Nobody likes Windows 12

[Govi]

I just Googled my way around looking for an answer to "is windows 11 able to update the bios?" and kept getting procedures for doing it, which procedures involved downloading from the system's manufacturer's support site. I'm asking, not because I disbelieve anyone, but because I'd like to disable this (dys)function of update but can't without better information. Windows update, in my opinion, should never have the ability to update the BIOS at all, under any circumstances. It hasn't been allowed to ever in the past, but now it sounds like all of Microsoft's security schemes around Windows 11 have been revealed to have a severe security flaw (updating the BIOS) by design. It's Plug-and-Play all over again, godammit!

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux.

 

[Govi]

Run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux.

Is that the new version of "Buy a Mac"? If so, it's NFG, just as the original was.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Except you don't have to buy anything. You can even test it with a live image without installing anything, running off a flash drive.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I just Googled my way around looking for an answer to "is windows 11 able to update the bios?" and kept getting procedures for doing it, which procedures involved downloading from the system's manufacturer's support site.

It isn't something you go out of the way to do. A windows update comes along and wants to update your bios.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

Here's an Asus page describing how Windows 10/11 can deliver a BIOS update.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

The idea that Windows can update the bios in the first place is that prebuilt makers are providing the updates to MS updates. Windows remains a catalyst to perpetuate bad hardware under the thumb of prebuilders.

And, no, building will never be more expensive than buying. Currently, part-for-part a home build will be 1/3rd the price of an equally spec'd machine. And, still no more complicated than snapping Legos together. Remember, part-for-part. Those expensive parts are enthusiast focused and by no means representative of the majority of market parts.

Laptops are a whole other story. Getting a "computer" to fit into a wafer-thin case like they do means they're built upon compromise, upon compromise, upon compromise, upon compromise, upon it's a multifaith miracle they work at all.

What I'm saying is don't lose sight of the source of the problem. Trash Windows performance has more to do with overpriced trash proprietary hardware engineered to funnel money into the pockets of HP/Dell executives. You are overpaying. They are underdelivering. And getting you to believe it's a software problem rings cha-ching in their ears.

 

[Essence Lumin]

And, no, building will never be more expensive than buying. Currently, part-for-part a home build will be 1/3rd the price of an equally spec'd machine. And, still no more complicated than snapping Legos together. Remember, part-for-part. Those expensive parts are enthusiast focused and by no means representative of the majority of market parts.

It is hard to take you seriously when you say I can put together a pc that costs $1000 from parts that are $350 as little as I know about it.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

It is hard to take you seriously when you say I can put together a pc that costs $1000 from parts that are $350 as little as I know about it.

Let's put it this way. Dell builds computers using $350 worth of hardware and sells it for $1000. And, that might be overestimating. I've looked at recent Dell motherboards and there's no way they're paying more than $100 per at volume.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Let's put it this way. Dell builds computers using $350 worth of hardware and sells it for $1000. And, that might be overestimating. I've looked at recent Dell motherboards and there's no way they're paying more than $100 per at volume.

Could be but I can't buy parts at the same price as Dell.

 

[Veritable Quandry]

And, no, building will never be more expensive than buying. Currently, part-for-part a home build will be 1/3rd the price of an equally spec'd machine. And, still no more complicated than snapping Legos together. Remember, part-for-part. Those expensive parts are enthusiast focused and by no means representative of the majority of market parts.

Dell and HP have outrageous markups, but there are system builders that do have better prices. I priced out building and then ended up buying a PowerSpec (Microcenter's partner builder) for a bit less than the price of the parts before adding in a copy of Windows. Add on their 2 day repair warranty and it's a better deal than I could have built.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Dell and HP have outrageous markups, but there are system builders that do have better prices. I priced out building and then ended up buying a PowerSpec (Microcenter's partner builder) for a bit less than the price of the parts before adding in a copy of Windows. Add on their 2 day repair warranty and it's a better deal than I could have built.

I've heard good things about Microcenter. The closest one to me is almost an hour away but sure why not when I'm ready to get a new pc.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

Genuinely, take that path. I'll fix my wording a bit. Dell, HP, whatever: Prefab. PowerSpect, Nzxt, whoever: Prebuilt. Prefabs are disasters waiting to happen. Prebuilts are a reasonable compromise. For the heck of it, I just "built" a $415 computer on Newegg SKU, no used parts, and even splurged on a 5500XT. It'll run on-par with if not better than a $1000 Dell and is far less likely to get back-door BIOS updates.

Also, support. It's not that the big names have better support, they NEED better support. When someone claims they have the best warranty in the industry, the other side of their mouth is saying their outgoing QC is so bad that the warranty is necessary hush-money for their frustrated customer base.

 

[Monica Dream]

Run Windows in a virtual machine under Linux.

I'd rather run Linux under Windows, myself.

 

[Noodles]

Look, all I inow is I bought my $2500 Prebuilt PC with $5 in DOGE coin I bought in like 2014 as a joke.

My only regret was not spending the little leftover I had on a nice monitor because the price tanked right after.

(PS, crypto is a scam.)

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Let's put it this way. Dell builds computers using $350 worth of hardware and sells it for $1000.

That hasn't been true for a long time. Only Apple gets the kind of high margins you're talking about, and the Mac Tax is maybe 40%.

The competition for desktop hardware is intense. White Box vendors, who basically do the same thing as hobbyists buying components and assembling and selling them, often have to operate on negative margins and make the money on the float to compete spec for spec with the big companies, and Dell in particular is famous (or infamous) for their low margins. We went with White Box vendors back in the '90s and early '00s because we wanted better repairability not because they were cheaper.

I'd rather run Linux under Windows, myself.

Microsoft doesn't actually want you to. They've treated it as a reluctant option since they bought Interix/OpenNT in the '90s only to take it off the market and release it as SFU on Servers only. It was the only way they were able to move Hotmail from a FreeBSD platform to Windows, and it took them three tries to make it "take". If it weren't for some rather large customers complaining loudly about them shutting it down it never woudl have remained available.

These days it's basically a thin wrapper around a VM and dodgier than ever.

 

[Noodles]

Microsoft doesn't actually want you to. They've treated it as a reluctant option since they bought Interix/OpenNT in the '90s only to take it off the market and release it as SFU on Servers only. It was the only way they were able to move Hotmail from a FreeBSD platform to Windows, and it took them three tries to make it "take". If it weren't for some rather large customers complaining loudly about them shutting it down it never woudl have remained available.

These days it's basically a thin wrapper around a VM and dodgier than ever.

Eh, it works well enough for what I want most of the time on a local Linux machine. Which, for local activities, means using SSH without having to use Putty and doing some automated conversions with FFMPEG.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

That hasn't been true for a long time. Only Apple gets the kind of high margins you're talking about, and the Mac Tax is maybe 40%...

That could have been true 10 years ago. Pull a Dell motherboard and look into the sourcing on the majority of the components. They're skimping to near reject tier quality. They're relying on grey-market parts so often that they're beyond risk of running counterfeits. Pull a few capacitors. They're labeled 10% but a calibrated LCR might disagree.

...Microsoft doesn't actually want you to...

Fond memories of finagling with GRUB after a WinXP update decided the boot sector is "corrupted".

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

That could have been true 10 years ago. Pull a Dell motherboard and look into the sourcing on the majority of the components. They're skimping to near reject tier quality.

They always were. 20 years ago I was doing IT and desktop support and my mantra was "never buy a computer from a company whose name rhymes with Hell. Like Dell, or Packard Bell, or Gateway." But that was less because they were particularly worse quality than ACER or MSI or whoever was the choice of ATX motherboard back then, but because their computers were a mass of proprietary interconnects so you couldn't repair them by running down to the store for parts.

But cheap parts doesn't help them increase their margins much because they still have to compete with HP and Lenovo who are doing the same thing.

Eh, it works well enough for what I want most of the time on a local Linux machine. Which, for local activities, means using SSH without having to use Putty and doing some automated conversions with FFMPEG.

Yeh, but you're running the more reliable OS on top of the horrible toxic swamp of ill-defined DLLs and services. Windows is like one of those alien swamps in Lost in Space with the prehensile strangling vines just waiting for you to step wrong.

 

[Govi]

Here's an Asus page describing how Windows 10/11 can deliver a BIOS update.

Thank you! From that, it's clear that ASUS allows Windows 11 to do this on their laptops. I've never seen it on a desktop, but then I assemble my own systems using ASUS boards. I still wonder if Windows could get past a password protected BIOS to force an update on a system. They should not be able to do this, but I've heard of more than one deliberate feature from Microsoft that can be accurately characterized by the phrase "insecure by design."