The hardware list is surprisingly cautious when it comes to older hardware. About 3 years or so is the cut-off, and in some case you can buy a new Surface Laptop today from Microsoft that doesn’t meet the new hardware criteria (nice going guys). Remains to be seen if they stick with these requirements though, my guess is they’ll fold later on. The two main ones are:
1 - TPM. As of today you’ll need TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) which is a hardware cryptography security key. Some motherboards will have a TPM module built in, or you can enabled it in your CPU firmware. It’s called fTPM for AMD and PTT for Intel.
2 - Secure Boot. If you’ve migrated from an older Windows 7, then you’ll need UEFI or ‘Secure Boot’ enabled. If you have an older Master Boot Record (MBR) type start-up then you’ll need to convert using MBR2GTP to get that converted over. It’s 109F here so hit The Google for explanations of all that as I’m too hot. A lot of reasons are covered here:
Windows 10 will be supported till October 2025 so if all this sounds awful it’s ok to ignore it.
A couple of things of note for gaming are the NVMe DirectStorage system (for GPU/Storage quick transfer) and the ongoing WDDM new GPU drivers for DX12U. Pretty niche stuff so far though.
I’m thinking that unless there are serious advantages to upgrading, I will just stick with Windows 10 until it is time for a new PC (probably next year sometime).
There’s speculation that they might even extend the Win 10 deadline beyond 2025 as well, as they are expecting the masses not to go for this at first. Due to the hardware hard requirements this is getting a bit of a Vista smell about it already, so I don’t think people are going to be rushing towards it.
They’ll be a new Microsoft Store style (‘Yay, the Microsoft Store!’ said no-one ever) with Xbox Game Pass integration and the ability to run Android apps (why?: part XIV), plus an OSX like task bar and look/feel. Like a lot of Microsoft updates in the last 5 years they seem to lose focus on if they want to be a pen/touch tablet, a laptop or actually a desktop system.
I have a few adverbs in store for this upgrade, but they’re not fit for polite company. The only positive thing so far will be when my boss, who’s an absolute Windows + WSL fanboy who keeps bugging me about my use of linux for work discovers that his (and many others of our Thinkpads) aren’t actually fit for the upgrade.
I’m curious what the EU will say about Teams now being included. The last time Microsoft included their products in Windows in such a way (Media Player and Internet Explorer) it was judged as against the rules and it got a bit expensive for MS.
I will definitely not switch unless I see a real practical reason. So far I have seen none.
I’m a bit skeptical of upgrading to Win11. Windows 10 X64 Pro runs great and has been very stable for me. Haven’t re-installed Windows for many years. It even surpassed my Linux installations.
Also…this comes to mind about skipping every second Windows release:
Windows 2000 - Good
Windows ME - Bad
Windows XP - Good
Windows Vista - Bad
Windows 7 - Good
Windows 8 - Bad
Windows 10 - Good
I’ll stick around with Windows 10 for a few more years I think.
Not sure about the EU, but the majority of our Atlanta based MSP clients jumped on Teams in 2020. I think Zoom helped shape what Teams eventually became, and integrating it with Microsoft 365 ensured its rapid market adaptation.
As a side note, I left my laptop at home recently, and decided to work off of a spare desktop via the web versions of M365. I was surprised at how good the web versions of Office are these days. Im pretty sure that fior basic work functions a Chrome Book would be perfectly fine.
We have a modern office concept with suicide booths for phone calls, recreative areas with green carpets and blue ceilings, meeting corners and such.
So each desk has a monitor and a USB3 cable, that‘s it. Clean desk policy.
I‘ll be happy about Windows 11 finally managing, well, Windows. So the screen does not get a mess just because a monitor is plugged in or out.
Right now I use FancyZones, and it‘s better than crapping my pants, I guess. Looking forward to native support of window snapping and virtual desktops somewhen in 2023.
Am I the only one that still hates Taskbar Icons with a passion? No change there, it seems.
The tool went into an absolute rage for trying to check if I could upgrade my pc from a windows education edition version Those decisions are not for me to make but for my university system administrator, even though the thing is technically mine.
Microsoft Windows: since about, oh early 2000’s, it has been a Flight Simulator (gaming) platform - I can browse the Web with. They don’t ‘get’ people like me
I’m more interested in using it for work. Seems this is the version where Windows finally learns to properly manage windows. Did you look into that? Do you like it?
The upgrade for my gaming PC will anyways only be available in Q1 2022, so I’ll watch for progress on the gaming front then. Not many windows needed to start a game anyway.
I waited almost a year after Win7 came out to upgrade to it.
I waited until Win10 was almost a full year past release to upgrade to it.
I will likely do the same for 11. There is no rush.
I’m thinking that unless there are serious advantages to upgrading, I will just stick with Windows 10 until it is time for a new PC (probably next year sometime).
Those decisions are not for me to make but for my university system administrator, even though the thing is technically mine.
