Just when you thought Windows 10 was the last version of Window ever...

zappaDPJ · Jun 19, 2021, 19:32:59

...along came Windows 11

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/15/22535123/microsoft-windows-11-leak-screenshots-start-menu

Simon · Jun 19, 2021, 19:51:10

Yeah, I've seen that mentioned a bit this week.

Clive · Jun 20, 2021, 10:03:08

I doubt if I will upgrade any of my machines. Upgrading from Win 7 to 10 wrecked two of my laptops and I don't plan to risk another!

zappaDPJ · Jun 20, 2021, 11:54:37

Quote from: Clive on Jun 20, 2021, 10:03:08
I doubt if I will upgrade any of my machines. Upgrading from Win 7 to 10 wrecked two of my laptops and I don't plan to risk another!

The main issue you might have with that is Microsoft are planning to drop all support for Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025.

I must admit I don't like really Windows 10, it's caused me a lot of issues and a huge amount of wasted time. I also detest ~~Corona~~... ~~Cortina~~... Cortana, the notification center and every aspect of the search function.

Clive · Jun 21, 2021, 10:39:01

As I understand it they are still rolling out occasional updates for Win 7 as so many businesses are still using it. Their usual ploy is to extend their support a couple of times then just update for very serious problems afterwards. Who knows, Win 10 might yet see me out.

Technical Ben · Jul 01, 2021, 17:34:55

Quote from: zappaDPJ on Jun 20, 2021, 11:54:37
The main issue you might have with that is Microsoft are planning to drop all support for Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025.

I must admit I don't like really Windows 10, it's caused me a lot of issues and a huge amount of wasted time. I also detest ~~Corona~~... ~~Cortina~~... Cortana, the notification center and every aspect of the search function.

Yeah, 10 is manageable when those things are disabled/fixed. A bit like Win 8.1. Fine under the hood, ruined by fiddling GUI worriers.
So guess what they are doing to 11? Yep, same mistake. Improve the Kernal, confuse the GUI. It kinda was the opposite for 3.1 to Windows 7. Improve but confuse the kernel, and improve the GUI massively.

zappaDPJ · Jul 01, 2021, 18:34:40

We might be in luck! Windows 11 (which looks and feels more like Windows 10.1 to me) will only run on computers with the following specs: Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and up, TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) support, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage.

As none of the five PCs in this household have TPM 2.0 or the socket required to add it to the motherboard we will be running Windows 10 until the hardware is no longer usable

robinc · Jul 02, 2021, 06:20:01

As a full time long term linux user the good news is that the ex business machine market will be flooded with 7th gen machines with plenty of life left in 'em.

Yaay!

nowster · Jul 02, 2021, 11:14:30

Quote from: robinc on Jul 02, 2021, 06:20:01
As a full time long term linux user the good news is that the ex business machine market will be flooded with 7th gen machines with plenty of life left in 'em.

Ditto. I wonder if VirtualBox can emulate a TPM device...

robinc · Jul 02, 2021, 13:01:51

I see that Microsoft are replacing the Blue Screen of Death with......

the Black Screen of Death.......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57695586

Hasn't anyone pointed out that a Blue SoD is one thing?............but!

Let's hope someone has a quite word in someone's ear real soon!

Idiots!

zappaDPJ · Jul 02, 2021, 14:24:26

Quote from: robinc on Jul 02, 2021, 06:20:01
As a full time long term linux user the good news is that the ex business machine market will be flooded with 7th gen machines with plenty of life left in 'em.

Yaay!

Every cloud...

Clive · Jul 02, 2021, 15:46:08

Quote from: robinc on Jul 02, 2021, 13:01:51
I see that Microsoft are replacing the Blue Screen of Death with......

the Black Screen of Death.......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57695586

Hasn't anyone pointed out that a Blue SoD is one thing?............but!

Let's hope someone has a quite word in someone's ear real soon!

Idiots!

That would be very disconcerting because we wouldn't have a clue what was going on. My heart is in my mouth every time a Windows update causes a black screen for seemingly an eternity before lighting back up again.

Postal · Jul 02, 2021, 15:51:19

Quote from: nowster on Jul 02, 2021, 11:14:30
Ditto. I wonder if VirtualBox can emulate a TPM device...

According to a thread on the ThinkBroadband Forum (https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/windows/t/4687302-windows-11-or-what-ever-it-is-going-to-be-called.html) Windows 11 can be installed on VirtualBox.

zappaDPJ · Jun 20, 2023, 05:13:19

So I solved my Windows 11 compatibility issues and bought an iMac

It sits at the heart of my recording studio and I'm really happy with it but recently I decided I still need a PC which has, to use the modern vernacular, turned out to be quite a journey

My old PC was expensive and built to last, nearly 15 years and it still compares well to today's pre-built PCs. However it won't run Windows 11 and it struggles due to slow I/O when I encode over 150,000 files, something I need to do on a regular basis.

When I started to put together a list of components for a new PC is became apparent that things have changed during the last 15 years to such an extent I considered buying something built to order until I worked out I'd be looking at well over £5,000 to get something to last and cover all bases. £30,000 if you want cutting edge!

Back to the drawing board and I put together a list and posted it on OCUK forums. The first reply made me realise compatibility with modern components was going to be a nightmare. My suggested PSU was incompatible with top end GPUs, the motherboard probably wouldn't work without a BIOS flash and I worked out for myself that the CPU heatsink I wanted was physically incompatible with the layout of modern motherboards.

It took me over a week of reading to put together a new list during which time I concluded that top end SATA drives (at over £1,200 each) had been superseded by M.2 SATA storage which in turn had been replaced by PCI NVMe SSDs but there are currently no Intel motherboards that can take advantage of the Gen5 variant so you are stuck forever at Gen4. Are you with me so far? I lost the plot at this point.

To cut to the chase I ordered components I hoped would work and spent the next week ordering leads to make it work including new monitor cables because none of the large box of leads I had would fit the new GPU which has no VGA, DVI or HDMI sockets but 4* 'DisplayPort' sockets. All my previous PCs have had a full tower case including my current PC which is rammed full of components to such an extent I have had to resort to external storage. I ordered a mid tower for the new build and immediately regretted it when I saw the size but had to laugh once I'd put it all together. Around two thirds of the case is filled with fresh air and that's with 16 terabytes of storage.

Putting it all together really was a nightmare, at one point I considered taking it all down the road to a PC repair specialist. I should know what I'm doing, I used to build computers and monitors at circuit board level but the current pace of technology is causing so many compatibility issues. Anyway at 4.00am this morning I made an offering to the gods of technology with a rather large Islay malt, fed the infernal device some electricity and stone me, the damn thing actually POSTs

All I have to do now is install Windows 11 and copy and/or install 15 years worth of programs and data

Simon · Jun 20, 2023, 09:45:15

Well done! I haven't got to the time or inclination for self-builds these days, but the last one I did was well documented on here, and lasted about 15 years. I'm well out of the loop now, so I wouldn't even know where to start.

zappaDPJ · Jun 25, 2023, 20:51:11

Installing Windows 11 bloatware proved to be another challenge. It wouldn't install without logging into a Microsoft account but I couldn't do that without first installing a LAN driver. I eventually managed to circumvent that problem but I can't for the life of me remember how.

The amount of bloatware that comes preloaded with Windows is ridiculous and a lot of it you can't get rid of without resorting to registry hacks. The only app that did interested me, syncing a mobile, simple doesn't work. Anyway it's done, all that's left now is to copy everything across from my old PC. To pass the time while I do it I've been watching Glastonbury which was going really well until I saw Alison Goldfrapp miming

It's hard to believe that this PC has 16 terabytes of storage. I'm thinking of installing a hamster in the empty space

Simon · Jun 25, 2023, 23:40:46

One of the things that put me off Windows 11 big time, having seen it on my cousin's new laptop, is the amount of adverts that keep popping up all over the place. I think I would probably need to spend a week trying to get rid of them all and to prevent further incursions from appearing.

Simon · Jun 25, 2023, 23:41:27

Oh, and I just watched Elton at Glastonbury, and thought he was pretty good!

zappaDPJ · Jun 26, 2023, 00:07:08

Quote from: Simon on Jun 25, 2023, 23:41:27
Oh, and I just watched Elton at Glastonbury, and thought he was pretty good!

I thought so. I prefer his earlier music and I was quite surprised to hear him and his band really nail those songs. A quick google provided answers. It's was his original guitarist playing tonight, Davy Johnstone who played on all of Elton's early albums and contributed greatly imo to his distinctive sound. If that was his last performance it was a fitting end to an amazing career.

Back to Windows, I've yet to see an ad, I can only guess that your cousin is using Edge for browsing. I use Firefox/uBlock Origin which blocks everything you don't won't including ads on YouTube.

Simon · Jun 26, 2023, 10:19:32

Yeah, I think it's default everything on my cousin's laptop.

Back to Elton, was that not his usual guitarist then? I'm sure I've seen him play with Elton before.

zappaDPJ · Jun 26, 2023, 16:40:53

Quote from: Simon on Jun 26, 2023, 10:19:32
Back to Elton, was that not his usual guitarist then? I'm sure I've seen him play with Elton before.

That I don't know. I do know it was the same guitarist who played on all the early albums, everything up to Captain Fantastic. I lost interest and stopped buying after that so I don't know about the rest of his catalogue.

zappaDPJ · Jul 04, 2023, 06:35:59

When I first installed Windows 11 I was using a really old, low res monitor and I didn't fully appreciate just how truly awful the interface is. The start menu alone is shocking, tiny pixelated icons floating in a huge sea of nothing. The icon for Edge looks like it was fashioned in Lego. I'll be upgrading my monitors to 4k units in the near future and I dread to think what it will look like on those.

Other than that I'd say Windows 11 is total garbage, I mean really, really bad. It's slow, anything of any use I can't get to work and visually it looks like something that was designed last century. All it lacks is a scrolling marque and some animated glitter text.

On the upside the speed increase from my new hardware is pretty impressive. Encoding jobs that used to take about 36 hours on my old PC now complete in under 50 minutes. I'll take a guess the biggest improvement comes from the PCI-e NVMe storage which has a read/write of around 7500 MB/s compared to my old system which trundled along at 150 Mb/s or thereabout.

I really don't understand why Microsoft is so behind the technology curve. Compared to an Apple iMac which just works, regardless of your level of expertise, Window 11 is stone age by comparison. I've started to think in terms of Linux

Simon · Jul 04, 2023, 10:07:46

Thankfully, my main PC isn't compatible with Windows 11 so it will never try to upgrade, and I've managed to persuade my laptop to stop nagging me to upgrade with a registry tweak so I should be safe for the time being.

Clive · Jul 04, 2023, 11:46:56

As we all know, good versions of Windows are always followed by bad ones. I was stupid enough to use Windows Me and learnt my lesson. Gosh, I suppose that was not much short of 25 years ago when I was paying £1,600 for a desktop from Time Computers.

zappaDPJ · Jul 04, 2023, 16:55:57

Quote from: Simon on Jul 04, 2023, 10:07:46
Thankfully, my main PC isn't compatible with Windows 11 so it will never try to upgrade, and I've managed to persuade my laptop to stop nagging me to upgrade with a registry tweak so I should be safe for the time being.

Judging from what I've seen so far I can imagine it would rinse your laptop unless you are prepared to remove stuff at registry level.

Quote from: Clive on Jul 04, 2023, 11:46:56
As we all know, good versions of Windows are always followed by bad ones. I was stupid enough to use Windows Me and learnt my lesson. Gosh, I suppose that was not much short of 25 years ago when I was paying £1,600 for a desktop from Time Computers.

I was 'gifted' a Compaq Deskpro in the late 80s, an incentive for taking a job with the NHS. It cost over $10,500 and never got used