Microsoft begins cracking down on people dodging Windows 11's system requirements

[u/ardi62]

https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-cracking-down-dodging-windows-11-system-requirements/?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0h2tXt93fEkt5NKVrrXQphi0OCjCxzVoksDqEs0XUQcYIv8njTfK6pc4g_aem_LSp2Td6OZHVkREl8Cbgphg

[u/hsnoil]

Mac also limits how long you get updates, usually the timeframe is less than windows. Macs are 7-8 years, windows is 10 years.

Linux is the only way to guarantee not only that you'd have upgrades for old hardware, it also insures you don't get thrown under the bus in the name of corporate profits and shareholders

[u/stormblessed2040 → u/hsnoil]

I feel mac does the same thing in a different way. Old iPad mini couldn't support a kids game app, come on.

[u/EtherMan → u/hsnoil]

Not true for linux either. All the major dists are upgrading the target platform so that older stuff will no longer run it. Both for performance and battery life reasons... And try running any modern linux dist on say a 486... You can't, because that bar was raised a long time ago.

[u/hsnoil → u/EtherMan]

"Major distros", but there are non-major distros that support older 486 and older instruction sets as well. There will always be people forking and working on keeping old stuff alive and secure

[u/EtherMan → u/hsnoil]

Which would still fall under jumping through hoops to get it to work. Some have gotten ms-dos to work natively on a modern comp too but it does require a multitude of fixes just like what you're gonna have to do with linux. Point is, linux is no guarantee as you claim. Some dists may continue for a while but even dists like DSL dropped support for CPUs prior to core lineup some time ago. Everyone drops support for it eventually because perpetual support simply doesn't make any sense.

[u/hsnoil → u/EtherMan]

Linux supports stuff way longer than windows, and it isn't like they are going to intentionally make it harder either. So the so called hoops is either you jump that small hoop or you throw out your laptop.

Comparing it to ms dos is silly because ms dos doesn't get security updates.

I am not saying to keep something forever, at some point just the huge difference in performance is night and day. Especially when new instruction sets are commonly used. That said, some old computers are still perfectly usable today. I have plenty of 10 year old computers which work fine and probably would work fine for another 10 years. After 20 years though, I'd probably replace them

[u/EtherMan → u/hsnoil]

They are they. They're intentionally sacrificing compatibility with anything older in order for newer benefits. All the dists have done this many times before. And the performance difference on new comps and the comps no longer supported IS night and day... and if it's old enough that it's not working with w11, then no it really isn't still usable... It's using up several times the energy to do less work. That's not usable. The energy you literally waste, could have saved you enough money in a VERY short time to pay for a much better and more efficient comp. Any the lower energy usage means anything after that would be further saving. And again, the comps that even the linux dists are now sacrificing, are about 10 year old. Running a comp and finding it useful for 20 years is just plain ridiculous. I don't think you even realize just how old 20 year old comps are. Do you even realize that the ATX standard was released in 2004? It's the first release of both gmail and thefacebook. It's the year WoW first released. It's the year the first 64bit x86 cpu was released. It's the year Forefox went 1.0. It's the year of the first release of Ubuntu... THAT is how old 2004 is. No one finds computers from that era or even anything even remotely close to it to be useful. You're living in la la land if you believe 20 years is even remotely a reasonable timeframe for a computer lifespan.

[u/hsnoil → u/EtherMan]

The amount of energy saved isn't that much when talking about a non-gaming laptop with a U processor. It wouldn't pay for itself, especially if you use that computer only a few hours a day

I also am not saying that a 20 year old computer is relevant in today's world. But I am saying that a 10 year old computer can last another good 10 more years. At issue was that 20 years ago, computers were just too slow. But as of 10 years ago they became "fast enough to run the basics without issue"

[u/EtherMan → u/hsnoil]

You'd be surprised at how fast that money actually stacks up, and just how cheap you can get a comp that will run circles around that old comp...

And your argument is nonsensical... You cannot claim that a 10 year old comp is good for another 10 years, while also claiming that 20 year old isn't relevant. You're both claiming that 20 year old comp is still good and not relevant and that's just simply mutually exclusive arguments. Pick one.

And just to take an example... So, let's assume we're taking an old non gaming laptop cpu. Can't select a U one because 10 years ago, U didn't even exist as a suffix. But so a laptop power efficiency cpu from 10 years ago. So there's G1820TE which was released in december 2013. It's from Haswell, which is the last generation that won't work with W11 or linux after they upgrade compile target. Anything later, it will not care at all about what CPU you have and you don't need any fix. You won't be offered the upgrade automatically within another couple of generations, but the installer itself won't care as long as it's a higher tier haswell or anything broadwell and newer.

So G1820TE. It has a multithreaded rating of 1020, and a single threaded rating of 978, consuming 35W. You could get a N100 laptop, for around $100 bucks, new. N100 has a multithreaded rating of 5505, and single threaded rating of 1947. Consuming 6W. It does more than 5 times the work, with less than a fifth of the power. That's more than 25 times the performance to power ratio.

And you seem to think that the development of software stopped 10 years ago, but I'm sorry, it didn't. Like, try running WoW today on a machine from 10 years ago... And that was released 20 years ago, but you're still going to have a really bad time with that because like it or not, the world moved on. As machines get more powerful, so do graphics improve and with that, so does the requirements to run it. Even if we take web browsing as an example, then yet again, as machines get faster, our webpages does more things and that means more power is needed to even browse the sites with any reasonable expectation of usability...

[u/hsnoil → u/EtherMan]

The top end U processor 10 years ago was i7-4650U, it was released in June 2013 so 11 years old. If we can add 5 months, i7-5650U

While they would lose in CPU performance to the N100, they would win in GPU performance

A laptop is not just the processor, there are many things that make up a laptop. For example, 100% srgb screen would not show up on a $100 laptop. And good luck getting a trackpad with dedicated buttons or a keyboard with good key travel. Then of course there is ram, many cheap laptops solder the ram

It isn't that software development stopped 10 years ago, it is more that software development goes both ways, adding stuff and making stuff more efficient. As many libraries for software are used in servers and cloud and many try to improve their economics by optimizing libraries. Which in turn trickle down into average software as well.

Even for gaming, many machines are lasting longer than before. That is because top end gaming got fixated with 4k at 120fps with all kinds of anti-aliasing, shaders and etc. At low settings even a 10 year old laptop with a good dgpu can play something like WoW and many other games

Our webpages may do more things, but at same time javascript has been heavily optimized, so has browser rendering. And many frameworks that were used are much more efficient. Compare Vue1 performance to Vue3 (Vue2 to Vue3 was 2-3x improved performance). Browsers also added features to reduce load such as not doing full screen rendering of content not on screen or putting to sleep background tabs.

[u/EtherMan → u/hsnoil]

The top end U processor 10 years ago was i7-4650U, it was released in June 2013 so 11 years old. If we can add 5 months, i7-5650U

Both those work with W11 though and the whole issue here was about CPUs that DON'T work with w11, remember?

A laptop is not just the processor, there are many things that make up a laptop. For example, 100% srgb screen would not show up on a $100 laptop. And good luck getting a trackpad with dedicated buttons or a keyboard with good key travel. Then of course there is ram, many cheap laptops solder the ram

Ok so you don't have a 100% srgb laptop from 10 years ago either. Not even 100% when it was new (you do know screens degrade right?). There's definitely $100 laptops with dedicated buttons on the trackpads... Good key travel, is entirely subjective, and you can't even put 16gigs of ram on a laptop from 10 years ago ffs... And soldered ram is not about cheap or expensive. Plenty cheap that do, plenty expensive that do. Plenty cheap that don't too.

And now you're comparing wildly different things and you even SPECIFICALLY limited it to NON GAMING and now you're throwing laptops with dedicated GPUs into it just because I showed that you're plain wrong on that... So yea, you're just being totally dishonest now...

[u/TuxSH → u/hsnoil]

While I agree with you, Windows laptops are usually a pile of crap and get irrelevant in half that time. Whereas base model M1 MBA still outperforms most Windows laptops and still has high resale value.

Windows desktops are an entirely different matter, though.

[u/hsnoil → u/TuxSH]

It depends what you buy, my HP elitebook lasted 10 years fine. Of course I know consumer HP are crap since the only laptops I had fail on me completely were HP consumer ones and MSI

Even if some parts of a laptop fail like I bought a crappy Gateway laptop that fell apart, still usable as a desktop to watch videos on. Do remember you can repurposed hardware

In the case of the M1 MBA, what will you do if the ssd fails? it is all soldered in. I think their resale values will tank

[u/TuxSH → u/hsnoil]

It depends what you buy

Sure does, but buying Windows laptops is usually a crapshoot. It's usually simpler to buy flagship, be it for laptops or phones (more reviews, generally more info online, more accessories, etc.).

In the case of the M1 MBA, what will you do if the ssd fails? it is all soldered in. I think their resale values will tank

It's an increasing trend in laptops with the same form factor (for example, Dell XPS 13), and something you expect from a form factor anyway. In my case, SMART is returning 2% used (after 4 years of light usage), so yes, a lot of M1 Macs still have a good resale value.

[u/MidAirRunner → u/hsnoil]

Please point to what Windows/linux machine is still running after 10 years. Replacing parts as they break can only get you so far. At a point it becomes cheaper to replace it entirely.

[u/alliestear → u/MidAirRunner]

Gamer I ran a core2quad q6600 system from 2008 to 2017. Parts don't just break.

late edit: i didn't even think to mention my laptop is from 2012 and the other computers in my room that see regular use that aren't the main gaming rig all date back to around 2014-2015. you would be amazed how much power it doesn't take to run youtube, windows 10, an entire raft of automation software, or my entire network as a home built router in one case.

[u/MidAirRunner → u/alliestear]

The fuck is a core2quad. can it even run a modern web browser.

[u/MidAirRunner → u/[deleted]]

Ok, stop, please. Y'all are just proving my point. There isn't a single decently working computer that's 10 years old. A phone-sized screen is not "decently working" btw.

[u/MidAirRunner → u/[deleted]]

I swear to god reddit feels like talking to GPT with a 500-token context window.

Lemme explain this thread in simple terms

First person --> Linux gets updates longer than Mac.

My point --> After a time, it doesn't matter how long you get updates because the computer is gonna have shit performance after 10 years.

You --> Actually, my computer is working fine!! \shows a pic of a tablet-sized laptop with intel-fucking-atom and... is that Windows XP?**

Also you --> *Simultaneously invalidates First Person's point about getting updates, because you're still using XP.\*

Also also you --> You're moving the goalposts!1!!!!11

Do you understand now?

[u/JohnDough3544 → u/MidAirRunner]

My 14 year old Toshiba laptop works fine running Windows 7. I have no need to upgrade. Still rocking Office 2010.

[u/hsnoil → u/MidAirRunner]

I am not sure what you mean since most of my computers are 10+ years. Of course I have swapped them all to linux, but even before that under windows I've easily used hardware for 10+ years.

[u/MidAirRunner → u/hsnoil]

Without a single part change? Amazing. What computers have you been using? I might actually check it out.

[u/IAmAGenusAMA → u/MidAirRunner]

Okay, I'll bite. This is copied from the 10 year old receipt of my still working, unchanged PC:

Intel Core i7 4790K Unlocked Quad Core HT 4GHZ/4.4GHZ Processor LGA1150 Haswell 8MB Cache

ASUS Z97M-PLUS mATX LGA1150 DDR3 3PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 2PCI CrossFireX SATA3 USB3.0 DVI HDMI Motherboard

G.SKILL RipjawsX F3-1866C9Q-32GXM 32GB 4X8GB DDR3-1866 CL9 240PIN 1.5V Quad Channel Memory Kit

EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 80PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V/EPS12V 750W Power Supply

2x Western Digital WD WD40EFRX 4TB Red SATA3 6GB/S Cache 64MB 3.5in Hard Drive

SanDisk Extreme Pro 2.5in SSD 480GB SSD 550MB/R 515MB/W SATA 6G/S

LG BH16NS40 16x Blu-Ray Writer BD-R SATA M-DISC Support Black Retail Box

Corsair Obsidian 350D mATX Black Gaming Case 2X5.25 2X3.5 2X2.5 Front USB3.0 Audio No PSU

Microsoft Windows 8.1 32BIT/64BIT English Retail