They chose an arbitrary cut-off date for hardware support for their new OS. They decided not to support old stuff anymore and they had to pick a date/technology platform. It was always going to be arbitrary. In my opinion they should've picked a clearer distinction (i.e. require a certain level of AVX support so all binaries can be built with AVX optimizations enabled) but I can see why they chose to do this. After all, they're going to have to support the OS for ten years, that four year old CPU is fourteen years old by the time Windows 11 goes out of support.
Most of my machines were on a Linux distro before that decision, and Debian 12 is providing a good enough to me experience on the desktop, even gaming.
I'll probably just stay there indefinitely. Is that an upgrade? Subjective. I'm happier here.
From Microsoft's website:
>Memory integrity works better with Intel Kabylake and higher processors with Mode-Based Execution Control, and AMD Zen 2 and higher processors with Guest Mode Execute Trap capabilities. Older processors rely on an emulation of these features, called Restricted User Mode, and will have a bigger impact on performance.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/threat-pr...
There're no fundamental changes to what's actually required, the limitations are arbitrary and set by Microsoft (and they provide a means to get around them).
It'll work fine.
If not, there are other operating systems that do work. Microsoft isn't the exclusive owner of the PC space, that's one of the major points of all of the antitrust fines and lawsuits.
But hey at least the OS has a revolutionary new green technology called... Battery saving mode!
Kool-aid Jammers are my latest laugh. Plastic pouch. Plastic straw wrapper. Paper straw.
Right, the straw was the enemy here?
Bsd was made by people who love unix, linux was made by people who hate windows.
As one example, I had to take a proctored exam recently, and the only supported OS was Windows or MacOS. Linux was not an option.
Then there is games, Proton is great but plenty of AAA titles are still not compatible.
Just for starters.
Got on the phone with support and they were dumbfounded. Got the idea to just spoof my user agent as a windows box on edge and it worked perfectly afterwards.
Even if not done on purpose there is a lot of crufty shit online that breaks in unsuspecting ways when I'm on a linux/BSD box. Especially if interfacing with the government websites and webapps. Our state fire code website looks straight out of 2002 and has multiple warnings about making sure to use IE6... in 2023.
Maybe its just my use case (fire industry / local government), but it helps to have a mac or windows machine lying around as backup.
Changed the background to match the same one on her old laptop and added some desktop icons, and boom 99% of her experience was the same. Had to help her a little with the LibreOffice -- that's a little different -- but otherwise functionally similar to Windows 7 / Win10.
I'm using linux as a daily driver and at this point there isn't anything I can't do on Windows. The hold out for a while was games, but Proton w/ Steam works well and I can play big titles like Cyberpunk 2077.
Hell, I installed the Chicago95 XFCE theme on my main system to see how well it emulated the look and feel of Windows 95 and wound up liking it. Why? Because even though it looks dated, the icons were immediately familiar and I felt navigation instantly become easier.
Do not underestimate the power of familiarity. Many of us grew up on DOS/Windows playing games and typing school work up in Word so moving away from those familiar waters is HARD. It's like being an immigrant moving to a new country - you have to put in extra effort to learn to adjust to culture and language. Some can, some cant. YMMV.
I don't even think Apple hits 8 for OSX updates. They obsolete the laptops more quickly than that, even if they do hit 6-7 years regularly.
Apple does not support any macOS version for that long, and is unlikely to support a current version of macOS on any given device for that long.
Modern web browsers will stop working on older operating systems - so will other apps.
Not only is it a massive security risk, but it will simply become impractical for most users.
Besides, if you're afraid of the TPM vulnerability described in this article, you ought to be more worried about running an out of date OS!
Apple does not provide security updates for Catalina, which was released 3.5 years ago. People would be crazy to run unpatched OSes for any use case involving the internet or wifi.
That does not make these PCs obsolescent in any way. People still use Windows 7, and even Windows XP. Especially in the many contexts where "security" is not important at all.