Windows 11 coming soon, Windows 10 retiring from 2025

Those are of no help if the programs I want to run have no equivelent and are only written to run under Windows.

I've heard that TPM will be required for Windows 11, which will brick a lot of hardware...

Me personally, I'll hold onto my perfect working Windows 7 system that I built in 2015, and I think I'll try Linux when it becomes less than functional. I don't have a qualm with Macs, other than I'm not a fan personally. I wouldn't trust Google/Chrome as far as I could throw it.

By 2025 there probably will not be many of those left...

In business use Windows has become nearly redundant already, as more and more applications are being moved to the cloud and are being accessed via an internet browser.

Maybe for personal use and gaming there is still some place for Windows, although many gaming programs already exist cross-platform.

TPM 2.0 is required. TPM 1.2 won't work. That means any machine earlier than 2016 might not run Windoze 11.

I hadn't heard that it bricks hardware. Nothing in the article you cited below. What's your source for that information?

Some of the other Win 11 requirements are going to be a problem for me and my customers: None of my Windoze 10 machines support TPM 2.0.

Rumor has it that the Intel CPU needs to be 8th generation or higher. I can't really tell from the published list of approved processors: So, I get to buy all new hardware for myself and most of my customers.

An internet connection and a Microsoft login/password is required for Win 11 Home. No clue on Win 11 Pro, or other mutations. That requirement alone is sufficient for me to stay with Windoze 10 or look for an alternative.

I've been slowly moving my home stuff over to Linux Mint Cinnamon. However, in order to stay in business, I have to use whatever my customers are using, which means Windoze 10 and possibly 11.

"Bricked" was a poor choice of wording. What I should have said was "hardware that isn't TPM 2.0 compatible will be useless with Windows 11 (useless = bricked)

That's a fair point, when running a business, I could understand that. Myself, I only use if for home/recreational purposes. With how little I use my computer for, if I really wanted to, I could still use a Windows XP machine (not that I would). The main issue being that several websites now might not be compatible with the latest XP supported browser.

This is of course the reason that Microsoft has introduced these requirements, so almost everyone will have to buy new hardware and the hardware manufacturers are happy. This also increases Microsoft revenue as new hardware means a new Windows license, rather than some upgrade from Windows 10 which likely would be free.

When you have older hardware and want to use it with a supported browser, but do not want to fiddle with software yourself, you can consider installing "CloudReady", the version of ChromeOS for generic PC hardware (rather than ChromeBooks on which ChromeOS usually runs).

A free version can be downloaded from

It would run on Windows XP class hardware with sufficient RAM (2GB+).

Many, many are not. The last XP browser update, of any ilk (I.E., Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.), was a few years ago.

Of course, any discerning computer user would install linux or FreeBSD. That should work for CPUs down to "W95 Class".

I have a desktop PC at home I built about 2004 or thereabouts. It's a Pent IV with an Intel MB and XP Pro and all the RAM it can carry. Never had a blue screen or any kind of issue or crash with it. Now, Firefox crawls and some pages don't load or load incompletely. I tried installing two different distros Linux, and both were *more* laggy than the XP, so I went back to the XP. For work I have to use one of my two laptops.

Sadly, it's time to pull the plug on this old friend and my new build will be with Linux, maybe Mint.

That would likely be the route I take... I will avoid anything Google as much as possible. I really need to install it on one of my older machines to toy with and get used to the interface, so I don't have a "culture shock" the day that I finally need to switch.

Did you try something light like Puppy Linux?

You can do that, but it would require that you study how to install and admin that. The beauty of a ChromeBook is that it "just works".

You may be able to get away with running a Windoz as a guest OS on and VM host OS such as Linux or OSX. If the Windoz app uses any special I/O drivers, it may not work. It is cheap to try it and see. You can try VirtualBox (free) which I've found works fairly well for almost all of my windoz apps (under both OSX and Linux). VMWare is a very good commercial product that you could also try...I don't remember if they have a free or trial version. J

Windows 11 is brought to you by Qanon.

I'm watching a Win 10 install fail/lock up right now on a new out of the box SSD and freshly-made USB install media. Great OS

gy than the XP

No, I did not. I tried Zorin and Mint IIRC. The Linux distros I installed were so much more laggy than XP on this particular machine that I figured e ven a lighter version would be no improvement. It's the end of the road fo r this Pent IV.. I kept it this long for sentimental reasons. Never had a blue screen ever. I've had certain programs crash, but was able to shut d own and restart the program through Task Manager. Never once had to shut d own the computer and reboot.

I'll probably install Zorin on my new build. Right now I'm using my lapto p with 7 and it's running fine.

You will need an imaginary machine.

Windows 10 is a great OS that has very modest hardware requirements. That's why there are no plans to produce Windows 11.

----- In the meantime I will be uilding an XP PC but on a better board. It is goi ng to be fast. Wil have the 4GB RAM of course, 2 SSDs. Has all the outputs for HDMI, DVI, It will have al kinds of cool software on it that would cost many many thousands for the new version.

Everyone warn of virus and all tis sit, I don't have those problems.

XP can use more than 4GB RAM if the motherboard supports PAE:

An SSD will work on XP, but you will have problems unless you impliment some scheme to regularly run the "TRIM" command. The TRIM command or button is usually found in the various SSD managment software that comes with the SSD (e.g. Samsung Magician). I've had problems with TRIM when using a fairly new SSD and old software that's XP compatible.

Or, you could get the FOSS or Linux versions for next to nothing.

The old viruses are still out there.