What's next for Windows?

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

My Win11 update experience so far:

• I had to enable TPM in my BIOS. After that upgrade went flawless. Later I've read that it is easily possible to avoid that requirement check entirely, Win11 even runs on an old Pentium IV!
• Everything is now rounded.
• The task bar has been inhaling too much Apples and now wants more to be something like the MacOS dock.
• Widgets are suddenly back. Whatever.
• Teams is now part of Windows, whether you need it or not.
• Computer settings have been re-worked, are now much better looking and logical
• Also new icons are in place.

For me the update looks more like a cosmetical thing than anything else so far.

 

[Romana]

My PC does everything I use it for with Windows 10.
Microsoft said I need to do something about TPM before I can get Windows 11.
To be honest I have no clue what that TPM is and where it sits (I guess in the BIOS) or what it does or if I have it.

Over the years I learned to never try to fix something that isn't broken, so I stay on Windows 10 as long as I don't have the feeling that I miss out on something or the PC needs professional maintenance.

It does sit in the BIOS, and it might be called PTT as it is on mine. I looked to see if I had it, just in case, but I left it off.
Here's some info if you're curious :

Windows 11 demands TPM 2.0 and here's what that means for you

Why is Microsoft demanding you have TPM 2.0 for Windows 11, and what the hell is it anyway?

www.pcgamer.com

Here's what Micro$oft had to say about it :

Most PCs that have shipped in the last 5 years are capable of running Trusted Platform Module version 2.0 (TPM 2.0). TPM 2.0 is required to run Windows 11, as an important building block for security-related features. TPM 2.0 is used in Windows 11 for a number of features, including Windows Hello for identity protection and BitLocker for data protection.

"An important building block for security-related features "? Maybe in large office environments or somewhere where bad actors could physically access your computer, but how many people have to worry about that at home? College students in dorms, possibly, IDK.

 

[Noodles]

My issue with the whole TPM thing, is that if feels like a way to start using that system as a way to DRM digital media and content. Not intiially. but int he longer run, after they force it to be more mainstream.

 

[Essence Lumin]

My issue with the whole TPM thing, is that if feels like a way to start using that system as a way to DRM digital media and content. Not intiially. but int he longer run, after they force it to be more mainstream.

That's been my thought but I kept it to myself because none of the articles about Windows 11 mention that. I can't imagine why else they would be pushing it so hard.

 

[bubblesort]

I'm definitely not going to upgrade for Windows 11, especially with hardware prices where they are, and I'm running a ryzen 7, so I won't even consider upgrading to windows 11 until they address this issue:

 

[Free]

I'm definitely not going to upgrade for Windows 11, especially with hardware prices where they are, and I'm running a ryzen 7, so I won't even consider upgrading to windows 11 until they address this issue:

They addressed it.

AMD and Microsoft push fix for Windows 11 performance problems

AMD also rolls out a new driver to fix a second performance degradation issue on Windows 11.

www.zdnet.com

 

[Free]

Windows 11 is getting a new Media Player app you can test today

No more Groove Music or Windows Media Player.

www.theverge.com

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Windows 11 is getting a new Media Player app you can test today

No more Groove Music or Windows Media Player.

www.theverge.com

I think that's a great idea, really.

Groove works as a song library manager, I guess, but it was always built to be a store app first a la Spotify or iTunes, and now that the store is ripped out to me the app looks and feels "too big" for JUST a media player - I'm not sure how to describe it. It's like a person rented out the entire Carnegie Hall so he could play a couple of songs on his guitar for an audience of three friends. It feels too exactly like an app that most of its main functionality has been removed and the "playing media" part that's now supposedly its main function is too plainly a leftover scrap.

 

[Romana]

That's been my thought but I kept it to myself because none of the articles about Windows 11 mention that. I can't imagine why else they would be pushing it so hard.

Software piracy comes to mind. Doesn't TPM make that harder?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

It does sit in the BIOS, and it might be called PTT as it is on mine. I looked to see if I had it, just in case, but I left it off.
Here's some info if you're curious :

Windows 11 demands TPM 2.0 and here's what that means for you

Why is Microsoft demanding you have TPM 2.0 for Windows 11, and what the hell is it anyway?

www.pcgamer.com

Here's what Micro$oft had to say about it :

"An important building block for security-related features "? Maybe in large office environments or somewhere where bad actors could physically access your computer, but how many people have to worry about that at home? College students in dorms, possibly, IDK.

Supposedly the big advantage of TPM is that an isolated part of your system can access it and do any checking with it during boot before the kernel is loaded. This means nothing from the TPM itself or any authorization tokens produced by checking with its keys ever makes it into the system memory, which is a good thing because malware can have access to your system memory and scum post-authorization tokens from it if you're just using software-based security checks/passwords etc. That's my surface-level understanding of it anyway.

I've heard some vague suspicions that the TPM could be abused to enforce DRM but......well I don't really understand how that can happen? Like, from what I understand, something like a game you install or a song you buy from an internet music store isn't going to even be able to store a DRM token or something like that on your TPM. MAYBE it could be used to stop pirated copies of Windows 11 from booting I guess, but I don't really care about that. As far as any other use case of DRM using the TPM, someone with some actual technical knowledge about TPM would have to explain to me how that's supposedly going to work.

 

[Noodles]

The anti piracy part of TPM would more likely be on streaming.

It's been a while since I looked into it, but there are/were devices that Netflix etc don't work on because those devices were missing some core DRM component in the kernel or CPU.

I am hazy on the details, but it was something along those lines.

Now imagine making TPM an extension of that. Now say, you can ONLY listen to a particular track on Spotify, and it maybe requires some DRM version of Bluetooth headphones, to remove the "analog hole".

It's not something anyone is doing today, but it's the kind of thing that could be imagined as a plan for 5-10 years down the road.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I'm definitely not going to upgrade for Windows 11, especially with hardware prices where they are, and I'm running a ryzen 7, so I won't even consider upgrading to windows 11 until they address this issue:

I'm not going to get Windows 11 until after AMD releases hybrid-architecture CPUs, which are only in early development right now. And that's assuming I'm able to buy one when they come out.

IMO people should stop trying to get Windows 11 to work on older hardware because it wasn't designed for that and they're going to have a poor experience.

Part of that is Microsoft's fault for not being more open and emphatic about that fact. But only part of it, because as it stands Microsoft has already tried to force-limit Windows 11 to relatively new hardware as it is, and people are treating that like this completely arbitrary barrier to be solved with hacks rather than a strong hint that they should wait.

 

[Free]

IMO people should stop trying to get Windows 11 to work on older hardware because it wasn't designed for that and they're going to have a poor experience.

You can't stop the beat.

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I kind of get it, though. Windows 11 has bugs that need fixed, of course; but I -love- the UI. I just really really like that centered taskbar and launcher-type Start menu. I liked live tiles on W10 - and I liked the tiles idea overall because of the way you could resize and pack them and group them rather than having just rows of icons of a fixed size and spacing. But, I can give them up for that smexy W11 UI.

But W11 isn't for my hardware, and I'd rather have a W10 that works well than a W11 that runs badly.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I you're buying a new computer anyway, why not get the original dock and launchpad?

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

I you're buying a new computer anyway, why not get the original dock and launchpad?

I'm not, lol. That's the whole reason I'm not getting Windows 11. It might be a while before I buy new parts. I'm testing out Linux right now to tide me over in case "I can't buy new parts yet" lasts beyond W10's EoS.

 

[Essence Lumin]

I'm not, lol. That's the whole reason I'm not getting Windows 11. It might be a while before I buy new parts. I'm testing out Linux right now to tide me over in case "I can't buy new parts yet" lasts beyond W10's EoS.

Thats quite a while to consider, 2025.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I you're buying a new computer anyway, why not get the original dock and launchpad?

The original dock, so you must mean this:

 

[Monica Dream]

But W11 isn't for my hardware, and I'd rather have a W10 that works well than a W11 that runs badly.

My computer is from 2016, it doesn't pass the test, and yet it runs W11 just fine.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Actually you can trick Windows 11 to be even installed on an ancient Pentium IV CPU, you don't even have to buy an USB TPM module.

It's just editing some registry keys at the moment, until probably Microsoft will close that gap.