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Microsoft Loosens Windows 11 Install Requirements, TPM 2.0 Not Needed Anymore

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Funny, I saw an article just a few days ago claiming that Microsoft plans to put a watermark on Win11 machines using unsupported hardware. And there is corroboration in Microsoft's official documentation, as of this moment:
When Windows 11 is installed on a device that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements, a watermark is added to the Windows 11 desktop. Notification might also be displayed in Settings to advise that the requirements aren't met.


If a device that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements for Windows 11 experiences issues after upgrading to Windows 11, Microsoft recommends going back to Windows 10.
I don't know whether Microsoft has, in fact, walked back its stance on the TPM requirement. For a couple of years now, Win11's hardware requirements have been in sort of a No Man's Land--with Microsoft tacitly endorsing "unofficial" methods to bypass those requirements, even going so far as to publicize instructions on their own website, while at the same time maintaining that such methods are "not recommended," and also periodically shutting off previous methods e.g. to bypass online registration.

And therein lies my problem. Yes, you can bypass the requirements, but there's no reason to trust that the bypass will continue to hold. Same deal with various privacy settings. Even on Windows 10, there were at least two occasions when an update silently reset all of my telemetry options. (There was another time when a Win10 update helpfully erased home users' home network settings.) We needn't discuss more recent developments like Recall, and the ongoing general controversy about Big Tech mining private data to train AI.

Users' relationship with their OS shouldn't be adversarial. Updates will occasionally change or break things no matter what you're using. God knows I see that on Linux, but at least with Linux I don't feel like the developers are working against me on purpose. With Windows, even when Microsoft walks back a controversial decision, the subtext is always that MS still holds the pimp hand. "In light of overwhelming criticism, we've decided not to attack you in this specific way, today, but keep your eyes peeled!"

I think most people, at least on this forum, would accept a new Windows edition with stringent hardware restrictions, provided that the hardware were used to provide tangible benefits. Win11, from my perspective, fails on both counts: the OS comes off as a not-so-glorified reskin of Win10, and its extra hardware requirements largely concern ephemeral security measures with questionable upside, dictated by a party with questionable motives.

TPM is a great example: there are scenarios where a TPM-backed auto-Bitlocker system might make sense (e.g. a ditzy college student's laptop), but for experienced users, gestures like this come across as arrogance. It isn't Microsoft's business where or how I store my encryption keys, and it surely isn't their place to silently force encryption of my disks, with the default failsafe conveniently stored on their cloud servers. Another poster suggested that Microsoft's trying to make itself into Apple, by asserting total control over not just the OS, but also the machine on which it runs. I wish them luck if this is their plan going forward, but Microsoft got to where it is today in large part because it represented the open platform, in contrast to walled gardens like Apple's.
 
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would it install on my i7-7700 build.... OH forgetaboutit. Not used on the internet anyway.
 
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I'd updated my system for aeons already... but windows 10 claims my system with tpm2.0 module isn't secure boot compatible. ;)
 
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I am a Senior Unix Systems Engineer with 27 years of experience, and I can tell you that the Office alternatives are just not there. While MS Office has its plethora of issues, it is the de facto standard. Office on web just doesn't cut it. While all of my machines are *nix based, I always have a VM with Windows where I have the full blown Office suite.
Like I said, it depends on what you use it for. If you need macros, and all complex stuff, then fair enough.
 
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Wow some real haters here windows 11 is great and easy to fix all the privacy telemetry and other issues besides if you use any web browser they're collecting just as much data on you if not more and even more if you own a cell phone with one or two apps on it That's just the world we live in today does that excuse it no we need change across the board but that's just going to mean you can't use your Windows 7 product key for Windows 12 in the future which is what I run on multiple machines so I take the good with the bad and just disable the bad besides Windows is superior always has been always will be to any other operating system
 
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Microsoft just don't get it, do they? An almost negligible fraction of people care about Windows. They run it because it's what they have, it's compatible with what they have, and it runs the software they want.

Nobody wants to do a Windows upgrade.
Nobody wants to learn a new interface that's different simply for the sake of being different.
Nobody wants to be pushed incessantly towards paid cloud services from Microsoft for browsing, searching, AI assistance, file storage, webapps that don't need to be webapps at all, etc.

If I created a poll at work and asked what people most wanted from an operating system, I'm confident enough to bet my own life that the majority just want it to be more responsive and less intrusive, in other words, they think windows is a slow, bloated mess full of unwelcome and unnecessary irritations and interruptions.
You know, Win10 after updates was a really good OS. Some irritating things from Win7 were addressed, then they started to "fix bugs" and it became a mess. I parted ways simply because of this and now run Mint.
 
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Wow some real haters here windows 11 is great and easy to fix all the privacy telemetry and other issues besides if you use any web browser they're collecting just as much data on you if not more and even more if you own a cell phone with one or two apps on it That's just the world we live in today does that excuse it no we need change across the board but that's just going to mean you can't use your Windows 7 product key for Windows 12 in the future which is what I run on multiple machines so I take the good with the bad and just disable the bad besides Windows is superior always has been always will be to any other operating system
"That's the world we live in today" has never been and will never be an excuse to allow corporate scumbaggery. It is the responsibility of each one of us to take good care of ourselves both in the physical and online worlds. We are the ones who shape the world around us, not the other way around.

So if I can use Linux, if I can disable data collection in my browser, and if a basic, unbranded phone with no vendor software on it will do just fine, then damn right I'll take these options.
 
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