In reply to a post by Pipexer:

These operating systems contain hundred of millions of lines of code (and at least several million probably insofar as interaction with the hardware) and it is not reasonable to expect Microsoft or Apple to be able to support the latest versions on the oldest of processors. At some point you need to draw a line and say we cannot support old hardware, or perhaps more accurately in some cases, test that all scenarios will work.

It is the same with all things in life, cars, electronics, etc.

Sometimes people don't realise the complexity behind things, and that there are cause and effect situations, so it's easy to remark that they are doing it for deliberate obsolencence when actually it's just not pragmatic or feasible to be able to support.

i realise the complexity, but you can't put cars or even a lot of electronics in that category. A 20-year-old car will still work and do the job, may use a bit more fuel than a modern car and take a bit more maintenance to keep it on the road. I know of someone who runs an old 20-year-old skoda, they prefer the simpleness of it to modern cars.


Electronics, well they can go for years, the Hi-fi I use for my computer is over 30 years old, a Toshiba midi, it still does the job. Scanner is over 10 years old, again, still works and thankfully, someone made the drivers so I can use it on my Mac. Dect phones, that have to be over 20 years old, still works. Radio in the bedroom, 15 years old. My Panasonic midi system i have in my living room, has to be over 15 years old.

So electronics can be used for years, it is when you have to cope with software and firmware that the problems may start, but even so many things will still work, even if not updated. As long as it don't need a connection to a server. Which is a problem for people that have smart home stuff, as any company could go belly up or not support something. Which is what I found out with Logitech and their harmony remotes.

I can understand Ms saying we are not supporting older processors if there is a reason for it, but when the OS runs fine on a processor, why block it? I put Windows 11 on my Ryzen 7 1700 machine and it worked fine. i had to use some software to make an image that would bypass the block, but once on the machine it works fine. Ms should just have had Windows 11 put up a message saying, it is not recommended you install Windows 11 on this machine, you do so at your own risk, do you want to continue?

Windows 11 while it looks nicer than Windows 10 in some ways, Ms have far more control over it, forced MS accounts, I know there ware ways to get around it, but should not need ways to get around it. Forced search with their search engine, if you use the search in windows, and then they push you to their browser.
Pushing their Ai rubbish all the time, forced telemetry.

To be honest, if anyone can cope with using Linux they would be better off.
Even apple don't do all those things that MS does these days on the Mac.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i realise the complexity, but you can't put cars or even a lot of electronics in that category. A 20-year-old car will still work and do the job, may use a bit more fuel than a modern car and take a bit more maintenance to keep it on the road.

But it is not reasonable to expect a manufacturer to keep providing spare parts for every model they have ever sold; that would be a logistical nightmare. Should Ford still sell parts for the Model-T? That is what support means; it is the equivalent of an OS-vendor supporting ancient hardware.

To keep an old car running you are probably going to have to use 3rd-party components, sometimes you have to join an owner's group. With ancient PC hardware you can do the same - hence Linux. My 20-year-old Mac mini still works (I have installed Linux on it) and does pretty much what a brand new computer does, just a little slower. But it would certainly be pretty useless if I stuck with OS X.

The same argument applies to many other consumer goods - washing machines, gas boilers, etc.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I can understand Ms saying we are not supporting older processors if there is a reason for it, but when the OS runs fine on a processor, why block it?

Interestingly, I just downloaded a Windows 11 iso and attempted to install it in Hyper-V, with TPM enabled, 2 cores, 4GB RAM and 4th gen Intel. The installation went through without a single complaint, whereas previously a workaround was required.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Interestingly, I just downloaded a Windows 11 iso and attempted to install it in Hyper-V, with TPM enabled, 2 cores, 4GB RAM and 4th gen Intel. The installation went through without a single complaint, whereas previously a workaround was required.

Very strange, I bet it would complain if you turned TPM off.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Interestingly, I just downloaded a Windows 11 iso and attempted to install it in Hyper-V, with TPM enabled, 2 cores, 4GB RAM and 4th gen Intel. The installation went through without a single complaint, whereas previously a workaround was required.

Yes... reports are its a possible bug in 23H2, and there is a new check coming in 24H2 which may break anything before 4th Gen.

I have a really nice 4th Gen i7 desktop, that I eventually retired as no way to add TPM and it was only SATA 3, and so NVMe was calling

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Yes... reports are its a possible bug in 23H2, and there is a new check coming in 24H2 which may break anything before 4th Gen.

I'd be happy to see 4th gen removed from the cpu compatibility block. The one I still use has a TPM 2.0 slot on the motherboard, so I bought a plug-in module for it for a few quid. It also has an M.2 slot.

Edited by Oliver341 (Fri 02-Aug-24 12:02:39)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I'd be happy to see 4th gen removed from the cpu compatibility block. The one I still use has a TPM 2.0 slot on the motherboard, so I bought a plug-in module for it for a few quid. It also has an M.2 slot.

I think some 4th Gen have the option of a microcode TPM in the CPU, but not many.

The 8th gen requirements is around instruction set, not TPM, and it is the same instructions that Apple wanted in macOS.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The 8th gen requirements is around instruction set

At least for the time being those instructions are optional. The compatibility blocks are probably designed to prevent people running into a future date where those instructions become mandatory. But even then I'm pretty sure Microsoft would just block the incompatible feature update rather than install one that bluescreens the machine.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

At least for the time being those instructions are optional. The compatibility blocks are probably designed to prevent people running into a future date where those instructions become mandatory. But even then I'm pretty sure Microsoft would just block the incompatible feature update rather than install one that bluescreens the machine.

Maybe there are services that home users don't use (and corporates do) that are using these instructions in Pro/Enterprise editions, or when you join an Entra ID cloud domain, or on premises AD domain or buy into the MS corporate security cloud services (instead of buying Crowdstrike). I can see home users not hitting any of that.

When Win10 goes out of support in August 2025, a year away, then PCs older than 7 years may just be recycled.

Got as far as downloading, verifying and authenticating the Mint distro this evening. Not at work all next week so have several days to have a go at getting it up and running. Thinking of a dual-boot system to begin with.