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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Thank you Microsoft after being a windows user since the 3.1 days your recent changes to Windows makes me happy to announce I bought my first MAC.
Why do people capitalize all of Mac?
Because they don’t know that MAC is media access control, and Mac is Macintosh.
I suspect it’s the “Mac vs PC” stereotype, and they think C stands for computer and MA stands hell knows for what. Because a PowerPC PC is not a PC, and an ARM PC is not a PC, and a SPARC PC is not a PC (OK, it’s a workstation, of the noble blood, not like the rest), and I think I’ve lost my thought.
My reaction would not be switching to MacOS, because for something the users of which look down on Linux and FreeBSD, with all that “just works” and “made for Terrans” pathos, it surely is frustrating to use.
Just some well-supported enough Linux would do.
Mac/PC is kinda a silly dichotomy now that they’re both actually EFI/ARM.
They’re all PCs they just aren’t IBM (compatible) PCs. Anything from a Workstation to a Smartphone is a Personal Computer.
I know ; just mocking the marketing terms
Its a Media access control address, AKA MAC address that he bought ofc. It lives inside his ethernet card.
I’m up too early, sorry.
They bought a Mass Accelerator Cannon from the UNSC
It’s like in Unpretty, that 90s song by TLC:
you can buy your hair if it won’t grow
you can fix your nose if you say so
you can buy all the iPhones that MAC can make
I would have installed Linux, logged into MSN.net, and then told them to eat shit on their support forum.
So close. You could have gone to Linux.
Non negotiable sounds fine with me. Because we don’t negotiate with terrorists.
I’d like to give a heartfelt thank you to Microsoft management though, for furthering the cause of Linux adoption. We couldn’t have done it without you. 🙏
Yay!
blessing in disguise. at least you can build a system so poorly that 10 won’t be forcefully upgraded on you.
They don’t need the hardware to run an OS. They need the hardware to run their AI shit for reasons nobody ever needs - except Microsoft.
So maybe it is not Microsoft closing the door for older hardware, but older hardware closing the door for Windows 11?
They need the hardware to run their AI shit
The requirement is for TPM, not parallel processing hardware. It provides trusted hardware, facilitates things like DRM.
There are tons of low and medium boards that provide TPM, and they don’t suffice, IIRC.
Did you read the article text? It’s specifically discussing how Microsoft will not relax the requirement for TPM 2.0.
Which is on the market for more than six years now. That was my point. It does not only need TPM2.0, it also needs CPU and RAM in regions that are way more recent than TPM2.0
The CPU is due to instruction set requirements. The first version of W11 is technically compatible (with hack to pass the checks) with older CPUs than the newer versions. And it’s not Gusty’s guaranteed that there ones that currently can run it will do it after a few updates.
I hate it, and they could have done things to allow more compatibility, but it’s not without a technical reason.
…
I feel that this is diverging from your original comment, but okay, Windows 11 – as with all prior releases of Windows – has minimum CPU and memory requirements. That isn’t what the article text is discussing, but fair enough.
But I don’t see any association with that and AI. This isn’t parallel processing hardware being discussed.
But I don’t see any association with that and AI. This isn’t parallel processing hardware being discussed.
The one big eater of CPU power in future Windows will most likely be AI. Most of which will probably be useless for the user, which is a common problem with Windows “features” in recent years.
I can easily see a Microsoft AI engine churning the users data in order to determine which ads to serve - in the start menu, the screen backgrouns, the login screen, or as blatant popups. If people notice that such a thing is seriously eating into their machines’ power, they will try harder to kill this. Therefor it is the interest of Microsoft that the user has more than enough power. And this is just one example.
That’s fine, I’ve closed the door on supporting Microsoft. They could have just charged for the ‘upgrade’ and that would have been better since it wouldn’t result in the colossal amount of e-waste that this is creating. Even without the forced obsolescence, their products have become hostile, invasive and generally just a PITA to use. Meanwhile Linux distros are knocking it out of the park lately.
I really don’t know what Microsoft are thinking. They haven’t made particularly good strides towards gaining any kind of goodwill, so once it becomes common knowledge that alternatives not only exist but actually show them up, those lost customers are people that they will never get back. Look how pathetic their marketshare is for Edge for example, even though it’s the default browser on Windows. They still haven’t been able to shake off the bad stigma that Internet Explorer had (and to be fair, they aren’t doing people any favours with Edge either).
The new Outlook is fucking awful.
How did they fuck up email? Just put them all on the left and let me read and move them in the fewest clicks possible.
If you go to Google and search for xview mailtool screenshots, you might realize just how fucked up today’s email UIs are.
i used to use gmail and i still havent forgiven google for scrapping the plain html version :/
I keep hoping they will Classic Coke their whole Office suite
also trying to add more emails to outlook. How do you fuck that up. You only get the options for suggested emails or new email creation.
The used market is going to bomb if older machines can’t be setup with newer windows version.
All the better for us running Linux!
I think I can see 3 “new” laptops in my future!
I just bought a Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 with an R7 4750U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD and put Linux Mint 22, no regrets here!
yes!
‘incompatible’ hardware will be dirt cheap, and 8th gen or newer will sell for more than it would have otherwise–especially if tariffs jack prices up on new hardware.
i have a couple dozen older systems here. most were given to me before win11’s requirements were known. fixing and flipping them for a few bucks was a small but relatively steady income stream, but not anymore. hardly anyone wants them.
the couple that are new enough to be blessed by microsoft will be kept, and i’ll hang on to the better ones of the rest (like skylake, kaby lake) to put linux on. everything else will end up at ewaste recyclers even though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with any of them other than the fact that a profit and ‘shareholder value’ driven megacorp says they can’t be used anymore.
It’s fairly trivial to bypass Microsoft’s hardware requirements for windows 11 afaik. Just install via Rufus and click the relevant options. I agree with you that MS should have made these optional recommendations though, we shouldn’t have to use third party tools.
microsoft keeps tightening the screws; there’s no guarantee a loophole to do that will remain–but rather the opposite: they will disappear.
You can do that, but then the major updates MS pushes out twice a year won’t install via Windows Update anymore.
Maybe the tariffs will serve to cull a bit of the consumist impulse the US suffers of.
Regarding if a machine is desirable or not: I’m still seeing Windows XP machines being sold today for over 100€. No monitor, no peripherals, no nothing: just the machine. And people needing a machine to type a report, do a spreadsheet, do basic office work, with no other option, pay for it.
i run my machines until they stop working, period.
I bet it’ll still try to install itself on that hardware though and break it.
I’ve got a full screen ad for Windows 11 one day, despite having TPM 2.0 turned off. Not sure what exactly was written there, as I have turned it off immediately, but fuckers probably advertise their shitty “Windows 11-compatible” computers or some other shit.
afaik that ad was sent regardless of TPM. I got it.
Probably how they’ll force upgrade down the track, upgrade or we brick your shit.
And closes the door on market share as well
Microsoft really playing into the bit. This is all just hype for Windows 12
My dad’s bringing his PC to my house when they visit for Christmas so we can setup Linux as a dual boot for him to see if he can switch from Windows 10 to Linux instead of buying a new PC
My dad (in his mid 80s) told me proudly that he had just bought Linux and installed it on his computer. It’s great that he wanted to try Linux but I wonder what malware-riddled scam distro he found, and how I’ll sort it out on my next visit.
Can’t be that bad. Some distros accept donations. It just could be that he felt he was making a purchase rather than just a donation.
Hopefully it’s just something like this, not a scam.
Come back and let us know what you find out, please. If it’s a malicious distro, let us know the site so we can warn others.
You used to be able to buy physical media. And that may be what they’re talking about? Hard to say. For a long time this whole write it to a USB stick and install it was newfangled and not at all common. I 100% have a version of red hat in a box that I bought off a shelf of a local Best Buy back in the 90s. Yes you could have just downloaded and installed it or created your own install media. But having your own CD burners even weren’t that common at the time. I remember 1999 being when I got my first CD burner and how special that was lol. It seems almost quaint by today’s standards. And downloading wasn’t really an option either. 56 kilobits per second if you were lucky would have taken days and days. Now it’s just minutes over most broadband.
I gave my distro dev $20 for the bragging rights. More than I ever paid for Windows.
Doesn’t Ubuntu and a few other distros still sell physical install discs?
They used to, but I don’t think they do anymore. In fact, I think they used to send one to you for free. I got an official Ubuntu install disk for free at college (someone was handing them out), and I’ve been on Linux ever since.
I do see Ubuntu install USBs on Amazon, but I wouldn’t trust those.
I ordered one years ago, still got it in the display cabinet but I’m sure it’s long rotted at this point.
Yeah, I wish I still had mine, it was from before I started hating Canonical. What a great piece of history that would’ve been.
But no, I threw it out like I did so many other things at the time, because having less stuff makes moving a ton easier.
Zorin has a pro tier that costs money but it’s supposed to have the look and feel of classic Windows - maybe it’s that?
Maybe elementaryOS? There is a Purchase button on the site, with a pay-what-you-want option. If possible to enter 0 though.
Not sure if it was Mint or Ubuntu, but one of them shows a donation box with a default amount when you click download. It’s already downloading when the box shows up, but maybe he misinterpreted that.
I think my retiree parents (and in-laws) are going the same way. They only use their computer for email and search, and the options are just better.
I’ll have to ask my parents about it. They mostly just use a web browser, but they also occasionally use Word for writing Christmas letters and whatnot. I could probably get them to switch to LibreOffice, Google Drive, or Office365, but not completely sure about that. They are interested in getting a Chromebook, so I guess we’ll see what they end up needing.
I try not to force Linux on anyone, but I have brought it up before as a suggestion (they were complaining about their computer being slow, and ended up buying a new one). My dad really likes Windows, but they really don’t use anything Windows-specific other than Word anymore.
Linux adoption intensifies
Maybe in a decade from now Linux will achive 7.5% market share, maybe
You only need about 15% for commercial support.
This feels like such a fuck you to working class. People can’t afford another layer of these costs right now.
… This is bait right? You want somebody to tell you there’s a simple and free solution, and then you’re going to say it’s a bad solution?
FINE! I’ll bite: Pirated copy of Windows Enterprise LTSC. It’s less useful, more resource hungry, privacy invasive and has worse support for older hardware than Linux though.
Working class doesn’t have time to do this research and just needs a working machine
Working class doesn’t have the money to change to machine either.
So, what’s the advice that you would give you working class? Pay, pirate or learn?
Working class people at large don’t know about these alternatives, I’m certain you know that. IT folk and nerds alike do, but anyone outside of these circles don’t necessarily see the choice they have
Those people that don’t know options exist are also people that don’t care about or know about support life for something like the OS - they just see it as what the computer comes with. Most of them probably wouldn’t have upgraded from 7 to 10 without it just doing it itself. A lot of them will just keep using 10 well past the end of support.
Also, I really enjoyed Railcar’s subversion of expectations with all that lead up to what we all assumed was a Linux recommendation to end up being pirated windows. That got a chuckle out of me. I feel like the haters didn’t get the joke.
I feel like the haters didn’t get the joke.
Their computer didn’t come with sense of humor pre-installed, and it’s too hard to do it themselves.
Working class people at large don’t know about these alternatives,
You mean only the elite know about Linux? Preposterous!
*proceeds to clean monocle
Jokes aside, it might be a good time to teach and learn. Or pay, or have less security moving forward.
It was a staple of the “working class” to be resourceful, to know to repair stuff. It’s on Microsoft best interest that you change the computer, that you pay another OEM license, that they can drop support for older hardware… And this will happen again with windows 12.
Objectively speaking Linux is not a Windows replacement, its a minix replacement and competes with FreeBSD. Not everyone wants Linux and tbh I wouldnt reccomend Linux to most people.
Objective is a very strong word there. “[OS] Replacement” could mean any number of things.
They’re “technically” correct. That’s what Torvalds initially created it as. But what it initially was, and now is are very different things. I’m sure they would call OSX a BSD replacement and not a Windows replacement. Despite many people replacing windows with it. It’s pedantically obtuse.
Right now the biggest wall from wider consumer adoption of Linux. Is honestly, simply the lack of systems offered to consumers with it. Outside of a few games with kernel level anti cheat. Or highly proprietary specialized softwares. There’s very little that you cannot currently do on Linux that you can do on Windows.
Your Average user/consumer doesn’t install any operating system. Whether it is Windows Linux or Mac OS. They simply run what the computer came with. And that’s always been windows unless it is an Apple computer. That’s part of what the 1999 antitrust suit would have sought to remedy. Microsoft punished any company that had dared to even offer systems with Linux for a long time. And nothing was ever really done to stop it.
I’m sure they would call OSX a BSD replacement
No they wouldn’t. That’s Linux, among other things, because when it was gaining popularity, BSDs were defending from lawsuits and rewriting litigious parts belonging to AT&T (that is, preserved from original Unix sources).
Right now the biggest wall from wider consumer adoption of Linux. Is honestly, simply the lack of systems offered to consumers with it. Outside of a few games with kernel level anti cheat. Or highly proprietary specialized softwares. There’s very little that you cannot currently do on Linux that you can do on Windows.
No. Actually no, that’s not the biggest wall.
Under modern Windows you can run software compiled for Windows XP. Under Linux you’ll have a lot of sex with your system before achieving that kind of backwards compatibility.
Since you mentioned BSDs, and they are similar to Linux in daily usage, with FreeBSD you may install compat4x, compat5x and so on packages and run rather old binaries. FreeBSD version of Opera browser (yep, they made a FreeBSD version), which was a binary from Opera Software, didn’t receive an update since 2013 and till 2021 and it was in working condition.
This wall for your typical Windows user is hard to describe. They are doing something the only normal way they understand and are told that they are holding it wrong. Say, they install a package for the previous major version of their distribution. Or just try to run some binary downloaded from somewhere and it tells them angry things about libc version and possibly other libraries.
Also the “advanced” things under Linux are not usable for many people, and the “user-friendly” things are complex and buggy.
Of course, Windows users also would really like to use their familiar Windows applications, but that’s not as important, Wine solves a lot of it.
AcKsHuAlLy!!!
I’m very interested on a longer explanation of this take, considering how many people use Linux as a replacement for windows.
And if the argument is “not everything that runs on windows works on Linux”, remember that can be said with windows vs Mac, iOS vs android and even windows 10 vs windows 11.
Written from a mobile phone powered by a minix replacement.
Also from my laptop that’s running on Alpine Busybox/Linux
Drag would recommend Linux to everyone, except for the very small minority who plan to install a non-Linux OS on their android phones.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro
Windows 10 Home and Pro
Retirement Date: Oct 14, 2025
Sounds like 2025 is gonna be a good year for PC manufacturers.
With sales from companies? Yes. With sales from average consumers? Maybe not. Depends on what they can afford. There’s people out there still using things like windows 7. If the computer still works they’re unlikely to upgrade unless they care about having the newest stuff.
A friend of mine just messaged me, that we cannot play a few selected games anymore, as his notebook was acting up. Upon further investigation I found out, that he is still running Windows 8.1 and cannot use Steam anymore, since Steam support on Windows 8.1 ended about a year ago and a Chrome update “finally” broke Steam on windows 8.1 a few weeks ago.
My mom only upgraded from her original surface pro running windows 8 when my siblings and I bought her a surface pro 7. She watches Netflix and checks her email and plays like plants vs zombies and solitaire. Some people really do live by the rule of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”.
I’m waiting for the planned obsidence lawsuit myself
the wut?
The planned obstinance lawsuit.
I still don’t know what you are talking about and I’m not trying to be stubborn
My bad, I thought you were making a joke about Pika saying “planned obsidence” instead of “planned obsolescence.” I did not realize you were making a genuine inquiry.
Planned obsolescence is when businesses intentionally design a product to become useless after a period of time.
For example, imagine a high end camera company that also sells replacement parts. They change their lens shape every model, and only keep the most recent models’ lenses in production. When an older model’s lens inevitably breaks, the customer cannot buy a replacement, and thus has pressure to buy s new camera, and the company hopes that most customers will buy from them again.
We see this in tech with smartphone companies only giving OS updates for a few years, causing older phones to go end of life, so even if the phone is fully functional it needs to be replaced. Again, the company hopes the customer will again buy from them rather than going to a competitor (who is likely running the same scheme.)
OP suggests Microsoft’s TPM requirement is there to force new computer sales, which will include a purchase of a Windows 11 OEM license bundled with the PC.
😏
Thank you Microsoft god bless I will stay on core 2 duo forever 🙏🙏
It would be safer to use a Linux flavor and run the apps you need using Wine/Proton…
Does it have Windows Aero?
Just a heads up while the look might be easy to emulate the feel part will at best be close. Which is actually good because a lot about that is rather shoddy in windows… and focussing on getting what you had with windows might make you miss stuff you didn’t think you wanted. Like MMB click on scrollbars, or dragging and resizing windows with Super+LMB/RMB
Thanks. I’ve been a daily Linux user since 2013, distro-hopping between every environment and whatnot, these days mostly on i3/tmux/vim on Kali for HackTheBox.
I use Windows 10 on my main PC for media/flight/race/milsimming with an Aero skin that gets pretty darn close, without using WindowBlinds, using SecureUxTheme tool, cracked StartIsBack and some theme I got off the Frutiger Aero subreddit, looks great with WACUP, 8Gadgets, Aerochat and some Windhawk mods like the old Win7 Taskbar Clock (instead of the W10 XAML one)
KDE Plasma + Klassy can do that. I think you can pull off a Win7 look with just those two.
KDE Plasma can get you far with its customization options, and Klassy adds more customization on top of that, and adds the translucent/transparent effects you need to emulate the Win7 look.
Old Gnome2-era themes will always win out imo. I tried looking for neat Plasma themes but a lot of em are just very basic colour swaps, nothing out there
KDE themes are a mixed bag for me. On one hand, they can potentially provide theming for little to no effort on my part (provided I do find a pre-made theme to my liking), but on the other, I had more luck with mixing and matching (and a lot of tweaking) different theme components (that is: color theme, application style, plasma style, window decorations, icon theme, cursor theme, etc). It’s a lot of work, and the result might not exactly be coherent, but you can really tweak quite a lot.
I haven’t really tried emulating the win7 look and feel by customizing KDE Plasma, but I think it’s possible. Someone in this comment chain claimed there’s a Win7 theme available, albeit not pulling it off perfectly. I guess that can be used as a starting point.
There is a KDE windows aero theme. The panels won’t mimic the start menu and bar perfectly. But it absolutely gives it an overall flavor.
The important questions. I miss aero so much.
same, I stuck with Win7 for years after its support period ended because I didn’t want to lose Aero 🥺
It has KDE, which I believe has something close to it.
Yup, Linux can look like whatever you want. I made my old Ubuntu install look like Windows 7 for the lulz once, but now I’m too lazy to change the defaults.
But can it sort by penis?
Length or girth?
Linux but with windows xp installation music
I use this as my ringtone, have for several years
Aww yeah
I’ve seen someone with that on their Steam Deck. Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
Tech illiteracy?