Thursday, September 9th 2021
Microsoft Dives into the Internals of Windows 11
Microsoft released a fairly detailed run-down of the under-the-hood changes it made to Windows 11 over its predecessor. The operating system is optimized for a zero-trust work environment. This explains making a hardware TPM 2.0 device a minimum system requirement. The company may even penalize PCs running unsupported hardware with no access to security updates. The company also described fine-grained application performance prioritization, which automatically prevents "trivial" apps from taking up too many system resources.
Apps running in the foreground also automatically get a higher app priority. This is particularly useful when your CPU is bogged down with a heavy workload, and you're trying to open a new app. The OS automatically rations resources to ensure the app you just launched is prioritized, making the experience snappy. This technology carries forward even to the Edge web-browser, where the tab that's active has more priority, and tabs that haven't been accessed in a while are put to "sleep" (i.e. their memory is completely paged, and they're given least system resources). Microsoft calls this "Sleeping Tabs." Microsoft claims that the feature can reduce memory savings by around 30%, which could be handy for your foreground tasks. With the feature enabled, the OS (or Edge) handle prioritization automatically.
Although not mentioned by Microsoft, older reports point to Windows 11 being optimized for the new breed of hybrid CPU architectures, with awareness of "performance" and "efficiency" cores, so it can work with the processor to send the right kind of workload to the right kind of core. Besides performance and efficiency benefits, this is also key to avoid ISA mismatch between the various CPU core types.
Another key design push from Microsoft has been to improve the "always-on" experience, making your PC as accessible as your phone. Windows 11 features an optimized resume-from-sleep mechanism which, with Windows 11 logo-certified PCs, features a special sequence of turning on hardware that's powered down (i.e. the CPU, storage, networking, etc.,) and preserves the application priority states as the system returns to a wake state. This reduces resume-from-sleep times by 25%. Microsoft also worked on improving the performance of Windows Hello (biometric login), reducing Hello user-authentication times by 30%.
Microsoft also worked to reduce the overall disk footprint of the operating system. Most in-built apps come as stubs, which are either loaded from over the web at first launch; or remain compressed. Unless accessed at least once, an in-built app never posts background activity, and doesn't line up for updates, either.
The company tried to explain the steeper system requirements for Windows 11, and much of this has to do with the clean break to Intel 8th Gen Core and AMD Ryzen 2000 series (or later) processors. These are the first CPU microarchitectures with on-chip TPM 2.0 compatible security. The OS also requires UEFI, legacy booting using CSM is no longer supported. Also, third-party drivers to certain hardware are required to conform to the new DCH driver model. Microsoft claims with tighter control over hardware and driver models, it is able to ensure a "99.98% crash-free experience."
Microsoft assures that all your Windows 10-compatible software should work seamlessly with Windows 11, as if it were a feature-update. The company set up a service called App Assist to fix compatibility problems by working with the application's developers.
The Windows Update service model will also receive an overhaul. Rather than two feature-updates (typically Spring and Fall), the company will only release one feature-update per year, typically positioned in the second half. Windows Update has been overhauled to only fetch specific pieces of software that need updates, which translates to up to 40% reduction in bandwidth consumption.
Apps running in the foreground also automatically get a higher app priority. This is particularly useful when your CPU is bogged down with a heavy workload, and you're trying to open a new app. The OS automatically rations resources to ensure the app you just launched is prioritized, making the experience snappy. This technology carries forward even to the Edge web-browser, where the tab that's active has more priority, and tabs that haven't been accessed in a while are put to "sleep" (i.e. their memory is completely paged, and they're given least system resources). Microsoft calls this "Sleeping Tabs." Microsoft claims that the feature can reduce memory savings by around 30%, which could be handy for your foreground tasks. With the feature enabled, the OS (or Edge) handle prioritization automatically.
Another key design push from Microsoft has been to improve the "always-on" experience, making your PC as accessible as your phone. Windows 11 features an optimized resume-from-sleep mechanism which, with Windows 11 logo-certified PCs, features a special sequence of turning on hardware that's powered down (i.e. the CPU, storage, networking, etc.,) and preserves the application priority states as the system returns to a wake state. This reduces resume-from-sleep times by 25%. Microsoft also worked on improving the performance of Windows Hello (biometric login), reducing Hello user-authentication times by 30%.
Microsoft also worked to reduce the overall disk footprint of the operating system. Most in-built apps come as stubs, which are either loaded from over the web at first launch; or remain compressed. Unless accessed at least once, an in-built app never posts background activity, and doesn't line up for updates, either.
The company tried to explain the steeper system requirements for Windows 11, and much of this has to do with the clean break to Intel 8th Gen Core and AMD Ryzen 2000 series (or later) processors. These are the first CPU microarchitectures with on-chip TPM 2.0 compatible security. The OS also requires UEFI, legacy booting using CSM is no longer supported. Also, third-party drivers to certain hardware are required to conform to the new DCH driver model. Microsoft claims with tighter control over hardware and driver models, it is able to ensure a "99.98% crash-free experience."
Microsoft assures that all your Windows 10-compatible software should work seamlessly with Windows 11, as if it were a feature-update. The company set up a service called App Assist to fix compatibility problems by working with the application's developers.
The Windows Update service model will also receive an overhaul. Rather than two feature-updates (typically Spring and Fall), the company will only release one feature-update per year, typically positioned in the second half. Windows Update has been overhauled to only fetch specific pieces of software that need updates, which translates to up to 40% reduction in bandwidth consumption.
54 Comments on Microsoft Dives into the Internals of Windows 11
Jeez, some of these comments are wild. I'm surprised people bold enough to publicly call themselves intelligent drone on about "Windows sucks" and "People are going to hate it".
The only people that are going to bitch are:
A: Old people or anyone afraid of change or otherwise tech illiterate.
B: The negligible less than 1% of people that are enthusiasts and actually build their own systems that actually dislike it.
Since before windows 8 so around a decade now, eeePCs and other "tablets" and "budget" under $400 machines have been plied to the masses from various manufacturers making throw away tech the norm for years.
Windows 10 Home will stop working on some $379 target ultrabook with a 12" screen and they will go out and buy a new one with windows 11 and the HW requirements built in. They will spend 35min trying to use it, find microsoft word and move on.
No one will be in the street protesting it because 98+% of apple and microsofts target market the ones that ACTUALLY make them money were trained not to care years ago.
How about
C: perfectly good systems 5-6-7 year old that can run 11 perfectly well are not compatible for no really good reason other than there will be no bios updates for them.
Is that worth bitching about I think so lol
Hell even a 15 year old system can run 11 there is nothing special about 11 other than silly obnoxious security requirements.Hell this is all ms apps to me frankly lol
By that time these systems will be quite dated and likely up for replacement anyways.
Competition is a lovely thing sometimes to keep the beasts reigned in.
Give me a non-ms OS that can run all of my windows programs, and I'll gladly have a separate VR machine set up for me to learn how to use it and start breaking the chains of Microslave.
This is all about Intel losing the core count battle, if you can't win at the game change the rules.
/thread.
Its a new Windows version all over again. Who would've thought, seeing as the previous 'One'... was actually called 10. Who ever stopped counting at ten?
And as usual; the best approach is simply to hang back, get your popcorn, whine about new features and then find a pretty well developed OS when you can't avoid it anymore. 4 years is a long time, and all Windows support periods have been quite long so far. And if they're not long enough because the market won't move... MS is forced to adjust. Can't have millions of security leaks in your user base, bad PR.
This is a healthy consumer/corp relationship, especially for a near monopolist.
Can't stand win-10 it's only a benchmark os to me frankly doubt 11 would be any different.
I use linux on my z490 the only system I don't have win-7 installed on as daily drivers.
Actually, it's only solvable in a perfect society, where everyone can audit everyone's actions.
Until then non-criminals will be siphoned from privacy and power (by pretext of prevention and law enforcement), by people who already have more power, i.e. governments, corporations and criminals (these are often synonyms), ultimately leading to skew in the distribution of power to anyone but the average Joe.
It is frankly unavoidable. A Great filter is upon us.
To get back on topic, IMO, the whole TPM things is blown out of proportion. because of the field that I'm working in, my real name and ways to contact me have to be on the web, it's the case for many people, my computer having a unique ID isn't going to ruin my life
People like you many(damn...) years ago could not understand how a 2.5GHz Athlon64 was running circles around a 3GHz Pentium 4. You see, 3GHz > 2.5GHz.
I fully explain my point of view in that post. I can't explain it further, but you said "please" so let me try again.
Try to not read my post as a one simple sentence. There are more than one sentences there. Here, let me also put some colors for you.Talking also about AMD's Ryzen 6000, only shows that you are afraid of Alder Lake. No matter that 24 vs 32 threads comment that shows zero understanding of CPUs, or you just pretend to not know because you have to write an anti-Intel post and 24 vs 32 can play as an argument I suppose. That broken 10nm also points to that direction also. Anti-Intel post.
Anyway, being an AMD fan, I could love Intel to fell on it's face and you coming with laughing smiles saying "I told you so". But Alder Lake looks good and AMD should find a cheaper way to fight future Intel CPUs. Intel found a way to lower production costs, by using little cores and at the same time maximize it's marketing advantage. AMD using V-Cache is a good way to increase performance, but unfortunately, V-cache, increases production cost. Does not lower it.
Microsoft confirms there will be no Windows 11, May 9, 2015