You can buy extended support for orgs like yours that require it - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/whats-new/extended...
1. in higher use than its successors
2. only had one possible successor
3. the successor did not support hardware in use at the time
?
I'm sure it won't stop them, as you say, but really Microsoft, as someone who used to be a (relatively rare at the time) defender of yours, get fucked. The Raymond Chen camp is truly dead (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost...)
2. ... I mean, that's every version of Windows. XP? Vista. Vista? 7, etc. The last time you had two choices of Windows was in the '90s.
3. It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
If you mean older hardware, 98 and NT4 were the last to support the 486, yet 486s were still in use by the time of release of Me/2000 (I sadly had to interact with said 486s in a school lab). XP -> Vista made the jump from a Pentium 233Mhz minimum to 800Mhz minimum, /and/ caused many issues due to the introduction of WDDM causing a lot of graphics hardware to become incompatible.
This is nothing new. Those pulling the shocked pikachu face perhaps just haven't been around the Windows block enough to realize... this is nothing new.
Good for you. There is plenty of hardware out there without TPM 2.0, that is not allowed to upgrade, even if they in every other aspect are more than capable enough.
Starting with this in 2021 https://christitus.com/update-any-pc-to-windows11/ and likely (I'd have to check) integrated into Chris Titus's WinUtil by now.
Some combo of tweaking registry values or zero sizing a DLL has done the trick so far (but perhaps not into the future with upgrades and patches).
> It does support hardware in use 'at the time'. I upgraded from 10 to 11 on existing hardware.
Of course it supports some hardware in use right now. But core requirements were generally just speed, now even if you have a fast processor, you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models. Vista had more compatibility issues than usual with peripherals, but that's quite different from having to toss the whole machine. And even then: Vista was released in 2007. You had 7 more years to stay on XP.
Not only are we handwaving the obvious reality that hardware used to have a shorter effective life because it was advancing so rapidly, but the Pentium 233 came out in 1997. XP went EOL in 2014. That's almost 20 years of hardware support. My family has various machines from 2015, 2017, etc. that otherwise work perfectly fine but don't support W11. I have an older laptop with a 4 core (8 HT) 2.6 GHz CPU (3.6 Turbo) with a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB of RAM, amply powerful, but nope, no Windows 11.
Not just speed but instructions.
> you're SOL if your system doesn't support TPM and specific models
TPM support at this point in time is very old, roughly 7 years or so, along with processor model. Newer processors lack the appropriate features to support the security features of Windows 11, i.e. VBS.
New OSes have new features which require new hardware; new being highly relative here as it's quite old hardware at this point.
In fact, let's compare this pointless consumer-hostile debacle with XP, where MS went out of their way to actually improve security by heavily revamping XP and keeping it alive longer than it would have been. Meanwhile, the obvious reality that's going to happen this time around is people are not going to throw out their machines, those machines are just going to stop getting security updates. Great work, Microsoft.
So really then, what is it you're trying to advocate, that this is all...good? Or is it just argument for argument's sake?
Microsoft (well, the Windows part) is looking more and more like the Apple and Sun in that article. It’s the #2 or #3 user-facing OS these days. The fancy new programming environment happened and most stuff moved there, but it’s JavaScript and the browser rather than C# and .NET. Running old software is becoming a niche and getting more so by the day.
I've given up on my hobby projects because it was to the point where each time I got a few hours to look at them I'd spend it all doing updates or adjusting to deprecations.
One thing that struck me rereading Joel's article: those shiny new APIs he rattled off, indeed almost none of them gained any traction. And he was spot on about the UI framework fragmentation too.
Recently Windows Phone popped up and a lot of the same themes popped up, for example changing the SDKs repeatedly, charging for the privilege of using the app store (so much for giving the tools away), etc. I think part of the issue is that Apple somehow gets away with doing this sort of thing but Microsoft doesn't have anything close to the marketing chops to brainwash people into getting screwed over and liking it. Maybe because they go out of their way to make it a positive experience to buy new Apple products, rather than a trip to a dealership for a new car
But perhaps one difference is that with consoles there's a free Sisyphean "reset" with each generation, which never happened with the phone. That gives a spot to enter the race.
Plus the whole thing with the phone carriers...in the US at least I'd wager that if the carriers don't offer your phone, and the salespeople don't talk it up (which phones are going to give the salesperson the most lucrative commission, by the way? Don't forget accessories...), then that's the ball game
Fortunately there might be hope on that. Pathetic that it had to be someone presumably doing it on their own time, after all we know how resource-constrained a small business like Microsoft is
https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/1l65ji8/things_a...
It's the same situation as last time with Windows 7. You can get three years of extended support for the monthly cumulative update, which I assume is being done given it is fairly inexpensive. The US government gets favorable pricing from Microsoft.
The consumer price for Windows 10 ESU is $30/$60/$90 for the first/second/third year.
I've been there.
I assume the research equipment is the usual uncommon specialized non-consumer (expensive) electronics, and the PCs involved are of course the exact opposite, cheap commodity office machines no matter what you do.
And Windows comes along for the ride.
Naturally IT has trouble just keeping up with the OS as it morphs, and their ratio of non-technical users over technical-minded is through the roof on the office machines, they're packed to the gills with boneheaded problems even if Windows never changed, so they're never going to have what a research place needs.
All the technology is there, you just have an IT gap.
I was too.
I've put Linux on PCs for the occasional everyday user, usually multi-booting. But for labs, mostly they need excess help with Windows that they can't expect from IT.
Now when I started building labs it was before there was DOS or Windows and that kind of stuff, and naturally no IT yet either :)
So when I got to a place where they had the modern shitshow already in progress (or lack of progress), I could cry foul as soon as any significant delay was introduced by IT. Anything really that would not have been even a speedbump if there were no IT, much less a roadblock or show-stopper. But I didn't try to say there was an answer right away, I would say eventually nature took its course and delays alone accumulated enough to allow for a site-specific correction. So I stepped up to fill the gap.
>they are basically gaming machines that we bought and maintain independently of the IT department because we have specific computing needs.
Often the only effective approach, and one that nobody else would dream of.
Looks like you are already about in position :)
It may be uncharted territory and you may need to keep on going until you reach unquestionably more effective performance. Otherwise some pressure could develop to turn back
If you're going to get the most out of your scientific equipment, you're going to need a scientist on your team who can navigate the installation & maintenance of the specialized software for various vintages of instruments across multiple versions of Windows and different generations of PC hardware. At the same time moving toward mastery of each instrument itself as a primary goal, so much of the time you need Windows and the PC component of the apparatus to "just work", get out of the way, and never change. Not exactly a good fit for any IT roadmap when you have a PC with needs very far outside their routine or comfort zone. Must be able to do things with Windows that IT can not, resulting in a much more trouble-free experience overall compared to the routine office machines.
IT can rarely do an ideal job even when they have only the office machines to worry about, and some labs have really been needing a lot more than that for a while. If you don't do it, who will?
>if I could find some extra time.
Only took a few short years, and it's really like getting two years experience for every year :\
After that you sure can get a lot more out of the electronics though :)
Oh yeah, this is just Windows, that was challenging enough but the mission-critical instruments depend on it.
You must also be able to demonstrate comprehensive backup and rapid full recovery way more effectively than any alternative if you're doing your best.
As for Linux, the next step at this site would be migration of the internet and office machines to a stable Linux or two, but their IT is not ready for that and I don't know exactly how I would substitute for everything they are doing with Windows either.
I'm glad it's not my turf anyway and took the time to develop a good bridge to IT by reducing their headaches rather than encroaching on their domain. That could not have happened overnight but it was worth it to get stuff accomplished in the labs.
Windows 10 ending in October blows my mind in contrast to the free as in beer near GUI-less Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 receiving extended support (security updates) until 2029. I'll probably assemble a patched-up/slipstreamed installer for recycling older equipment!
While the TPM and RAM requirements can safely be bypassed, user apps (e.g. Adobe CC and certain anticheats) may assume those requirements are satisfied.
At the same time, we still have a major problem at work if Microsoft goes through with this. I work in a research lab with 10s of 1000s of dollars worth of Windows 10 workstations that cannot be upgraded. We use Windows remote desktop and plenty of other software that is Windows only. The hardware is still pretty new and capable. With NIH cuts the last thing we need now is to have to spend money and lots of time to replace all that for no good reason.