Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements

Dark Knight · Jul 4, 2021

johnlgalt said:
It's not about degradation. It's not about performance, either.

It's 100% about security (and smoke and mirrors to make it seem like Microsoft is 'really doing something extraordinary' by limiting CPUs with a past history of vulnerabilities).

Problem is, though, that if people tried to take the same approach to software, well, Microsoft would quickly lose it's $2 Trillion USD status - because their software is, arguably, even more vulnerable (over the long run) than these CPUs they are marking as excluded.

But remember - these games are not for you, the end user. They are for the investors and the large scale buyers and their high end cloud consumers.

You (and me,) they could really not care any less for. Regardless of what they may say otherwise.

If you were a business owner, a sole proprietor, you might think twice before bumping a customer you have that fills an order for $20 to accommodate a customer that comes into fill a $2000 order. Corps aren't so nice - the higher paying job almost always gets the deal first. That is what Capitalism has become today - not the search for a little bit of a profit as a RoI but the search for a profit by cutting corners, shoddy workmanship and practices, and the like.

And I'm not trying to turn this into a political discussion - it's the flat out truth. If you think for one second that Microsoft implements anything because the end users want it you're sadly mistaken. They only implement it if it has a positive reaction with their investors. Make no mistake - Microsoft is not a 'mom and pop' store fulfilling orders from $20 to $2000. They are a full-on corporation, with investors, earnings reports, margins and things like that. All the other stuff about how well it will help the users blah blah blah is nothing but marketing.

I am just saying , hopefully they will se enough insiders downloading and running Windows 11 using 7th, 6th and older gen cpu's wihout issue that they aren't really going to have a choice but to lower the cpu standards.

bobkn · Jul 4, 2021

Dark Knight said:
I am just saying , hopefully they will se enough insiders downloading and running Windows 11 using 7th, 6th and older gen cpu's wihout issue that they aren't really going to have a choice but to lower the cpu standards.

Do you think that Microsoft would do that rather than forcing the Gen 6 and 7 owners back to Windows 10, when the release version of 11 appears?

I'm not competent to comment on the hardware security feature differences between the generations of Intel CPUs. Maybe MS is being arbitrary rather than using good engineering practices, but that feels unlikely.

Dark Knight · Jul 4, 2021

bobkn said:
Do you think that Microsoft would do that rather than forcing the Gen 6 and 7 owners back to Windows 10, when the release version of 11 appears?

I'm not competent to comment on the hardware security feature differences between the generations of Intel CPUs. Maybe MS is being arbitrary rather than using good engineering practices, but that feels unlikely.

I am no business guru but lets face it , if you own a company with a decent IT department that knows what they are doing , there is no reason for a company to drop a wad of cash on a new OS. There are companies STILL using Windows XP! Until recently the company I work for was still using Windows 7.
Microsoft is rolling the dice on this one and they will fail miserably if they are pitching to the business sector on this, sure they will make some money , but not as much as they are counting on. Businesses know how flighty Microsoft is with their OS's , why pay for something when you have something that already works? and an IT department that mitigates attacks and keeps things patched. Most of these companies run proprietary software that was made for the OS they are running , now they have to pay to upgrade that software to a new OS AND pay for the new OS itself? and they know full well Microsoft NEVER sticks to anything and a few years from now will only be pitching something else.

If I was a business owner, I certainly wouldn't want to spend thousands or millions on a new OS every few years, that's absurd .

Windows 10 was SUPPOSED to be the last OS ..... remember? Now here we go again.

I don't think this is geared so much to the business sector or even you and I for that matter, this is more for the fat cats on Wall Street, they need to do something to boost the price of their stock for the share holders.

But, If they don't lower the standards, another thing to consider is that micro chips are in VERY short supply, vendors cannot meet demand because of COVID shutdowns , their inventory's have been depleted and it takes about 1 month to produce 1 functional micro chip wafer. Intel and micro chip makers in Taiwan and Asia do not see any kind of recovery or catching up for at least a year or more just because of how thier order structures work.
Even if people WANTED to purchase new computers or cpu's , the supply is just not there, not now anyway.
So , the question is, how much is everyone willing to pay for a new pc or cpu? The chip situation has already driven the price of vehicles up over 50% ..... That $1,500 pc you bought a few years ago will now cost over $2,500 or more.

CountMike · Jul 4, 2021

Dark Knight said:
I am no business guru but lets face it , if you own a company with a decent IT department that knows what they are doing , there is no reason for a company to drop a wad of cash on a new OS. There are companies STILL using Windows XP! Until recently the company I work for was still using Windows 7.
Microsoft is rolling the dice on this one and they will fail miserably if they are pitching to the business sector on this, sure they will make some money , but not as much as they are counting on. Businesses know how flighty Microsoft is with their OS's , why pay for something when you have something that already works? and an IT department that mitigates attacks and keeps things patched. Most of these companies run proprietary software that was made for the OS they are running , now they have to pay to upgrade that software to a new OS AND pay for the new OS itself? and they know full well Microsoft NEVER sticks to anything and a few years from now will only be pitching something else.

If I was a business owner, I certainly wouldn't want to spend thousands or millions on a new OS every few years, that's absurd .

Windows 10 was SUPPOSED to be the last OS ..... remember? Now here we go again.OS

Dark Knight said:
I am no business guru but lets face it , if you own a company with a decent IT department that knows what they are doing , there is no reason for a company to drop a wad of cash on a new OS. There are companies STILL using Windows XP! Until recently the company I work for was still using Windows 7.
Microsoft is rolling the dice on this one and they will fail miserably if they are pitching to the business sector on this, sure they will make some money , but not as much as they are counting on. Businesses know how flighty Microsoft is with their OS's , why pay for something when you have something that already works? and an IT department that mitigates attacks and keeps things patched. Most of these companies run proprietary software that was made for the OS they are running , now they have to pay to upgrade that software to a new OS AND pay for the new OS itself? and they know full well Microsoft NEVER sticks to anything and a few years from now will only be pitching something else.

If I was a business owner, I certainly wouldn't want to spend thousands or millions on a new OS every few years, that's absurd .

Windows 10 was SUPPOSED to be the last OS ..... remember? Now here we go again.

Windows upgrades are free but for businesses there are hidden costs like installing, retraining, eventually new proprietary software etc. behind it. Typically OS changes go with hardware change and it's all included in the price. Until really forced to, nobody wants to switch OS only. Everything has to go in a package. Banks and other large institutions mostly work with servers and that's some other ballgame, only small businesses are expected to work with individual PCs.
For individual users, unlike W8 and W10, I can see unusually large interest considering that W10 still has few years to go.

fafhrd · Jul 4, 2021

By the time that Windows 10 is finally binned in 2025, gen 10 or 11 processors will be available, with further security features. Future hackers will be finding vulnerabilities in those, too. Microsoft's Dev team will be working on Windows 12, and by then, potentially, hardware capabilities, and user preferences will have changed too. Depending how much Windows 11 disappoints the users, and the sales of new hardware goes, and what the Market share of some potential rivals for the PC desktop looks like, we will either see a partial reversal of the changes made this year, or they will make a yet more progressive, and limited and unusable copycat OS. Microsoft continuously fails to satisfy its user base by its insistence on secrecy, and "innovation"! without allowing backwards compatibility.

I am exasperated by the hubris of the design team in having an "Insider Program", but not polling its Insider user base on all aspects of the OS it may decide to deprecate in future, before making the changes, or at least not creating opt-out policies and optional add-in catalog changes to delay the impact on users of proposed removals at the time those changes are revealed. I am not at all surprised by their arrogance, though. Of course they could warn about unsupported legacy features when making changes, but to cut users off on the basis of imagined security hazards is plain rude. Stuff them too!

Example: WinHelp32.exe stub, still found in Windows 11. If I want to do some maintenance to a client's Microsoft Office Access 2.0 database I developed way back then, that has been continuously used to record the phenology of various woodland events in a certain location since 1987 (adding the years up to 1998 when I wrote the system for her), and she works in Windows XP (non-network, non internet) on a ten year old laptop, dual booted with Windows 10, and expects to do so until she pops her clogs, why should anything change? I also have to shift back to XP, if I want to do some very occasional work in Visual Basic For Applications to enhance this system. It was easy enough in XPMode on 7, but now it is not possible, although Office 97 runs like the blazes on Windows 10 and 11 too, just hobbled by an unnecessary lack of a contextual help system, which has never been hacked, except in a "proof of concept" demonstration in the noughties.

Saying that, I really couldn't care much. I take it with a pinch of salt, much like I do with the continual odour of skunk in the streets as I go out walking my dog. I don't like it, but I don't expect anybody to do much about it.

Bree · Jul 4, 2021

Interesting that the 22000.51 ISO is quite happy to install on a machine that meets the TPM2.0 & secure boot requirement, but only has a 6th gen CPU. Seems it doesn't enforce the minimum processor requirement.

Windows 11 22000.51 installing on 6th gen CPU.PNG

Edit: Worked perfectly. ~~Played around with it~~ tested it thoroughly for a few hours before restoring its 21H1 Macrium image. Everything worked, from very old apps like PaintShop Pro 7 and Movie Maker, up to the Hyper-V VMs that I run on that machine.

bobkn · Jul 4, 2021

fafhrd said:
(snip)

Example: WinHelp32.exe stub, still found in Windows 11. If I want to do some maintenance to a client's Microsoft Office Access 2.0 database I developed way back then, that has been continuously used to record the phenology of various woodland events in a certain location since 1987 (adding the years up to 1998 when I wrote the system for her), and she works in Windows XP (non-network, non internet) on a ten year old laptop, dual booted with Windows 10, and expects to do so until she pops her clogs, why should anything change? I also have to shift back to XP, if I want to do some very occasional work in Visual Basic For Applications to enhance this system. It was easy enough in XPMode on 7, but now it is not possible, although Office 97 runs like the blazes on Windows 10 and 11 too, just hobbled by an unnecessary lack of a contextual help system, which has never been hacked, except in a "proof of concept" demonstration in the noughties.

(snip)

I've seen some rather varied corporate support for OS updates. On some machines controlled by Windows PCs, I've seen some updates never done mainly because the vendor wanted obscene fees to do that. (Like $20k or more.) Other machines ran Windows 98 past its expiration date because they needed real DOS mode. The unsupported machines were banished from the company's network, and data had to be transferred by sneakernet. (Fortunately, USB thumb drives became available.) One NT box had to use a hardware adapter, because it couldn't natively use USB drives.

The desktops tended to be upgraded several years after the OS went retail. PC hardware wasn't much of an issue, because all of the desktops were on 3 year leases with Dell.

My main frustration with them was that I needed a capability to burn data to a CD to transport it into a closed area. I was surprised when they replaced my desktop with a new one, and its optical drive was a CD-ROM. Not a burner. (I didn't think those were still made.) Later, IT broke that with one of their standard login scripts, even though I had official permission to burn CDs.

And some of the IT people had Macs at home. Didn't want to have to do IT work around the house.

I left the company 5 years ago. Rumor has it that they're moving in the thin client direction. They've gotten quite paranoid about protecting IP. They'd prefer that no data reside on desktops.

fafhrd · Jul 4, 2021

@bobkn - I wish they would just leave well alone - there's an old saying long promoted in the IT community - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" this particularly applies to new versions of OSs. I would like to bet that there is nothing that I could could do in Linux as released in 1991, that I could not do with the same ease in a distro released today.

i486 · Jul 4, 2021

sgage said:
MS does not need to give a very good reason for preventing installers from installing their alpha software - what gave you that idea?

What gave you the idea that I got that idea? It was a few messages back that I explicitly stated that they are under no obligation to do so. I believe that transparency creates trust between enterprises and customers, and that it should always be aimed for as long as it doesn't become a security risk.

exploder said:
Microsoft could easily put themselves in the spotlight, get some great press, keep their user bas happy and I think that's very likely what they have in mind.

This could be one of those calculated moves where they first create outrage and then relax the requirements to save face, so that they appear as the good guys in the end.

jen1 said:
I am just saying that the 6th gen is different from the 7th and the 8th gen, and the 7th and 8th gen are the same, that is what all I said.

So you did. But you never explained why those differences would be significant to Windows 11. That is what matters in the end.

bobkn said:
I'm not competent to comment on the hardware security feature differences between the generations of Intel CPUs. Maybe MS is being arbitrary rather than using good engineering practices, but that feels unlikely.

I may be wrong but Skylake (not necessarily all CPU models) meets all original security feature requirements of Windows 10, including TPM 2.0 and the virtualization related ones such as core isolation, including memory integrity. What new is there in Windows 11 that couldn't be satisfied by that? I'm 99% sure that Windows 11 doesn't use the new CPU instructions that are supported by Intel's recent generations.

sgage · Jul 4, 2021

i486 said:
What gave you the idea that I got that idea? It was a few messages back that I explicitly stated that they are under no obligation to do so. I believe that transparency creates trust between enterprises and customers, and that it should always be aimed for as long as it doesn't become a security risk.

Message #67 in this thread, where you wrote:
i486 said:

I don't expect future Windows versions to officially support antique hardware, but unless there is a very good reason which Microsoft makes public, Windows installers shouldn't prevent users from installing them at their own risk.

(bolding is yours) That's what gave me the idea. You wrote it.

jen1 · Jul 4, 2021

i486 said:
So you did. But you never explained why those differences would be significant to Windows 11. That is what matters in the end.

I am in no position to speak for Microsoft, I speak for my self, and everything I state is under the freedom of speech and no one under any obligation has to believe in it.

Microsoft claim they make tests, if they claim that the 6th gen didn't pass their tests, I can't argue that as the 6th gen has its own architecture, functions, microcode and errata.

But if Microsoft claims that the 7th gen didn't pass their tests but the 8th gen did, I will argue that and state with absolute certainty that it is a false claim as the 7th gen and the 8gen have exactly the same architecture, CPU ID and even the same microcode, exactly the same Microcode.

I believe that Microsoft has realized after my feedback the fact that the 7th and 8th gen are exactly the same, if not identical, as I stated before the the 8th gen is just more cores per CPU with lower speed of the 7th gen nothing more. (6 cores instead of 4).

For everyone, Microsoft claims it is not just Security, it is Security, Reliability and Compatibility.

i486 · Jul 4, 2021

jen1 said:
I am in no position to speak for Microsoft, I speak for my self, and everything I state is under the freedom of speech and no one under any obligation has to believe in it.

Microsoft claim they make tests, if they claim that the 6th gen didn't pass their tests, I can't argue that as the 6th gen has its own architecture, functions, microcode and errata.

But if Microsoft claims that the 7th gen didn't pass their tests but the 8th gen did, I will argue that and state with absolute certainty that it is a false claim as the 7th gen and the 8gen have exactly the same architecture, CPU ID and even the same microcode, exactly the same Microcode.

I believe that Microsoft has realized after my feedback the fact that the 7th and 8th gen are exactly the same, if not identical, as I stated before the the 8th gen is just more cores per CPU with lower speed of the 7th gen nothing more. (6 cores instead of 4).

For everyone, Microsoft claims it is not just Security, it is Security, Reliability and Compatibility.

You seem to put a lot of faith on what Microsoft claims, even though actions always speak louder than words. Read a couple of earlier messages from this thread if you haven't already, they might give you a different perspective on how corporate PR works. Everything they communicate to the public, shareholders or other parties, must serve profits. A fact.

sgage said:
Message #67 in this thread, where you wrote:
i486 said:

I don't expect future Windows versions to officially support antique hardware, but unless there is a very good reason which Microsoft makes public, Windows installers shouldn't prevent users from installing them at their own risk.

(bolding is yours) That's what gave me the idea. You wrote it.

I didn't mean to imply that Microsoft is under legal obligations to be transparent in their communications. It was a statement on how things should be from my point of view.

johnlgalt · Jul 5, 2021

i486 said:
You seem to put a lot of faith on what Microsoft claims, even though actions always speak louder than words. Read a couple of earlier messages from this thread if you haven't already, they might give you a different perspective on how corporate PR works. Everything they communicate to the public, shareholders or other parties, must serve profits. A fact.

I didn't mean to imply that Microsoft is under legal obligations to be transparent in their communications. It was a statement on how things should be from my point of view.

(Off-topic - love your avatar! I know I have one of those sitting around somewhere....an SX/25, but still)....

Yeah, we want transparency, but we'll never get it. If for no other reason, then because a company can at any time clam up because of 'trade secrets'.

Mark Phelps · Jul 5, 2021

fafhrd said:
@bobkn - I wish they would just leave well alone - there's an old saying long promoted in the IT community - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" this particularly applies to new versions of OSs. I would like to bet that there is nothing that I could could do in Linux as released in 1991, that I could not do with the same ease in a distro released today.

Don' want to turn this into a "distro dispute" -- but at least with me, you would lose your bet -- badly!! I used several different distros for years and years and settled in on Ubuntu and Linux Mint a few years ago. And then, the key apps I used got dropped from the repos -- so I resorted to building them from scratch -- certainly not "the same ease" as installing from the repos. Then, the libraries got dropped and I could no longer build from source. Then, the printer utilities for checking ink levels got dropped, so I could no longer check that. This got to be so bad that two years ago, I stopped using the distros altogether. I recently tried Ubuntu 20.04 to see if things were any better -- they were not.

bobkn · Jul 5, 2021

fafhrd said:
@bobkn - I wish they would just leave well alone - there's an old saying long promoted in the IT community - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" this particularly applies to new versions of OSs. I would like to bet that there is nothing that I could could do in Linux as released in 1991, that I could not do with the same ease in a distro released today.

I've never used Linux. Haven't used Solaris or AT&T Unix in many years.

Congrats on changing the spelling of your handle to the one Fritz Leiber used. :)

jen1 · Jul 5, 2021

i486 said:
You seem to put a lot of faith on what Microsoft claims, even though actions always speak louder than words. Read a couple of earlier messages from this thread if you haven't already, they might give you a different perspective on how corporate PR works. Everything they communicate to the public, shareholders or other parties, must serve profits. A fact.

I just accused Microsoft of making a false claim and you are telling me that I am putting faith on Microsoft!!!???

I am starting to wonder if you understand anything I wrote !?

i will explain no more, you need to read everything I wrote here and on the tenforums .....

p.s. I can't argue doesn't mean I agree, as I stated it is just a claim, I doubt that Microsoft made any test to begin with.

i486 · Jul 5, 2021

jen1 said:
I just accused Microsoft of making a false claim and you are telling me that I am putting faith on Microsoft!!!???

I am starting to wonder if you understand anything I wrote !?

i will explain no more, you need to read everything I wrote here and on the tenforums .....

p.s. I can't argue doesn't mean I agree, as I stated it is just a claim, I doubt that Microsoft made any test to begin with.

Honestly, this part of your post didn't register when I read it in a hurry:

"But if Microsoft claims that the 7th gen didn't pass their tests but the 8th gen did, I will argue that and state with absolute certainty that it is a false claim as the 7th gen and the 8gen have exactly the same architecture, CPU ID and even the same microcode, exactly the same Microcode."

Sorry about that. The prosecution rests.

I'd be surprised if they actually tested these like they claim. It's good that there still are individuals who take these arguments directly to Microsoft.

Winuser · Jul 5, 2021

MS comes out with a new update that is a Windows 10 improvement. I have seen so many post about Windows 10 being the last Windows release. What the H**l dose it matter what they call it. Windows 11 is just a update that they could of just called a Windows 10 update. As for Windows 11 not being compatible with older systems. Isn't it time that MS Windows started going forward. I do feel sorry for anyone using a older system but Windows 10 is still alive even at the end of support Windows 10 devices will still run. As long as there is security updates either for Windows 10 or the security programs that one s running where is the problem? No one has to trash their Windows 10 devices when support ends.

fafhrd · Jul 5, 2021

bobkn said:
I've never used Linux. Haven't used Solaris or AT&T Unix in many years.

Congrats on changing the spelling of your handle to the one Fritz Leiber used. :)

I don't know about changing the spelling of my handle. I have used it on SevenForums since 10/02/2011, and have been a fan of Fritz Leiber fantasy since the late 60s. It is said that he coined the term "Sword and Sorcery". JRR Tolkien with The Hobbit in 1937 & Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser first appearing in 1939, probably were independent of each other. Both fundamentally contributed to an amazing flow of imagination which still flourishes today in literature, media and in particular, online gaming. This aspect has driven the technology, capability and popularity of personal computing since the 1980s, and continues to be a strong driving influence.

bobkn · Jul 5, 2021

fafhrd said:
I don't know about changing the spelling of my handle. I have used it on SevenForums since 10/02/2011, and have been a fan of Fritz Leiber fantasy since the late 60s. (snip)

Did I make an error? I thought you used to make it "fafrd".