycle than consumer PCs/desktops. While some places run their servers to death, many places (particularly big corps who are generating the most revenue for MS anyway) will retire servers at the end of their warranty period and buy new ones. Given that, there is not the same need to force hardware updates. That said, it also illustrates how the TPM requirement is a business decision, not a technical one.
- swozey 2y agoNot that it doesn't happen but I've worked in datacenters, including our favorite clouds, and cdn/video architecture for 15 years and have never seen servers replaced on any cadence that wasn't us losing a customer and me sticking a quad core xeon under my desk. These are $10k-100k+ servers. My multitenant/offload capable NICs are usually $10k-25k themselves.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- TiredOfLife 2y agoSame with windows 11 iot eneterprise. It's just the regular Windows 11, but without tpm and specific cpu requirements. Anything core i from intel works
- EvanAnderson 2y agoI haven't installed Windows Server 2025 on bare metal, but in a virtual machine it's happy to install w/o a TPM.
- Cumpiler69 2y agoThe title is misleading. Microsoft deleted their article documenting the bypass, not the workaround itself.
- zoobab 2y agoany cache?
- Cumpiler69 2y agoYou can just google this, there's like a million blogs out there parroting how to bypass TPM, its's not some incantation that only Microsoft had.
- txdv 2y agoMy Mainboard has TPM turned off so I did not to sweat about the upgrade. Now I will be forced to I guess.
- Alifatisk 2y agoThe requirements for Windows 11 has really put computers with older hardware in a difficult spot. They are used to Windows so they want to stay there, I want to suggest Linux Mint but I am not aware of how much of the apps used daily is supported in Linux. Not every user want to fiddle with the terminal.
- Daunk 2y agoI recently found out that a friend of mine installed Linux on his own, completely removing his Windows install. And he has yet to "fiddle with the terminal", but still enjoys gaming on Steam and goes on with his daily routine.
- queuebert 2y agoLinux is in desperate need of a PR campaign. The popular distros are just as functional out of the box as Windows, but no one knows it.
- tassadarforaiur 2y agoValve expanding steamos compatibility might be the closest we're getting.Hopefully their flavour is viable for a variety of computers by windows 10 sunset date.
- beart 2y agoIn my experience, it is not about functionality. It is about polish, integrations, and troubleshooting. If you assume all your devices and software will work on Linux mint out of the box, great. But they won't. Then you end up spending hours trying to get the 5th mouse button to do what it does automatically in Windows. Sure there's a fancy utility on Linux that supports programming that mouse, good luck getting your mother to figure that out.
- wpm 2y agoThat’s if you can even connect to the internet! Have an older device? It maybe didn’t come with WiFi, or came with an older card you replaced with a better one. Better hope the distro and version of that distro you picked has a kernel with drivers already baked in! Otherwise it’s off to some random git following some random “download this source” and oh wait I’m not connected to the Internet.
- poizan42 2y agoIsn't this a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42934236 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42934236 ?
- dade_ 2y agoI’m nearly 100% migrated to Pop. MS gave lots of warning, but I still have a VM on 10 for a couple apps I rarely using including Office in case I absolutely need it. Hoping that Steam Console is real. For work, I am stuck dealing with 11. There are many things I hate about 11, but why is it so damned slow and laggy on a brand new Copilot PC? File explorer is like loading file lists with a 2400 bps modem, and Office apps take far too long to load. It’s absurd how bad it is, and I can’t figure out why. I’m getting old, I forget why I load an app before it loads…
- doodlebugging 2y agoThe first app I grab for any Windows installation is Everything from VoidTools [0]. It is simply the best, fastest way to find anything on a Windows computer. If you know any part of the file name you are a few keystrokes away from locating it on any indexed disk that is connected. Since this is a work PC maybe you don't have the option but if that's the case you should talk to your IT nerd and get permission. Also, make a donation. Great software like Everything is worth buying. [0] https://www.voidtools.com/downloads/ https://www.voidtools.com/downloads/ I can't help with Office. Too bad you have to use Win11. Win7 Pro still works great for me when I need a Winbox.
- olukwa 2y ago[flagged]
- ch_123 2y agoWhat is Microsoft hoping to accomplish here? Given the rate of adoption of Windows 11, it seems unlikely that a majority of Windows 10 users will replace their hardware between now and October. It also seems to me that the scenario where a majority of PC users are running an unsupported Windows release is likely to create MS more problems than is offset by potential revenue from a hardware refresh cycle. Is there an ulterior motive at play beyond wanting to create a hardware refresh cycle?
- Mindwipe 2y agoIt's pretty obviously two middle managers fighting each other, and senior management is too distracted by AI to worry about core products being on fire.
- saratogacx 2y agoMaybe if the renamed the bypass Microsoft Windows 11 Installer Co-Pilot for Legacy Systems it would get their attention.
- thewebguyd 2y agoThen next year, Microsoft Windows 11 Installer Co-Pilot for Legacy Systems (new)
- grotorea 2y agoIs this not important enough for senior management?
- xmodem 2y agoI don't think there's anything going on here other than general corporate ham-fisted-ness. * Microsoft believes the improvements in windows 11 provide genuine benefit to their users. * Microsoft doesn't want to maintain their older OS forever. What we are seeing play out however is that the consumer / small business market either does not understand or does not care about those benefits. I don't see any viable end-state for this other than Microsoft relaxing the requirements for Windows 11 or extending the end-of-support date for Windows 10. Based on this action my money is on the latter.
- teeray 2y agoI wonder if there’s any room for a manufacturer that would make an untrusted TPU. Like, one that quacks like a TPU, but has will sing like a bird if you ask for its keys. Violates all of the security guarantees? Yep, you bet. But it does provide some insurance against an industry that might want to use TPUs against us (e.g. DRM).
- xmodem 2y agoYou can install Windows 11 into a virtual machine with a virtual TPM, and it will detect and use the vTPM the same as it would a physical TPM on real hardware.
- Mindwipe 2y agoAs has been pointed out here before, this is all TPUs. They are not used by DRM vendors because they are quite bad at stopping people with physical access getting the keys.
- matt_heimer 2y agoMost of the systems would also fail the min CPU check.
- Avamander 2y agoSuch a manufacturer's attestation key would quickly be considered untrustworthy and their TPMs unattested. An unattested TPM will be ignored by any DRM or anti-cheat use-cases.
- _7acn 2y agoIf I have TPM disabled in the BIOS, is there any point in not enabling it and using a bypass to install Windows 11? I’m wondering if there’s any scenario where keeping TPM disabled might seem like a good idea?
- bArray 2y agoJust to name a few... Operational reasons: * You often replace hardware and move disks, etc, around * The TPM is not compatible with hardware that you have: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trusted_Platform_Module https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Trusted_Platform_Module * You have a TPM that is too old: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000132583/dell-systems-that-can-upgrade-from-tpm-version-1-2-to-2-0 https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000132583/dell-syst... * Your TPM is damaged Security reasons: * For some reason the TPM is actually seriously compromised itself (i.e. RCE or firmware backdoors): - https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1akxbfn/youtuber_breached_bitlocker_with_tpm_20_in_43/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1akxbfn/youtuber_... - https://www.beyondidentity.com/resource/cybersecurity-mythbusters-tpms-cant-be-hacked https://www.beyondidentity.com/resource/cybersecurity-mythbu... - https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-tpm-20-flaws-could-let-hackers-steal-cryptographic-keys/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-tpm-20-fl... * You have an alternative security model, i.e. PTT: https://uk.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/alternatives-to-tpm-components https://uk.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-ssd/alternatives... * As others have pointed out, what if you're locked into using Windows, Windows requires TPM, and TPM implements something you don't like, for example DRM or it snoops on you. Maybe you have to let it scan your drives, maybe your TPM doesn't like your politics.
- p_ing 2y ago> for example DRM or it snoops on you Stop spreading FUD.
- bArray 2y agoIt's not a guarantee, you may consider it FUD, but you can't tell me it's impossible - you can't even promise me it won't happen. The TPM is fundamentally about storing cryptographic keys, platform integrity checks, unique IDs, etc. It is already used for secure logins by the Windows OS. Microsoft are successfully enforcing your email, ID, logins, etc, to be associated directly with your unique hardware. One day you will request a video from Netflix or Youtube, and your device will be the only device in the world that can view it. You might think to screen record, but the OS does not allow it. You might think to record it via an external display, but this has to interface with the TPM. You decide to record your screen from your phone, but the phone's TPM recognises that the camera tries to record DRM material. Don't get me wrong, security devices should exist 100%. But. It should never be forced.
- greenavocado 2y agoIf you burn an ISO with Rufus it has a checkbox to skip the checks. You can also use the unattended installation system: https://github.com/memstechtips/UnattendedWinstall https://github.com/memstechtips/UnattendedWinstall
- navigate8310 2y agoHere's another https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/
- tonyedgecombe 2y agoPresumably that is going to stop working with new Windows 11 releases.
- greenavocado 2y agoOnly the documentation is disappearing
- butlike 2y agoRufus is Good Software(tm)
- mococa 2y ago+1 for this unattended installation, I have been using for while, no issues. A true clean Windows installation.
- RicoElectrico 2y agoI couldn't boot a W11 installation USB drive on my newly built PC despite using the official MS tool to write the drive. Fiddling with secure boot options for an hour, even updating UEFI were all for nothing. I said "screw it", loaded the image with Rufus, and it worked on the first try, with the added bonus of MS account bypass.
- throwacct 2y agoI don't regret switching to mac 2 years ago.
- bell-cot 2y agoHow long does Apple keep updating MacOS's for older hardware? That I'm aware, there are iPhone models that were discontinued <5 years ago, but get "security updates only" for iOS. And models disco'ed <7 years ago which no longer get even that. (Vs. Windows 10 is just under 10 years old now - and I don't know what's the newest Windows 10 system that can't update to Window 11.)
- p_ing 2y ago2017 for macOS 15 (2018 for mainstream Macs): https://support.apple.com/en-us/120282 https://support.apple.com/en-us/120282 A few years shorter than the Win 10 lifecycle. Much shorter than the XP lifecycle, though that was unusual.
- trinix912 2y agoI'd bet my money that if we took a Windows 10 and a macOS High Sierra laptop, the Windows one would run supported versions of apps much longer than the macOS one, even if one upgraded to the latest supported macOS on that machine while staying on Windows 10 as the time went on. MacOS apps target the latest few versions and given macOS' rapid release cycle (in comparison to Windows, at least), you can easily find yourself with a machine <10 years old that can't run the latest versions of apps you're using.
- leviathant 2y agoWithout a doubt, Microsoft wins on backward compatibility. I was running a circa-2006 Firewire audio device on Windows 10 in 2021 using drivers that had not been updated since 2012. I had a Dell Laptop that, when I bought it in 2006, had Windows XP on it. I was able to upgrade it all the way to Windows 10, at no charge. (The beta versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 both just kind of rolled over into full fledged versions of the OS. Now, even by the time I had Win8 on that machine, it was just for fun. I mostly kept it around because the screen resolution was unusually high for 2006, and for a period afterward, laptop screen resolutions were almost all lower than WXGA+ even on higher end machines. But you could run Windows 10 and modern browsers on a machine built for the WinXP era. Also, I think I paid $700 for that machine, from the Dell Outlet. That's a lot of mileage for the price paid. So when Windows 10 told me that my 12-year-old Ship of Theseus Dell XPS desktop was unable to take an upgrade to Windows 11, I took a long hard look, and sprung for an M1 Macbook w/ 64gb of RAM. They had a pretty killer deal on these at B&H, and it's the first time I've ever felt like I've had a true "desktop replacement" laptop. I still think Explorer is better than Finder (and I'm not going to argue with anyone about why so don't bother asking), there are things I will miss about having an ATX case, but Apple's abdication on proprietary ports is ultimately what pushed me over the edge. Everything is USB-C. Great! I had gotten a lot of mileage out of Firewire hardware, but I saw this as a pivotal moment to use some of that money I'd saved over the last decade and a half to completely modernize my setup. If Windows 11 hadn't forced me to consider new core hardware (and if Apple silicon hadn't leapfrogged everything else on the market - using a laptop all day without charging? Phenomenal.) I'd still be using Windows. I've been using MS operating systems since DOS 3.1, I just have to assume I'm no longer their target market.
- heroprotagonist 2y ago[flagged]
- p_ing 2y agoHas HN stooped this low?
- Cumpiler69 2y agoYes it has.
- heroprotagonist 2y ago[flagged]
- Cumpiler69 2y ago[flagged]
- heroprotagonist 2y ago[flagged]
- Cumpiler69 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 2y agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- daft_pink 2y ago[flagged]
- braggerxyz 2y agoI run 3 old and one modern PC at home. With the advent of Win11 and the TPM fiasco 3 years ago I sunset all my Windows installations in favor of Linux. After some experimentation I settled with Void Linux. Stable rolling release, and I have complete control over the hardware I own. Microsoft can go kick rocks...
- andix 2y agoThey deleted the documentation for this bypass, not the bypass itself, right?
- rtsil 2y agoYes. And the bypass can be found in the article.
- t_mann 2y agoWindows 11 looks like the perfect reason to give UNIX-based systems another try. Literally the only thing that's kept me hooked to Windows are the Office apps. They're baked into so many of my workflows, from creating simple graphics to doing my personal finances, and of course plenty of legacy documents that I'd like to continue being able to use. They're really Windows-native I've found, even the official versions for iOS seem to be missing some features (last time I checked was in the past year, and I couldn't find some paragraph-level formatting options I wanted in Word, eg). Google Docs seem like a different product, they apparently have great APIs, but the "click-based" features are no match. It's been ages since I tried LibreOffice, but it was no match back then either. I'm thinking, either I need to get used to different workflows or just try virtualization. I heard Figma is great for presentations, anything that Excel can do where the alternatives are lacking is probably better done in R/Python anyway, but for Word I don't see an alternative. No way I'll use LaTeX for all my writing, and anything Markdown-based just won't cut it formatting-wise. Or just use something like Wine I guess. Anyone facing a similar situation?
- giancarlostoro 2y agoI mean... Office also just runs just fine on a Mac. But I agree, Linux is the way to go. VMs are not so bad, but you can also use Steam's Proton to run most Windows software just fine, I would be surprised if people don't just run Office from Steam's flavor of Wine, since the game support is phenomenal.
- juujian 2y agoI can vouch that the OnlyOffice flatpak is worth at least giving a try. Just sending sth important without requiring Microsoft office at all, feels so good. Granted I have a docx template and generated the initial version with pandoc, so I'm not doing any formatting or anything, just back and forth over editing.
- pinoy420 2y agoOffice is moving web based. OWA is first class now, with Outlook New being a thin wrapper around it with some natives. Also their mockups all use macs primarily so “go figure”
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Kokouane 2y agoStill feels like the solution here is just using Windows 10 IoT LTSC to avoid all this madness. It's a bloated product that feels worse to use than Windows 10, plain and simple.
- ranger_danger 2y agoWindows 11 IoT Enterprise 24H2 (LTSC and non), very officially does not require TPM.
- dehrmann 2y agoAre there any off-the-beaten-path issues with setting up my parents with this?
- lenova 2y agoLTSC doesn't come with Microsoft Store installed (a pro or con depending how you look at it), but it can be installed by running "wsreset -i" in Powershell. Bonus: LTSC gets extended security patching support lifespan.
- userbinator 2y agoDeleted from the documentation (and I'm sure the archive remembers), not the codebase. As anyone who has been in the Windows world long enough knows, there are plenty of such "unofficially documented" features.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wnevets 2y agohas anyone ever explained why TPM 2.0 is so much better than TPM 1.2 on Windows 11? What can't Microsoft do securely with 1.2 that it can with 2.0? I'm not asking what 2.0 does better than 1.2, I am asking why is it a must have.
- p_ing 2y agoThere are major differences between the two, including cryptography used, outlined on the Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Version_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Platform_Module#Versio.... 2.0 is required for Microsoft's purposes. Here's one of them: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/tpm/tpm-fundamentals#tpm-20-anti-hammering https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-...
- bangaladore 2y agoThe TPM spec is somewhat interesting in that many fundamental capabilities (or at least you would think) are optional. 2.0 enforces some more capabilities and/or adds more capabilities. That's at least one part of it.
- kbolino 2y agoTPM 1.2 is only guaranteed to support SHA-1. That was a baffling inadequacy when it came out in 2011, proven so just a few years later when SHA-1 was publicly broken in 2017. This makes TPM 1.2 useless for its intended purpose. TPM 2.0 is guaranteed to support SHA-256.
- xet7 2y agoFor Windows 11 24H2, there is already workaroud at Rufus: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/10/11/rufus-4-6-bypasses-windows-11-24h2-compatibility-checks-automatically/ https://www.ghacks.net/2024/10/11/rufus-4-6-bypasses-windows... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809287 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809287 For next version of Windows 11, I'll wait what Rufus will do.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hnpolicestate 2y agoWindows 10 to SteamOS. Google workspace for my productivity needs.
- Wildgoose 2y agoMy (unsupported) desktop PC is an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 eight-core CPU running at 3.2Ghz with 16GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage. It handles Windows 10 Professional but is apparently incapable of running Windows 11. I don't have a Webcam, but maybe face ID login is now mandated? It will be something stupid like that. I have no interest in replacing this machine though.
- DemetriousJones 2y agoThe missing requirement might be no TPM 2.0
- lights0123 2y agoIt's more likely you have TPM disabled—there's no webcam requirement, and Zen+ is supported.
- ranger_danger 2y agoWindows 11 IoT Enterprise does not require TPM, officially.
- neilv 2y agoHere's a bootable bypass .iso for this (and for the million other bits of anti-user behavior that MS has pulled, and will keep pulling): https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/ https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/
- genewitch 2y agoI get the joke, but on the one hand Debian isn't the most user friendly option; on the other systemd is another monolithic potential problem. I suppose Devuan would be the recommendation I'd give instead of Debian; roughly the same, no systemd.
- roskelld 2y agoI don't know how accurate StatCounter is, but their latest report is showing the breakdown of OS users as: - Windows 11: 36% - Windows 10: 60% Using Steam Hardware survey, it shows: - Windows 11: 53.46% (-1.50%) - Windows 10: 42.87% (+0.48%) Whilst these numbers look very bad for Microsoft, especially given that we're less than 10 months away from Windows 10's home user support, it's potentially even worse if the data is correct and more people are reverting to Windows 10. Reasons I can think of there might be due to some of the recent Windows 11 updates harming performance in applications, notably many major Ubisoft titles. I'm still on Windows 10, for two reasons. My motherboard does not support TPM 2.0, and I have not had any reason to need to upgrade given it still runs everything I need perfectly. Secondly, I have not seen any reason to go to 11 from 10; I don't love 10, but 11 doesn't seem to fix any of my issues, if anything I see many worse features. https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/02/windows_10_grows/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/02/windows_10_grows/ https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-202312-202412 https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desk... https://www.pcworld.com/article/2532669/ubisoft-games-are-crashing-on-pcs-with-the-windows-11-24h2-update.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/2532669/ubisoft-games-are-cr...
- RachelF 2y agoI wonder how many hundreds of millions of Windows 10 machines are going to become e-waste because of Windows 11's TPM requirements?
- mystified5016 2y agoI build and sell a product that is meant to talk to a windows host over Bluetooth. My application does not work at all on W11. The Bluetooth stack is somehow even more broken than W10. It's to the point where we're developing our own wireless dongle to bypass this entire mess. Microsoft has forcibly installed W11 on our test machine three times and every time it's completely broken and we have to revert. It's not good.
- roody15 2y agoRecently moved to re-imaging many of the PC's that I mangage to Linux and so far has gone way smoother than I would have anticipated. Heavily considering moving two entire PC labs at another building to Linux as well. Not sure what Microsoft is thinking this go around Windows 11 has been a disaster. You essentially have to pay more to get a clean, stripped down version of the OS that is manageable. Most of my machines are 12th gen Intel and they meet all the requirements for Windows 11. However frequently Win 11 updates have caused annoying boot loops, reset preferences, problems with apps already installed and more. These are Dell Precision workstations so you would think they would have pretty good compatibility with Microsoft... but alas disappointed is the best word I can use.
- ge354067 2y ago[dead]