I have a cheap and cheerful Windows 10 laptop which keeps chugging along, but it’s too old to accept Windows 11.
0patch.com publishes security updates to outdated Windows operating systems, for 25 Euros a year. That’s cheaper than me getting new hardware, at least I can defer this decision for a few more years. Do they manage to keep old Windows systems secure as advertised?
Microsoft issued a retraction yesterday:
Important: Updated December 12, 2024
This support article (" Windows 11 on devices that don’t meet minimum system requirements") was originally published on October 4, 2021, when Windows 11 was first released to the public.
At the time of publication and still today, the intention behind this support page is to detail considerations for customers to understand the implications of installing Windows 11 against Microsoft’s recommendation on devices that don’t meet system requirements for Windows 11.
If you installed Windows 11 on a device not meeting Windows 11 system requirements, Microsoft recommends you roll back to Windows 10 immediately.
Windows 11 minimum system requirements remain unchanged and can be found in the article Windows 11 specs, features, and computer requirements.
I have a computer that I just exchanged the hard drive for a Solid State drive and now they tell me it is not compatible with Win11. Support doesn’t end for almost a year, so I am taking the wait and see approach. There may be other options by then. No use making any decisions now.
You CAN install Win 11 on a machine that MS says you can’t install on.
I have 2 Win 10 laptops that I installed Win 11 on. You do have to do some geeky stuff to proceed but it’s not that hard. Both those machines run just fine with Win 11.
You have to remember MicroSoft’s motivation to convince you it’s not possible. They want you to buy a new machine! Duh!
I am typing this right now on a laptop I bought in 2010 that originally had Win 7. I installed Win 10 years ago and I’m going to keep it on 10 until I am forced to move on. It’s my main computer and I’m not going to mess with it. But if I have to install 11 on it I know how to do it.
I would just update your computer to win 11 anyway and see how it runs or you can always pay Microsoft $30 per year to keep win 10 updated after free support ends.
c200ns, you can’t just “try” to load Win 11 on a Win10 PC. It won’t let you. You have to google the ways to do it, kinda geeky like I said before.
Before I get to the problem, let me start by telling you that “No longer supported” and “out of support” are phrases used by companys to encourage you to buy something else (usually a newer model). When a computer has an operating system that is "not supported’ that doesn’t mean that it magically stops working, it just means that the company will no longer update it or fix it if it breaks. There are other people who can and will fix it though.
I remember being forced to upgrade Quickbooks. The new version handled emailing differently. I finally stopped emailling invoices directly and the problem went away. However, if you think about it, Quickbooks is based (and some say very poorly) on the ‘double entry method’ of accounting. The double-entry system was created in Northern Italy between 1200-1350. So the underlying function still works today; the only thing being different is the bells and whistles which Quickbooks adds to encourage new sales.
New computers will not run old software. I believe Microsoft does that on purpose. On the HP mainframes, code I wrote could run with no changes 30 or more years later even though the hardware changed.
So lets say you get a copy of software from 20 years ago, don’t care if it now has newer bells and whistles and don’t feel the need to upgrade the operating system, you would be able to do (like I do) run that software today on older computers. Yes, I have a limited memory in my Windows 7 computers that I have, but they still run software from decades ago.
I could upgrade these two computers but then hundreds of programs I have won’t work. Why then upgrade and have to buy or acquire a ‘boatload’ (it’s a technical term) of updated software. Microsoft could make things backward compatable but they don’t.
If you don’t HAVE to upgrade, then why do it?
By the way, I have never owned an Apple product in my life. However I have invested multiple times in their stock because other people feel the need to stand outside a store to buy the latest and greatest offering. I just care to take a bunch of profit.
I thought more about this… the programs I want to use on Windoze don’t require internet connections (SDRUno, a software defined radio program), and Flexible Retirement Planner. I could just turn off Wifi for Windoze, use the software, when I’m ready for “real” work, I could then re-boot the laptop into Linux. Yeah, I think I will do nothing. I will for sure log out of Google, Microsoft, all other accounts on the Windows side, and keep it blank like a guest account.
I’ve dabbled in Linux too. Currently I have an old Dell desktop that I run Xubuntu on. I enjoy playing with it but I really struggle to do the Command Line thing when it requires it.
Lavarock… without getting too far into the technical weeds of the subject, isn’t the reason the older mainframe systems ran newer code, without much modification to the new code, due to the fact that the operating systems were layered? ie: the operating system layer, I/O layer, communications layer, application layer, etc. ?
Back then, if you followed all the interface rules, and stuck to a discreet layer of code, you stayed out of trouble. What’s different today?
I have an old Win 7 machine I retired about 4 years ago that I use for confidential stuff like password documentation etc. It’s not connected to the internet and never will be again. It’s blocked at the network level and from the machine itself.
I was just setting up a Win11 system and the system seemed to contact Microsoft servers to download an update. I am not quite sure how it found the wifi passwords.
That’s sneaky. I would have gone right to the network connection icon and tried to see how it was connecting, if possible.
How do you read MS Office documents? Do you use another downloadable program that can read them? Years (decades?) ago, I used Open Office.
Open Office still exists, it’s called Libre Office. It’s a good and free alternative.
I quit using MS Office years ago. Since that time I’ve used Open Office and it works just fine for everything. If someone insists on using proprietary document formats I just communicate with them using .rtf, .txt or .pdf file formats to send and decode the MS format docs I receive using Open Office and Foxit PDF Reader.
You can use Open Office or Libre or Microsofts Office products. You do know that you can buy Office for a song and a dance and own it forever? Since it resides on your hard drive, it works even if the Internet is down.
I just had to buy Office 2019 for a business who does not want to ‘subscribe’ to MS 360 online.
Go to StackSocial.Com and search. Make sure you buy a copy of software that works with your computer. In our case it was a copy that included WORD, EXCEL and ACCESS database and was for a Windows 11 computer. I think we paid just over $32.
The operating system was still installing at the time. What I believe is that we had entered a Gmail account and the install automatically enabled Bluetooth and since the email and password matched a nearby cellphone that it grabbed it from the cell using bluetooth.
Just a guess though as I did not document exactly when in the install things happened and the system was a business computer that was being set up to be used within minutes of it being ready.
Right on Lavarock. You said it all.