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Comment by qwery | Hacker News Reader

I find the shock / surprise / "but isn't this the same Microsoft that ..." reactions quite interesting. It happens with lots of topics, but Microsoft doing ~anything is a very reliable trigger.

Yes, it's the same company. No, this isn't obviously part of their <insert classic Microsoft internal email subject> strategy. Yes, they can take actions that align with your interests. No, they're not "good now".

I guess I read the headline as "Business did business activity to further goal of doing business".

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I mean clearly they failed to beat Apple in mobile markets for decades and could also do to have less new Macs purchased while not having much skin in the game with computer hardware. I'm not sure right to repair would be more challenging to any tech company's business model than Apple--seems like a straightforward strategy for Microsoft?

It's contrary to their 'recent' actions though -- Win 10 obsoleted millions of computers. Win 11 looks to be doing the same. That looks strange if the same company then says "hey we're against unnecessarily making e-waste". You've got to admit that lack of consistency suggests a subtext?

Windows 10 is still officially supported by Microsoft for another year or two, it hasn't "obsoleted" anything. When those computers do lose support, you can continue using Windows 10 on them or switch to Linux for modern security updates. These machines are fine, and if the Windows 11 upgrade was offered for free then I struggle to see what you're mad about here.

Microsoft indeed sucks, but it's silly to pretend that these devices are instant e-waste because they aren't officially supported by Windows 11. The majority can run it, but aren't allowed to by-default because of the new security policy. Whether Microsoft is using security as an excuse to promote perverse incentives is up to you.

So, Microsoft should never allow their OS to evolve beyond existing hardware? Doesn't seem a realistic expectation. The hardware is still usable with an older OS or Linux/BSD. No one is being forced to throw out old computers.

The limitation does seem quite artificial (at least currently while they're not making use of the features), and the cutoff is a bit too recent as well (I'd understand if it was 10 or 20 year old hardware but it wasn't)

Pre-win 10, windows said my dad's computer couldn't upgrade. That it needed replacing. This was relatively common IME. As it happened, I managed to install it anyway and it ran at least as well as the previous Win 7 did. (Two other family computers were the same; a couple of computers at my dad's work I saved from the dump too [just by upgrading them, they continued to use them]).

Now they say he can't upgrade [that 'last ever version' thing didn't last, huh] ... I've not found a way around the current restrictions yet?

It's quite good at the moment, there are a flood of good second hand systems from businesses who are upgrading.

There's no problem with MS developing beyond their current systems. Indeed it feels like they go too far with backward compatibility. But lying (or putting in false requirements) in order to get hardware scrapped is just wrong -- do home users really need TPM2, seems more like a nice to have to me.

The reality is that most people will not repurpose a computer, they throw them out. Rarely (in UK) the device might make it to a computer recycling place. Heck, I've seen people throw out computers because the "you're low on disk space" warning came up.

David Weston was very involved in the TPM decision, and spoke about it here: https://youtu.be/8T6ClX-y2AE

After msft's experiences with Win10, they decided Windows wouldn't become more secure unless they enabled features by default. And the majority of high-impact features depend on a TPM.

I'd argue that home users do need these features in the current security environment. TPMs have been required in new devices since 2016, so people are more likely to have thrown out incompatible devices already (CPU/RAM if not disk)

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