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Comment by nytesky | Hacker News Reader

I have a 2019 Microsoft Surface laptop which cost a pretty penny (bought it for the wife). It doesn’t support Windows 11, I think because of TPM.

With end of life at 2025, I would have gotten about same life from a Chromebook which famously have expiration dates, for a fraction of the cost.

Is there really no way to work around the missing hardware with virtualization? Apple supports processor changes for several version (I have an Intel and an M2 MacBook both running same software). What is the deal? Forget extending windows 10 — get Windows 11 working somehow.

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Both Surface Laptops that would have been sold in 2019 support Windows 11. You might need to enable something in the BIOS, but the Surface Laptop 2 and 3 are listed as supporting 11.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/which-surface-de...

Okay, so I found the receipt and it’s 2018.

I still feel somewhat indignant since my 2012 MacBook lasted until 2022 and my Chromebook goes 8 years

I'm in the same boat, with a 2020 Surface Go. It's not a powerful machine but works just fine for taking notes and light browsing. I'm fine with it being stuck on Windows 10 - 11 would probably make it unusably slow - but when I purchased it I reasonably expected it to have similar longevity to the then 6 year old iPad it replaced.

The Surface Go 2 which came out in may 2020 can be updated to Windows 11.

This is a Surface Go 1, which can not.

So a 2018 Surface Go.

Which I purchased in 2020, at a time when it was the newest model available.

Saying "2020 Surface Go" implies the 2020 model. Which yours isn't the model from 2020, it's the model from 2018.

Which is why it's a lot better to use the actual product names instead of just the year you purchased it. If I buy a 1950s car in 2023 I probably shouldn't call it a 2023 car.

Maybe but when you are buying hardware from the software manufacturer, it would stand to reason to have a reasonable lifespan.

2018-2025 is seven years of support. Apple supports iPads for like 5-9 years. I'd like for it to be longer, but it's not like Microsoft is being some kind of outlier here in the midrange tablet market.

Are you sure its really not supported? You might have to enable the software TPM in the BIOS but if it has an 8th+ Gen Intel CPU as a 2019/2018 Surface Laptop should, you should be able to. Only the first Gen Surface laptop with 7th gen CPUs are technically unsupported.

Its also not hard to bypass the TPM requirement.

How do you bypass when upgrading? I don’t want to buy another W11 license nor pirate.

I’ll end up on Linux, but my wife will never touch it again.

You can do it by making an ISO with Rufus by changing the "image option".

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