Windows 11

[arlo]

Finally Harshy isn't sticking to the north pole side of a scrap yard magnet.
Last time I knew, true gamers throw their own parts in a box and call it a day. Look at game HCL lists and game away.
Sans they overclock the two thousand samolian GPU card and fry it, claiming warranty defects. I don't game.

No OS is really "finished". I can agree the last few versions of Windows have significantly added a lot of stuff "we" don't need. I don't need One Drive. Nor a MS account. Print to PDF is super nice. Screw Meeting, and chat. And Microsoft teams. But tax refunders may love it on their brand new el-cheapo Dell.
If you happen to use One Drive. It's been made easy to access your stuff wherever you go w/o having to haul USB sticks, My Passports. So that's nice too. Easy for the average person. Too many times lately I see people posting things to One Drive. As opposed to Mega, etc.

You certainly can debloat your Windows install. Just as you can fatten up 'nix with as many bon bons as you please.
Either way. Pretty sure you'll end up Googling for a "how-to".

Mr. "I can access all of my 'nix programs just as fast as in Windows". And "I don't need no stinkin' desktop shortcuts".
Wholeheartedly calling bs on that. I may be wrong but most 'nix installers don't even give an option to mimic a start menu or program menu shortcut. And that tar zxvf, untar, turpentine it, must-use terminal thing....

One thing for certain. Far too many people are using portable storage. USB sticks, memory cards, and external drives with more and more storage capacity. One mistake. Whether it happens today, tomorrow. Yank it w/o dismounting it or in win terms...safely remove hardware. It's borked.
Today I was brought an Android phone with a 128 GB micro sd. Again with 3 phones of photos and stuff on the card.
It became unreadable. Again. Another one. No backups. Not a thought given.
Alcor is the main software tool used to flash program USB and memory cards. And Chip Wizard to read the type and mfgr. of the controller chip. It's Windows 32 bit only. Still. To this day. Not Mac, not 'nix. Windows. And 32 bit only.
Glad I keep that triple boot XP/MX Linux/Hackintosh box handy. Got "most"of the photos and crap back. But not all.
Yeah. For sure capn' harshnikowski . Use what suits you in a situation.

Click click click. Ever hear that? Time to throw that HDD in a quarter pound baggie and into the freezer with a long cable and copy it over. Now with SSD's. 20 terabytes? Good marketing. Sure. Cool? For "them" maybe.
I ain't willing to put all I got on one storage device. And 20 TB? That's one sad day when it takes a you-know-what.

Not a Windows vs Linux thread for sure. Just that the geeker-tweaker in you guys cast you as different drummers. Rock on if you fill the Porsche full of bags of Ready Mix for the wifey's latest project for you because you refuse to drive her Silverado down to the 'Depot.
Remember what my EE buddy from Taiwan said. "Evly machine have it-a rimitation".
......beer time

 

[HipKat]

Finally Harshy isn't sticking to the north pole side of a scrap yard magnet.
Last time I knew, true gamers throw their own parts in a box and call it a day. Look at game HCL lists and game away.
Sans they overclock the two thousand samolian GPU card and fry it, claiming warranty defects. I don't game.

No OS is really "finished". I can agree the last few versions of Windows have significantly added a lot of stuff "we" don't need. I don't need One Drive. Nor a MS account. Print to PDF is super nice. Screw Meeting, and chat. And Microsoft teams. But tax refunders may love it on their brand new el-cheapo Dell.
If you happen to use One Drive. It's been made easy to access your stuff wherever you go w/o having to haul USB sticks, My Passports. So that's nice too. Easy for the average person. Too many times lately I see people posting things to One Drive. As opposed to Mega, etc.

You certainly can debloat your Windows install. Just as you can fatten up 'nix with as many bon bons as you please.
Either way. Pretty sure you'll end up Googling for a "how-to".

Mr. "I can access all of my 'nix programs just as fast as in Windows". And "I don't need no stinkin' desktop shortcuts".
Wholeheartedly calling bs on that. I may be wrong but most 'nix installers don't even give an option to mimic a start menu or program menu shortcut. And that tar zxvf, untar, turpentine it, must-use terminal thing....

One thing for certain. Far too many people are using portable storage. USB sticks, memory cards, and external drives with more and more storage capacity. One mistake. Whether it happens today, tomorrow. Yank it w/o dismounting it or in win terms...safely remove hardware. It's borked.
Today I was brought an Android phone with a 128 GB micro sd. Again with 3 phones of photos and stuff on the card.
It became unreadable. Again. Another one. No backups. Not a thought given.
Alcor is the main software tool used to flash program USB and memory cards. And Chip Wizard to read the type and mfgr. of the controller chip. It's Windows 32 bit only. Still. To this day. Not Mac, not 'nix. Windows. And 32 bit only.
Glad I keep that triple boot XP/MX Linux/Hackintosh box handy. Got "most"of the photos and crap back. But not all.
Yeah. For sure capn' harshnikowski . Use what suits you in a situation.

Click click click. Ever hear that? Time to throw that HDD in a quarter pound baggie and into the freezer with a long cable and copy it over. Now with SSD's. 20 terabytes? Good marketing. Sure. Cool? For "them" maybe.
I ain't willing to put all I got on one storage device. And 20 TB? That's one sad day when it takes a you-know-what.

Not a Windows vs Linux thread for sure. Just that the geeker-tweaker in you guys cast you as different drummers. Rock on if you fill the Porsche full of bags of Ready Mix for the wifey's latest project for you because you refuse to drive her Silverado down to the 'Depot.
Remember what my EE buddy from Taiwan said. "Evly machine have it-a rimitation".
......beer time

One Drive gets uninstalled as soon as the first windows boot is completed. I have to use Teams for work. Not sure why my boss won't use Zoom

I'm unsure about the "accessing programs as fast as Windows" since I have this, just like Windows, and this is how I configure it. I can replicate the Win 11 Start menu if I want

Portable media does NOT get borked for yanking it without "safely removing" it.
Important things are stored on Cloud Servers along with physical storage.

And I really can't keep debating all your points because they're basically just you whining and being wrong and/or completely out of touch with how things work outside of your own little personal setup.

Downing Linux, which is what most things turn on, including that phone, servers, security, etc. Windows is primarily user-based.

• NASA runs on Linux You might not be aware that Linux powers NASA. NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer runs Linux. ...
• eReaders run on Linux ...
• TV runs on Linux ...
• Smartwatches and laptops run on Linux ...
• Cars run on Linux ...
• Gaming runs on Linux ...
• Social media runs on Linux ...
• Businesses and governments run on Linux ...

The most offensive thing is you or anyone trying to tell anyone else how wrong their experience is because it doesn't fit into your viewpoints. And I especially do not appreciate your condescending tone.

I'm out on this one.

 

[TRG]

After graduating college (early 80's) I worked at a variety of laboratories, scientific organizations, Universities and semiconductor fabs. All of which used UNIX. UNIX is the precursor to LINUX. I still have all my UNIX books from my early career. Back then users would work from "dumb terminals" connected to a mainframe computer. There was no Graphical User Interface. A user had to issue strings of commands to get their desired output.

Admitedly the early days of LINUX on PC's (Intel x86) wasn't the best. Developers struggled to get all the proper hardware drivers into the kernel. That was then. Now there are LINUX distributions that your grandma would be comfortable with. LINUX has really come a long way.

Obviously there is a lot more to the story.
Unix - Wikipedia
Linux - Wikipedia

 

[harshness]

Windows is primarily user-based.

I think you underestimate the large investment in Windows Servers (and their attendant overwhelming support infrastructure) that are still in play due to the differences between the Microsoft way of doing things (being dragged from one Microsoft computing metaphor to the next in clumsy stages) and how forward-thinking IT operations conduct themselves.

 

[arlo]

Prolific 2303TA FTDA Serial to USB adapter.
What can I say. MicroBritney did it again. My last Windows 11 install, this laptop. The one I use for mobile service calls and such. Accepted. Or otherwise known as it's going to happen anyway. Did this after the last big "features" update.

PL2303TA DO NOT SUPPORT WINDOWS 11 OR LATER PLEASE CONTACT YOUR SUPPLIER

Now. This is the same one supplied with the Titanium Satellite ASC-1 for firmware flashing and stored settings read/writes. I have another used for serial read/writes and port sniffing on routers and such.
It worked 2 weeks ago. The other day. Not so much.
But. It does will) work with Windows 11.
Even if "Hello I'm Jay. I'm a certified Microsoft software engineer and I'll be glad to assist. Unfortunately the.....".
In a round about way uninstalling the MS driver completely. And persistently installing an older driver. Working again.

Before going too far with a rant. I do apologize a few dudes here. Don't take me too seriously at times.
The comment referring to portable media does not become corrupted .Or otherwise when "removed safely" in MS terms or if in Linux. Unmounted. Just yanked from the port. Well data recovery is one of the things tasked on occasion. On a good day all of it. Typically 70-80%. Or sometimes not.
The flashing tool and files for portable media are 32 bit Windows only. No newer than XP.
Or in the case of a recent customer who set the battery level shutdown to very low on his phone with yet another 4 phones of photos and such. Corruption and panic. Who thinks of backing up right? An Android phone. Before, an Apple phone. So. Yeah. It can happen.

I was thinking. I don't use the FTDI cables very much. Except for the ASC-1. Witnessing a Monday it works and Friday it won't cheeses me off.
It is pretty cool to have Virtual Here Linux software on my router and the cable plugged in the ASC-1 to it. And running the client on my various pc's over LAN. Created a virtual com port and all is good.

Perhaps to the die-hards it is a Linux world. I dabble enough to do what I need to. No more on that.
Just in all of my industrial previous life it was 99/1 Windows vs Linux. Easier to staff a workforce who is already familiar with what they were hired to do.

It's a you-know-what show.ATI All in Wonder tv/fm/video capture card. And the same in a WinTV USB brick.
XP. No issues.7 and up. Toss it in a box.
A very nice professional audio card. Dead in the box above Win 7.
A very nice multi card reader. And a USB CF card reader/writer. Win 7 ok. Win 10. Toss it in a box.
Flash chip programmer. Above Win7. Toss in a box. "Compatibility Mode" a joke.

Oh I tried the Linux route to keep using them. Kind of kludge drivers with limited functionality. ATI was a disaster. WinTV was a blank stare. The audio card was unheard of. The flash writer was Windows only. The CF reader worked.

But the makers of USB storage device programming sw. Only 32 bit Windows. So there you have it.

Just when I had tried all of the listed options for Prolific drivers. A ham turned me on to old drivers on Mediafire. Not even available on Prolific's site....."Not supported in Windows 11". They worked like a peach.
I was hunting newer adapters up until that point. The driver to look for if you may run into this is:
PL23XX_Prolific_DriverInstaller_v3.8.39.0_w11.zip

You know. I don't just blurt stuff out of thin air. Well, ok. Maybe after a few beers. Occasionally.
If you take offense and want to jab back. Cool.

 

[harshness]

Mass quantities of speculation about Windows 11 going forward:

Windows 11 lost users this month – should Microsoft be worried?

Windows 11 has gone into reverse gear as user numbers drop – but why?

www.techradar.com

The real losers are the mainstream computer manufacturers.

 

[TheForce]

Mass quantities of speculation about Windows 11 going forward:

Windows 11 lost users this month – should Microsoft be worried?

Windows 11 has gone into reverse gear as user numbers drop – but why?

www.techradar.com

The real losers are the mainstream computer manufacturers.

Not surprised. So I tried to do the win11 upgrade here on my main computer I use outside of video editing and got the message, your computer does not support windows 11. It's a fairly robust package I used to edit my video projects on. It's i7-950 CPU with 64GB of ram. Does win 11 require an 8core CPU? I think mine is a 4core 8 thread.

I did some search into why such a robust computer MB is not capable and discovered that it is, but not supported (yet) by Microsoft for updates and bug fixes. Like mentioned earlier here, you should be able to install win11 on a new HD to use win 11 in "unsupported" mode. This means that windows defender may not work as well as other problems. Until Microsoft adds the i7-950 to the list of supported processors, it may not be worth the trouble since win10 is working just fine for me. Unfortunate, because I usually like to run the latest updates to solve weird bugs with the older versions.

 

[arlo]

You could try the Rufus install method. My laptop was bought with Win 10. Got the 'you're s.o.l." message even after update notifications said I could upgrade. Got the same message as you.
It installed. It updates. Defender works. It activated.
Just like later versions of 10 a few tweaks need to be done in services, etc. to be able to see computers on my network and also to be seen on LAN.
As for the Prolific FTDI. Windows kept being a butthole and reinstalling it's own drivers over the ones that worked. And although the com port showed, A bad English "It-a-not-support-no-mo in Windows 11" kept coming back.
And after reinstalling the drivers that did work several times. And discovering some brain trust at MS decided to leave group policy editor out of 11 (kinda'-sorta' easy to get it working). I finally blocked MS from updating drivers on their own. So. So far, so good.

But you should be able to easily use Rufus to get 11 to install on your pc. Not as an upgrade perhaps. I dislike upgrades anyway. Not saying you have to. A clone of what you have would be a good thing. An image backup perhaps.
My sysinfo:

OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Home
Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name ASUSQ552
System Manufacturer ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
System Model Q552UB
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU ASUS-NotebookSKU
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz, 2592 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. Q552UB.302, 4/18/2019
SMBIOS Version 3.0
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
BaseBoard Product Q552UB
BaseBoard Version 1.0
Platform Role Mobile
Secure Boot State On
PCR7 Configuration Elevation Required to View
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.22621.1413"
User Name AsusQ552\Arlo
Time Zone Eastern Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 12.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 11.7 GB
Available Physical Memory 3.30 GB
Total Virtual Memory 14.8 GB
Available Virtual Memory 4.61 GB
Page File Space 3.13 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Windows Defender Application Control policy Enforced
Windows Defender Application Control user mode policy Off
Device Encryption Support Elevation Required to View
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware Yes
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes

 

[primestar31]

I personally see NO need to upgrade to Windows 11, no matter how many times Microsoft attempts to trick me into doing it.

I'm NOT going to do it, until there's absolutely NO other choice. I'm running a high end Dell Ryzen 5 machine, and it does just fine on Windows 10. I have it tweaked exactly how I like it, and I don't need the stress and hair-pulling of yet another MS forced upgrade, and tweaking for a week to get it to work right.

 

[navychop]

I'm NOT going to do it, until there's absolutely NO other choice.

BINGO! Surely we have learned the word “inevitability.”

I use a Windows PC so little these days. But, still needed. My shift to Mint stalled.

MS is driving off their non business customers.

 

[harshness]

It's i7-950 CPU with 64GB of ram. Does win 11 require an 8core CPU?

The issue is likely related to something other than the CPU. The official requirement is for two or more cores. There are a number of obscure (and decidedly arbitrary for a company that claims that Windows will function on a 4GB, two-core machine) criteria that are in play. The current PC Health Check application from Microsoft is fairly comprehensive about reporting why a machine isn't eligible.

From a practical standpoint, the i7-950 was released fourteen years ago so there's that to consider in combination with the relatively limited feature set of LGA 1366 socket motherboards that are likely absent TPM 2.0 (2014) and Secure Boot (2011) technologies.

It may be possible to install Windows 11 from scratch but I can't imagine a scenario where it would be desirable.

 

[TheForce]

The issue is likely related to something other than the CPU. The official requirement is for two or more cores. There are a number of obscure (and decidedly arbitrary for a company that claims that Windows will function on a 4GB, two-core machine) criteria that are in play. The current PC Health Check application from Microsoft is fairly comprehensive about reporting why a machine isn't eligible.

From a practical standpoint, the i7-950 was released fourteen years ago so there's that to consider in combination with the relatively limited feature set of LGA 1366 socket motherboards that are likely absent TPM 2.0 (2014) and Secure Boot (2011) technologies.

It may be possible to install Windows 11 from scratch but I can't imagine a scenario where it would be desirable.

I haven't looked into it close enough to know if there is any added benefit to win 11. However I am beginning to have some issues with the computer that I don't have a handle on yet.

For the past month I have been getting the BSOD crashes and when I reboot. the date is set to 2099. This happens once or twice a week. I have run chkdsk C: /R on reboot and not sure it fixed anything but it ran for a good 30 minutes. I really need to get into the MB and check out the button battery. It may be dead. I never changed it. Open to any suggestions on anything I might have overlooked on the BSOD problem.

 

[arlo]

I haven't looked into it close enough to know if there is any added benefit to win 11. However I am beginning to have some issues with the computer that I don't have a handle on yet.

For the past month I have been getting the BSOD crashes and when I reboot. the date is set to 2099. This happens once or twice a week. I have run chkdsk C: /R on reboot and not sure it fixed anything but it ran for a good 30 minutes. I really need to get into the MB and check out the button battery. It may be dead. I never changed it. Open to any suggestions on anything I might have overlooked on the BSOD problem.

battery.
bsod. look at logs to see what happened before.
cmd, run as admin, chksdk c: /r
reboot.
and wait. 5 steps. it reboots.
any bangs (!) by devices in dev mgr?

 

[harshness]

battery.

I second that.

It is probably past time to replace that computer. A modern computer with i5 or better would likely walk all over it from a performance standpoint and would allow you to use much more performant graphics hardware.

 

[TheForce]

I second that.

It is probably past time to replace that computer. A modern computer with i5 or better would likely walk all over it from a performance standpoint and would allow you to use much more performant graphics hardware.

True. And I have my other computer with 18 core i9 CPU for anything I need that is in the video editing speed.

OK I checked the button battery and it was dead. I put a new one in that measured 3.3v and now the damn thing won't even boot. I wonder if I screwed up something or just swapped the battery wrong and erased the default bios.

PS- I'm now on my Surface Pro
Fortunately I have plenty of backups of all my data on different hard drives.

OK this is off topic so I will revert to reading about win 11. Thanks for everyone's suggestions.

 

[TheForce]

After much shopping on line I picked out the new computer.
A Dell 3020 i7-13700. It will come with windows 11 Home so I guess I will be moving into this change as well as the hardware change.

These new systems seem to be lacking the many expansions I am used to. I have 4- 4TB HDDs so I have ordered a 5 bay eSata tower that also connects with USB 3.1.

Also, this morning I got a popup on this Surface Pro to install win 11 already downloaded for free. That was a surprise. So it looks like I'll be joining the win 11 crowd sooner than I had planned to. I'll keep this one on win 10 until I get the new Dell set up and working.

 

[harshness]

OK I checked the button battery and it was dead. I put a new one in that measured 3.3v and now the damn thing won't even boot. I wonder if I screwed up something or just swapped the battery wrong and erased the default bios.

If the machine won't boot, you should be able to clear the CMOS memory by shorting a couple of header pins on the motherboard. The header is usually a three pin affair where you move the pin from one side to the other to essentially short out the battery for a moment.

https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...mos-reset-and-clear-the-nvram-on-dell-systems

 

[TheForce]

harshness-

I took your advice and went to Best Buy and bought the Dell 3020 this morning. It is up and working and had no trouble so far. It is a snappy machine. I'll be configuring everything over the next couple days. I'm actually on it now.

One nice thing is I had the failed computer settings uploaded to One drive and during this setup, one of the early steps was to see if I wanted to use those files to configure this computer and it saved a lot of work. It auto installed Office 365 too. But many others like adobe apps I need to do manually.

Some of my subscription services are giving me fits to delete the failed computer and add this new one. That's the only difficult part.

I saw this same computer on Amazon for a few$$ less but in digging through the specs it was lacking the optical drive so no real bargain.

 

[HipKat]

harshness-

I took your advice and went to Best Buy and bought the Dell 3020 this morning. It is up and working and had no trouble so far. It is a snappy machine. I'll be configuring everything over the next couple days. I'm actually on it now.

One nice thing is I had the failed computer settings uploaded to One drive and during this setup, one of the early steps was to see if I wanted to use those files to configure this computer and it saved a lot of work. It auto installed Office 365 too. But many others like adobe apps I need to do manually.

Some of my subscription services are giving me fits to delete the failed computer and add this new one. That's the only difficult part.

I saw this same computer on Amazon for a few$$ less but in digging through the specs it was lacking the optical drive so no real bargain.

I took my optical drive out last year after realizing I couldn't remember the last time I used it

 

[harshness]

I took my optical drive out last year after realizing I couldn't remember the last time I used it

They are kind of last decade. Many of the mainstream software titles are either downloaded or come on thumb drives and putting ISOs on a Ventoy thumb drive is very, very slick.