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Benefits of Windows 11 - compared to Windows 10 ? Business life: Is new always better than old?

Copper Contributor

Microsoft has informed me several times that my PC is not suitable for Windows 11. It doesn't bother me because both PC and Windows 10 are working well. I do not have any need to buy a new PC and install Windows 11 so far.

 

I understand that business must go on and marketing new windows versions is important to Microsoft as well as planning and marketing new PC's is important to PC factories.

 

In n commercial world, newness is important value regardless of is new os. or hw better than old. 

 

Computer business is not the most eager pushing novelties to markets. I think that for garment business it is lifeline. I've noticed during decades that e.g. I cannot find pullover I'd want to get, because fashion has changed and there simply doesn't exist any pullovers available. It looks like an old Soviet economical system. For this year there are only black boots, perhaps after 5 years there are brown boots available.

 

In vehicle business it's the same. Every year we get new automobile models. Sometimes I've seen that some good and useful features has been left away from new models. Why? Because every year must be new models and when there is no useful features let's take some feature away. May next year or after several years that good feature is back again.

 

That's business life.  :D 

 

I have almost 30 years old outdoor sweater. It's zipper has stuck. Thank God, here in Kuopio, Finland we have a small shop "Nappi ja nauha" (Button and ribbon). They can fix it and it costs only 5 €. Otherwise that sweater is good, but certainly out of fashion. Perhaps after some years it is really fashionable, who knows.

 

Sorry, my text is not strictly concentrated in operating systems or computers. But in business life there are similar marketing ways.

 

I wish you dear reader God's blessings (joy, peace and power)!

 

Pekka Sevanto

old nerd

Kuopio, Finland

8 Replies

@Pekka SevantoThis one is a loaded question. The two main differences are that one receives patches for a longer period, due to it being newer, and the other one they end support after a certain amount of time ( often it's around 10 years, sometimes a lot longer, though you have to read quite a bit to learn about the minute differences between various distribution / release cycles. ) With Windows 10, they've switched from quarterly to annual releases ( as far as cumulative updates. ) Whether or not the feature updates matter, is another question:

Windows 10 release information -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/release-information
Windows 11 release information -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/release-health/windows11-release-information

Windows 10 update history -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-10-update-history-857b8ccb-71e4-49e5-b3f6-7073197d98fb
History of Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework for Windows 10 -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/history-of-cumulative-updates-for-net-framework-for-windows-10-version-2004-and-windows-server-version-2004-4eef078d-43fb-a58b-360b-1a61779390f0

Windows 11 update history -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/windows-11-update-history-a19cd327-b57f-44b9-84e0-26ced7109ba9
History of Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework for Windows 11 -> https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/history-of-cumulative-updates-for-net-framework-for-windows-11-b56e9c5b-fc56-49fb-9490-dc09b0b89758

Typically if you get it through the free upgrade period, then you don't have to pay for it. Outside of that, if you don't own a retail copy, the cheapest way to get it is with an OEM key. You can often buy them online, or a local refurbisher, an Authorized Microsoft Reseller / Distributor, might sell them in the range of $20-$50 or so, who knows? A lot of pawn shops have special licenses like this for refurbishing PCs, though it's hard to know what they would charge, or which distribution channels offer the cheapest OEM keys ( which are permanently locked to the motherboard, and cannot be reused on other computers. It's a node-locked license obviously, unlike a Retail license. )

 

Vista is still supported, as far as application compatibility is concerned, but your development environment would be Visual Studio 2019 targeting NET 4.8 framework, with or without WPF. It's like writing apps for WinPE, without getting stuck with .NET Framework 4.0, and still having WPF support ( The other alternative is .NET Core / .Net 7.x ) You could do a similar build for Windows 98SE with Visual Studio 2017 probably, but you might be stuck with the command line versions of MSBuild / MSVC. Software can be rewritten for the UCRT, with little to no loss of functionality, aside from outdated hardware being the main bottleneck. You basically would have no hardware acceleration for encryption, no PCKS#11 / smartcard support, etc. So every type of encryption will run via software emulation, including PCKS#11, which will be slow, yet it will still work. You also won't have access to SHA3 / SHA-512 checksums, or even some versions of AES-256 will be way too slow for your computer. Even this will probably be phased out by NIST in favour of a post-quantum cryptographic standard. Most likely your computer will not support the latest public / private key encryption schemes ( according to media reports, you should expect the key sizes to be upwards of 7k-10K+ bits per key, which even entry-level commercial-grade VPN routers have difficulties with key sizes utilizing this length. )

How to Protect Your Digital Systems from the Quantum Apocalypse -> https://www.electronicdesign.com/industrial-automation/article/21167611/sectigo-how-to-protect-your-digital-systems-from-the-quantum-apocalypse
The Evolution of Standards-Based Post-Quantum Crypto -> https://www.nxp.com/applications/enabling-technologies/security/post-quantum-cryptography:POST-QUANTUM-CRYPTOGRAPHY

For Windows 11, you don't actually need secure-boot to be enabled, or to use the TPM, for it to function, so the minimum is a 64-bit processor and at least 1GB of memory. You would be on your own at this point. In some situations, even if you have a valid license, you could manually download the SST files, Cumulative Updates via Microsoft Update / Microsoft Update Catalog, and patch it offline with DISM, while also installing the certs manually ( there are hundreds upon hundreds of certs in a single SST file. It will lag if you try to install all of them for no good reason. There has to be a set list of certs you will be using for one single repository, which is more related to geopolitics, what continent you live on, than anything else. ) You will have to modify the registry to be able to install this, but once you have it activated, you typically won't have problems with feature updates. If you don't even have a hybrid BIOS / UEFI with a TPM, then of course you can't really do anything useful to begin with. This has nothing to do with Windows 11 at this point. Your desktop computer would have to be from 1995-2003, or it's a really strange laptop without even a basic TPM ( worse than an old Pentium 4 / AMD K6-2, etc. ) There are things like software TPMs, which you can run in a Virtual Machine ( beta version of VirtualBox, but you would still need a decent amount of memory to emulate that. ) So you could run Windows 11, with a Linux-KVM and an emulated TPM. Of course, you would have all sorts of problems compiling drivers and the emulated features might create some amount of overhead and latency, etc. It's relatively the same as patching / updating old Android 1.x - 2.x devices...

 

NOTE: You can still run software on old operating systems like Windows XP / Vista. Once you have all the updates, in order to use the web browser, you have to compile a special version ( open source, such as Firefox, ) and then import all the certificates yourself, as an SST file ( from Microsoft / Windows Update. )

 

For really old stuff, you have to rely on the Microsoft Update Catalog. You're probably going to be using a Windows / Linux Hybrid with Cygwin and Vulkan on WINE ( to run newer applications if the hardware is over 20 years old. ) The issue would still be the hardware capabilities, not the software itself. If you had no security updates, you would have to have a post-paid AV ( anti-malware / anti-virus, ) scan all downloads with VirusTotal, or a browser-based addon / link scanner ( BitDefender TrafficLight, ) before installing anything. You'd have to use an open-source version of PowerShell, maybe the one for Linux, harden your network stack / operating system, close unused ports ( with Sysinternals TCPView, ) avoid running untrusted code / software that you haven't evaluated on a newer operating system, or in another environment ( this is pretty easy to understand. ) You're also going to have to recompile a lot of software specifically for your operating system ( major / minor ) revision. Aside from that you could get it to work:

How Root Certificate Distribution Works -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions//cc751157(v=technet.10)#how-root-certificate-distribution-works
Updating List of Trusted Root Certificates in Windows -> http://woshub.com/updating-trusted-root-certificates-in-windows-10/
Update GlobalSign Root Certificate - Windows XP & Windows 2000 -> https://support.globalsign.com/ca-certificates/root-certificates/update-globalsign-root-certificate-windows-xp-windows-2000
Working with Certificates in PowerShell -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/archive/blogs/scotts-it-blog/working-with-certificates-in-powershell
Powershell - public key infrastructure (PKI) -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/pki 
certutil -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/certutil

Firefox version 52.9.0esr was the last supported release for Windows XP and Windows Vista -> https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-windows-xp-and-vista
52.9.0esr -> https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/52.9.0esr/
MozillaBuild -> https://wiki.mozilla.org/MozillaBuild

Visual Studio Dev Essentials -> https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/dev-essentials/

WMF Availability Across Windows Operating Systems -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/windows-powershell/wmf/overview?#wmf-availability-across-windows-operating-systems
PowerShell for every system! - GitHub -> https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell

Microsoft Update Catalog -> https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/

Download .NET SDKs / Runtimes for Visual Studio -> https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/visual-studio-sdks
Download .NET Framework -> https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet-framework
Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable latest supported downloads -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist
Redistributing Visual C++ ActiveX Controls -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/cpp/windows/redistributing-visual-cpp-activex-controls
Universal CRT deployment -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/universal-crt-deployment
The Visual Basic 6.0 runtime -> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/visualstudio/visual-basic-6/visual-basic-6-support-policy#the-visual-basic-60-runtime
DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) -> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8109
Java Downloads for All Operating Systems -> https://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

NOTE: CYGWIN is an environment, MYSYS2 is a Shell. Only CYGWIN is suitable for this purpose / task, as the other is a derivative of CYGWIN which is made specifically for compiling software.

Installing and Updating Cygwin Packages -> https://www.cygwin.com/install.html
Wine -> https://www.winehq.org/
Crossover Linux -> https://www.codeweavers.com/crossover#linux
X11 -> https://x.org/wiki/
Wayland -> https://wayland.freedesktop.org/

AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan -> https://gpuopen.com/amd-open-source-driver-for-vulkan/
AMD Open Source Driver for Vulkan (Releases) -> https://github.com/GPUOpen-Drivers/AMDVLK/releases

Vulkan LunarXchange - LunarG - Latest SDK / Runtimes -> https://vulkan.lunarg.com/sdk/home
DirectX Landing Page -> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/landing-page/
Nvidia Unix Driver Archive -> https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/
Nvidia Vulkan Driver Support -> https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver
Vulkan Developer Tools -> https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan#tools
Khronos Group Reference Guides -> https://www.khronos.org/developers/reference-cards/
Khronos Group Developer Resource Hub -> https://www.khronos.org/developers
Intel Graphics for Linux - Programmer's Reference Manuals -> https://01.org/linuxgraphics/documentation
AMD Developer Guides, Manuals & ISA Documents -> https://developer.amd.com/resources/developer-guides-manuals/
AMD Tech Docs -> https://www.amd.com/en/support/tech-docs
Intel Development Tools -> https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/tools/overview.html
Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer Manuals-> https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/intel-sdm.html
Intel 64 and IA-32 Architectures Optimization Reference Manual Code Samples -> https://github.com/intel/optimization-manual

 

@Pekka SevantoIf you're actually interested in it, typically you have to use a method like this to upgrade it, which in your case you would probably need an OEM key to activate it: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/the-i7-7700k-meet-the-minimun-requierments-to-run-...

 

NOTE: On an entirely new computer that doesn't come with Windows 11 pre-installed, you could create installation media (with the latest Cumulative Updates, ) enter in the OEM key when Setup is running, activate it when you get internet access ( WiFi / Ethernet, Mobile Internet, etc. ) At that point the license is tied to that one motherboard, and it can't be transferred to another computer. Usually the free upgrade periods are the best time to install Windows 11, even if you wanted to revert back to Windows 10 for some period of time: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/example-iso-patch-guide-for-windows-11-64-bit-21h2...

 

best response confirmed by Pekka Sevanto (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi @Pekka Sevanto 

"
Microsoft has informed me several times that my PC is not suitable for Windows 11"

I want to reassure you until October 2025 you do not have to do anything -> your Windows10 computer will continue to work and be supported ( I will add that the current security updates are the same as for Windows11 ) , the latest system is more secure and prepared for advanced applications, because Microsoft partners want to implement advanced products.

Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements | Microsoft

Compare Windows 11 Home vs Pro Versions | Microsoft

‘Meet Windows 11’: New video series helps with basics, personalization, apps and tools | Windows Exp...

Best regards

Thank you for your answer. I decided that probably on October I'll start checking Windows 11, but before that I'll take another computer to Win 11 tests. I want to be sure that my real PC needs can be done every day. This Win 10 version with my Fujitsu PC is stable, fast enough, so I'm satisfied in it.
Thank you for your answer. Probably on October I'll start checking Win 11. But that I'll do to another PC, because I don't want any risk that my normal PC needs shall be disturbed. I'm now 77 years and have worked with computers since 1967. Now I've been retired appr. 20 years but still following computer business and helping some friends with their computer or mobile phone problems.

Greetings from Finland!
Thank you this is very reasonable!
It is funny to prove that on an old computer, someone can install Windows11, but why do it if Windows10 is good and stable.

@Pekka SevantoThe ironic thing is they don't have a date yet for when you will stop receiving patches. Windows 10 version 22H2 is still in preview / hasn't been released yet, so the only dates right now are for 21H2, aside from a generic end-of-support date. The 2025 end support date, is just for feature updates for Windows 10 Home / Pro, not the commercial / enterprise versions (some of which extend probably 10 years after that date. Even for some Windows 10 21H2 SKUs, it's 2032 or so.) Most likely you can use the LTSB patches from the Microsoft Update Catalog for years to come, well after 2025 ends ( which you can also use those to patch old WinPE 10 version 2004 ISOs. )

1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by Pekka Sevanto (Copper Contributor)
Solution

Hi @Pekka Sevanto 

"
Microsoft has informed me several times that my PC is not suitable for Windows 11"

I want to reassure you until October 2025 you do not have to do anything -> your Windows10 computer will continue to work and be supported ( I will add that the current security updates are the same as for Windows11 ) , the latest system is more secure and prepared for advanced applications, because Microsoft partners want to implement advanced products.

Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements | Microsoft

Compare Windows 11 Home vs Pro Versions | Microsoft

‘Meet Windows 11’: New video series helps with basics, personalization, apps and tools | Windows Exp...

Best regards

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