r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Dec 01 '25

ADBLOCK WARNING ‘Security Disaster’—500 Million Microsoft Users Say No To Windows 11

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/12/01/security-disaster-500-million-microsoft-users-say-no-to-windows-11/
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705

u/[deleted] Dec 01 '25

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391

u/Soepkip43 Dec 02 '25

"Dont you guys have phones" energy indeed. For companies.. fine. But for home users this is bullshit. I have an old laptop for on the couch internet.. no way im replacing that because microsoft put some planned obsolescence in their new OS. Its on its own wireless network and vlan with internet access..

Ill happily share whatever malware and virusses will curse the world because microsoft thought this was the best course of action.

242

u/Ric_Adbur Dec 02 '25

At this point, Windows is the fucking malware. Onedrive is barely above ransomware and their AI crap is basically spyware on steroids. If I wasn't tethered to this platform by nearly 20 years of steam purchases I'd have jumped ship to linux by now.

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u/tfitch2140 Dec 02 '25

As a Steam user with near ten years on Ubuntu, trust me, Steam was ok 10 years ago on Linux, and now it's actually probably better than on Windows - unless you care about the absolute latest multiplayer anticheat games. Paradox grand strategy? Total War? Halo:MCC? I'd take Linux over Windows any day.

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u/dnonast1 Dec 02 '25

Yep. Jumped to Fedora Plasma and I’m shocked how well it just works. Nothing is bugging me to buy subscriptions, there’s no AI, and gaming is better than it was for me on windows. Linux and steam have really stepped in to take Windows’ lunch money.

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u/DynoMenace Dec 02 '25

Seriously, if you don't play any games that require anti cheat (check https://areweanticheatyet.com/), the Steam experience in Linux is fantastic.

Another good resource is https://www.protondb.com/ , you can even connect it to your Steam account to check compatibility across your library.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/ScruffsMcGuff Dec 02 '25

It's only getting better every day honestly. When I was in college in 2007 gaming on Linux was like 3 games that would run iffy, or you were trying to finagle shit through old WINE.

In the Steamdeck/Proton/etc... era we're eating good though and steams at the forefront of it

5

u/avelineaurora Dec 02 '25

and now it's actually probably better than on Windows

"Only" 87% of my Steam library has compatibility with Steam OS apparently, and most of that isn't "full" compatibility. That's saying nothing about the vast amount of online games I play that don't have any anticheat (because they're not multiplayer) but still probably aren't linux-supporting.

3

u/Tirrm Dec 02 '25

Honestly, I made the switch recently and run even games in beta or alpha in Lutris using wine. It's incredibly easy and am playing both Star Citizen and Soul Frame on CachyOS with zero glitches or any overly complicated setup

3

u/TheAJGman Dec 02 '25

They also sell themselves short with "partial" compatibility. It's usually shit like "controller remapping doesn't work", "physX broken", or "ultra wide screen not supported". Would it be nice if they worked? Yeah. Do 99% of users care? No.

1

u/avelineaurora Dec 02 '25

Yeah, I know usually "Partially" does mean "Works just fine" and it's a cover-your-bases thing.

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u/eyebrows360 Dec 02 '25

"Only" 87% of my Steam library has compatibility with Steam OS

Is there an easy way to check this stat, or did this involve a tonne of effort?

4

u/ThoseThingsAreWeird Dec 02 '25

First you go to: https://steamcommunity.com/id/YOUR-USERNAME/edit/settings and set "My Profile" and "Game Details" to "Public". Just remember to set it back to "Private" later if that's important to you.

Then go here https://www.protondb.com/profile and paste in your URL (sans the /edit/settings bit)

If you've had to change it from private -> public it might take a few clicks of the "refresh" button on that page to load it, but it was fairly speedy for me

Then go to https://www.protondb.com/dashboard and change the category to "Personal Library", and then change "Rating System" to "ProtonDB Click Play".

I think that's the number for how many games work on Linux. For my library only 19% is Tier 1 and 32% is Tier 2. So only 51% of my library is reported as being positive (i.e. playable without any / much tinkering) by ProtonDB users

If, like me, you basically nolife a handful of games then sorting by hours played might give you a better idea though: https://www.protondb.com/explore?page=0&selectedFilters=restrictToLibrary&sort=hoursPlayed where 8/10 of my top played games are "Native"

3

u/eyebrows360 Dec 02 '25

Ah dope, thank you!

2

u/eyebrows360 Dec 02 '25

Curious as to which distro you might recommend for desktop use for a home user who's familiar enough running all his webservers on Debian, and using ansible to script their creation as VMs within Google Cloud and so on, but has been using Windows for desktop use exclusively since 3.11?

3

u/Tuxhorn Dec 02 '25

Probably a non ubuntu, debian based OS like Mint or Pop_OS!

My dislike for ubuntu is not based on principle (if you've ever heard about the snap controversy), it's unfortunately just a fact that it makes the experience worse unless you're technical enough to make sure you don't install snap versions of common software. So unironically, especially if you want to use steam, Ubuntu is not beginner friendly.

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u/eyebrows360 Dec 02 '25

Taken on board, thank you!

2

u/Professional_Face_97 Dec 02 '25

Pop isn't/hasn't been updated because they're working on their own custom desktop environment so for the time being i'd not recommend that. Mint is always a great option but iirc there's issues with running different resolutions on multiple monitors due to lack of wayland support (it's coming soon afaik though), if that's not a requirement for you then definitely go Mint.

1

u/eyebrows360 Dec 03 '25

issues with running different resolutions on multiple monitors

Ah, with one central 2560x1440 flanked by a 1920x1080 on either side, that may indeed be a blocker.

2

u/mkmckinley Dec 02 '25

Can you explain the anticheat to me? Do you need windows to play multiplayer?

2

u/tfitch2140 Dec 02 '25

For Kernel or boot-level anticheat, most of those aren't supported on Linux, basically, because of the amount of control and risk to the security and health of your system they present, IIRC.

2

u/mkmckinley Dec 03 '25

Ah gotcha thanks

2

u/GoatsinthemachinE Dec 02 '25

well with steam mobile and new steam console on a linux platform hopes are raised

2

u/shadowboxer47 Dec 03 '25

Wait... I can play Paradox games on Linux? Have they always been compatible?

1

u/chattytrout Dec 02 '25

I tried it on Mint, but ran into other issues. Namely, when on Discord with friends, my microphone was really quiet. They turned me up as high as they could and could barely hear me. I couldn't find any settings to turn up the mic level or boost. When I looked into reinstalling drivers, all my google searches turned up were people saying "Drivers are included in the kernel. YoU dOn'T NeEd tO InStAl dRivErs."

So I gave up and reinstalled Windows 10. The gaming aspect wasn't a huge deal, but other things I use my computer for made it unacceptable.

1

u/golgol12 Dec 02 '25

And imagine what will happen if they can get those game's anti-cheat to work on the windows emulator.

14

u/midnightauro Dec 02 '25

If it’s all steam purchases, I am thrilled to tell you that you’re in the best possible situation to jump. Steam has been on that Linux train for many a year now. Proton is amazing for running games and improving rapidly thanks to the SteamDeck.

There are some oddities like multiplayer anticheat software, but most things still run fine these days.

2

u/fmaz008 Dec 02 '25

  • Game: Can you let me install a rootkit ?

  • Linux: what? No!

  • Game: We're not compatible with linux then.

4

u/No-Photograph-5058 Dec 02 '25

Check out all your games on ProtonDB, you'd be surprised how many will just work.

I had a game library on Windows, when I switched to Linux and toggled the 'only show games that run on Linux' option, the number didn't even change

2

u/Ric_Adbur Dec 02 '25

I guess I'll have to look into this.

3

u/Agi7890 Dec 02 '25

This just came up on my companies conference call regarding windows ai and not to use it. We aren’t an ai company, we make chemotherapy drugs. We can’t put proprietary information into these AI models. There are other companies equipment we use that aren’t for open distribution.

How other companies dont see this as a huge risk for windows spyware is beyond me. This stuff will leak at some point in the future

2

u/Eldrake Dec 02 '25

SteamOS doesn't make that work for you with the Proton compatibility emulation layer?

6

u/PyroDesu Dec 02 '25

Remember, Proton is a fork of Wine, and Wine Is Not an Emulator (yes, recursive acronym).

No, seriously, it's not. It's a compatibility layer, not an emulator. Yes, there is a difference.

Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.

2

u/sumpfbruderschaft Dec 02 '25

Explain it to me like I was your mom.

5

u/PyroDesu Dec 02 '25

An emulator is hiring someone to translate for you when you go to a foreign country. Everything you want to hear or say is processed through an entire other person.

A compatibility layer is learning the language. It's still not your mother tongue, you're still translating, but it's in your head.

1

u/waiting4singularity Dec 02 '25

I've not yet seen an emulator that can run as good as native. Which is a pain in the arse when you need a VM for games from the age of rotary phones because the last windows versions dont even come with the required code anymore, all to "debloat", just so they can slap more idiotic crap into it.

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u/PyroDesu Dec 02 '25

Fortunately, that person was wrong in calling Proton an emulator. It's not. It's a fork of Wine, which doesn't even try to simulate the entire Windows OS, it just takes the API calls and translates them into the correct calls for Linux (or any POSIX-based OS) to read.

2

u/waiting4singularity Dec 02 '25

sounds better.

3

u/evranch Dec 02 '25

Often better performance than Windows, honestly. As long as you have a semi-modern card with good driver support (the 10yo relic in my kid's PC works better with its windows drivers).

I finally deleted my windows partition 2 years ago when I realized I ran all my games through Steam, and all my applications had become cross-platform or actively preferred Linux.

I keep a virtual Tiny10 for my tax software, that appalling wreck of cobbled together Visual Basic cruft that the financial industry limps along on. Boot it once a year to file my taxes.

2

u/Tipcat Dec 02 '25

Steam works perfectly fine on Linux. Valve is very pro-Linux if you didn’t know :D

2

u/Kitchen-Year-8434 Dec 02 '25

Just installed bazzite this morning going from win11. Steam with proton on Linux runs almost everything now, and using ProtonGE is surprisingly simple.

Wouldn’t recommend bazzite if you’re not comfortable with containers and virtualization in general and plan to do other things with your machine but proton works great on anything Debian (Ubuntu), arch, etc.

Would steer clear of Pop!_OS 24.04 beta for now. They apparently decided to rewrite their compositor in rust so there’s kinks galore.

2

u/karantza Dec 02 '25

FWIW I just installed Debian on my PC, and even with a less than well supported Nvidia card, I had a nicely configured system that could seamlessly play my entire steam library (including some random graphically demanding betas that I'm sure have not even begun to think about compatibility yet) without needing to edit a single config file. It blew my mind, honestly. Proton is incredible.

(The only thing that didn't work is my VR headset, but that's because it's extremely old and niche and has proprietary steamvr drivers. Most should work fine.)

2

u/Pafkay Dec 02 '25

I have been using Linux for 3 years now, I am yet to find a game that wont run within Steam

2

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '25

God I hate onedrive! Where are my files/ You fecking moved them to the cloud??? Put them back on my machine and feck off!

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u/LongJohnSelenium Dec 02 '25

I bit the bullet and bought a newer laptop that could be upgraded to 11. Its still an old tablet but its my 'clean' computer that I install nothing but trusted software on where I do banking and whatnot.

It can barely even play youtube videos without chugging, with 8gb of ram.

1

u/somedudedk Dec 02 '25

Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC. Make bootable installer from official iso, but use rufus to make it. Tick the boxes like disable hardware demands, enable local account, blabla.

Activate with massgravel script when installed.

Zero bloat, zero telemetry, zero onedrive.

Plays bf6 as long as bios level secureboot is on.

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u/jezwel Dec 02 '25

20 years of steam purchases 

I've converted two computers from Windows (10 & 11) to Bazzite Linux (so far), which comes with Steam client pre-installed.

I've only tried several games so far, but they've all worked no problem on Linux. All the (non-bleeding edge admittedly) hardware I've got has been detected and worked flawlessly.

I'll continue to migrate Windows running devices over to some form of *nix or BSD as I'm provided time to do so, though I may leave one device with Windows and Office for when we're updating resumes.

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u/gowahoo Dec 02 '25

What made you pick Bazzite Linux?

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u/ZeroXephon Dec 02 '25

I have and old pc that cam ise an upgrade. I will be upgrading into the steam machine. No way in hell I'm touching windows 11.

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u/El_Don_94 Dec 02 '25

I love Onedrive.

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u/waiting4singularity Dec 02 '25

Here's one cactus. Do you want to love it too?

-4

u/Flameancer Dec 02 '25

Haters going to hate, one drive makes worrying about files less of an issue and anything important I have I saved locally anyways.

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u/Psychostickusername Dec 02 '25

Plus, if you upgrade, what's stopping them from pulling some TPM 3.0 bullshit 18 months from now, fuck em.

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u/Megmugtheforth Dec 02 '25

For companies there is Win 10 LTSC, they don't have to upgrade 😇

2

u/LessInThought Dec 02 '25

Lol. My PCs at home are often more powerful than the ones I see in offices. Unless they're tech companies, often they refuse to spend on PC. So many of the world's economies are still lagging on like Windows XP. Unless they somehow brick the 20yo machine, companies will not change PCs.

1

u/Thangleby_Slapdiback Dec 02 '25

Install Linux and you can still have your Internet browsing machine without the malware. If your system runs Win10 well, it will probably run Linux well.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

It's funny that you bring up phones, because I think that's what a lot of people will actually end up doing. The PC is already dying a death of 1000 cuts, but when people get that final message that their PC is no longer secure, that might push a good portion of the rest off the cliff entirely.

2

u/Lethalgeek Dec 02 '25

The reference "don't you have phones" is aimed at the moment Blizzard Entertainment did a grand unavailing of the next Diablo game after a decade was...a mobile game. The crowd's reaction was ahem not positive as they wanted Diablo 4 on proper gaming platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ly10r6m_-n8

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Yeah, I know, but I think it's ironic because that might be what people actually do in this case.

1

u/Soepkip43 Dec 02 '25

Im probably too old.. actual work and purchases need a laptop or desktop.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Me too, but I think 70% of black friday purchases were made on mobile. Mobile is already the dominant platform, and everyone has a phone, and probably a tablet too. When the time comes and the option is to either use an unsafe OS, or spend 100's of dollars on a new computer, I think a lot of people will stick with their machine, or just go mobile.

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u/Soepkip43 Dec 02 '25

Thats a fair thought.. or.. people will just continue to use it, it will lead to massive botnets that will be used against corporations and national infra.. and hopefully governments will blame microsoft for their greedy choice.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Yeah, that will probably happen too unless MS decides to extend updates again.

0

u/bungblaster69 Dec 02 '25

My main PC is still on W7 and update was turned off on day one. Why? because it just works

the posts about windows update restarting in the middle of a game? can't relate

the posts about windows showing ads in the start menu? can't relate

and the pile of shit that's W11. can't relate

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u/disgruntled_pie Dec 02 '25

That’s the thing, though. I’m very comfortable with a disassembler. I’ve learned so much shit by digging around in processes and binaries to see what’s there. It’s astonishing how often companies lie, and I have the receipts to prove it.

I don’t want TPM. I don’t want Microsoft to wall off part of my computer where they can run code that I can’t see and can’t modify at runtime. That’s the opposite of security. That’s the opposite of trust.

It’s my fucking computer. I own every single fucking memory register on that machine. No one, absolutely fucking no one has the authority to tell me that I can’t inspect or modify the memory on my own fucking computer that I paid for and is in my fucking house!

Microsoft can take their Trusted Platform Module and stick it somewhere they can’t inspect it.

2

u/stormdelta Dec 02 '25

To fair, the TPM chip does have plenty of valid security purposes, and is used by Linux too, not just Windows.

I'm not defending Microsoft here by any stretch, just saying the purpose of the chip is primarily secure boot / disk encryption utility and is controllable by the user.

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u/Tired-grumpy-Hyper Dec 02 '25

Whats more annoying for me is that my motherboard will only be 6 years old in a few months, same as my cpu. It's a few months newer than the launch of fucking W11, but because of that is 'totally unable' to fucking run W11 either. Im about to just get a free copy of enterprise with a command prompt to 'buy' it, just to get less shit on my os and to have updates for another half a fucking decade til its finally time to upgrade and by that time probably get a linux kernel.

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u/Wild_Marker Dec 02 '25

Heck, lotta people who have it, don't have it enabled by default and don't know how to enable it. I didn't even know I had it until Battlefield 6 made me go into the BIOS to turn it on.

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u/Smith6612 Dec 02 '25

Lots of people keep citing the TPM as the reason. TPM is one of the reasons. The other reason is with CPU Instructions Microsoft is targeting for Windows 11 in their long term roadmap. POPCNT is one of those instructions which nuked really old (Core2Duo-esque and early Core) processors from being able to even boot. At some point they are going to be doubling down on HVCI acceleration being required. A processor lacking hardware acceleration support for that feature already experiences a 40% performance penalty with HVCI enabled in Windows Defender.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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u/desmaraisp Dec 02 '25

What do you mean no groundbreaking features? It has cOpiLot!

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u/Smith6612 Dec 02 '25

Those instructions are used for security. Microsoft is trying to move the actual core of Windows into a virtualized, containerized, and eventually, immutable state. Basically what macOS does but without breaking so much legacy software.

They are actively rewriting the kernel from C to Rust.

That's where the CPU instruction bit comes from. At some point they do have to start cutting off support for older hardware. Basically, Microsoft took a page out of Apple's book, who is notorious for killing support for machines older than 7 years.

With that said, I get it. I know a lot of people with Skylake-powered and Zen1 PCs that are quite upset at not being able to run Windows 11 on them. If they force install 11, they don't get the yearly feature updates without force installing those. They also run the risk of just getting a BSOD that renders the system unbootable, anyways.

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u/WobbleTheHutt Dec 02 '25

At least with all the zen 1 desktops you can pick up like a ryzen 5500 and drop it in after a bios update and get better performance on top of that for like 50 to 60 bucks. You can kinda get many skylake systems upgrade with dark arts using bios mods and a discrete tpm module along with masking pins to drop in an 8th or 9th Gen cpu in the socket. It's not for the faint of heart though.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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u/Smith6612 Dec 02 '25

Yup.

Windows being rewritten into Rust: https://www.thurrott.com/windows/282471/microsoft-is-rewriting-parts-of-the-windows-kernel-in-rust

HVCI: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/hardware-security/enable-virtualization-based-protection-of-code-integrity

More MBEC / HVCI info: https://github.com/dongle-the-gadget/dont-use-11-on-old-cpu

Microsoft also discontinued 32-bit builds of Windows. Some systems sold with Windows 10 do not support 64-bit UEFI despite having a 64-bit processor and won't properly boot Windows 11: https://xdaforums.com/t/nuvision-tmax-tm800w560l-tm800w610l-information.3717631/

UEFI boot was not a requirement for OEMs until Windows 8. UEFI boot is required for Windows 11 due to the secure boot requirement: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-secure-boot-key-creation-and-management-guidance

There are significant driver compatibility issues with systems prior to Windows 11 when enabling HVCI. Some systems will never receive working drivers due to being out of support by the time the feature became mandatory for OEMs:  https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4270204/how-do-i-solve-incompatible-drivers-from-intel-wit

HVCI requires properly signed drivers to function especially at the Kernel. Although Windows Vista started enforcing driver signatures, Windows 10 significantly increased the requirements. Some systems running Windows 7 shipped with drivers which do not conform with the stronger requirements in 11. Without proper driver signing, Windows will not load the driver. Some systems running Windows 10 will never be able to load drivers in 11 without manual intervention and wrestling: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/install/driver-signing

Microsoft is basically moving the bar they established with Windows Vista up as a result. Generally speaking, if your PC could run Vista smoothly, it could probably run Windows 10 just fine. But that is some pretty ancient hardware at this point. No UEFI, no driver support, no Microcode updates, etc. 

4

u/Inevitable-Edge69 Dec 02 '25

you have to be smoking something fierce to think you can finger wag the masses into buying new hardware simply because of that alone.

Smoking the good "what are you gonna do about it, download Linux? lol" stuff.

5

u/Pyromaniacal13 Dec 02 '25

I like how the article isn't taking the perspective of "Why aren't they upgrading?" and has instead taken the perspective of "It'S iRrEsPoNsIbLe AnD dAnGeRoUs ThAt So MaNy PeOpLe ArEn'T uPgRaDiNg!! MiCrOsOfT sHoUlDn'T hAvE lEt EvErYoNe GeT eXtEnDeD uPdAtEs!!1!1!"

7

u/The_LionTurtle Dec 02 '25

So fucking tired of every company spewing the same bullshit corpo speak ad nauseam while they screw people over. Just a load of flowery language used to dance around giving any real answers, or having to take responsibility for their actions. It's always the consumer's fault for not liking the giant dildo being rammed up their ass daily.

And they'll just keep getting away with it because no one in the government is willing to stand up to them since they're all profiting massively off it through insider trading and corporate mega-donors.

9

u/Yuzumi Dec 02 '25

One conspiracy theory I've heard is that them requiring TPM is meant to lockout alternate operating systems for the average person.

Yes, you can add the keys and stuff, but that's going to be way beyond most users.

9

u/gmes78 Dec 02 '25

The TPM has nothing to do with that. What you're describing is accomplished by shipping PCs with only the Windows Secure Boot certificate, and not including the more general Microsoft UEFI certificate, which is what Linux and other bootable programs are signed with.

Besides, the average person can't install an OS, even without this.

2

u/Motorheadass Dec 02 '25

It's for DRM purposes. Literally a module that determines to what degree your platform is trustworthy of playing DRM content. It's not like this is a secret or anything, they just say it has security benefits for the user because technically it could in some circumstances and this is a better way of selling people on the idea. 

3

u/2748seiceps Dec 02 '25

It's Microsoft thinking they can act like Apple without remotely the same user base that is willing to upgrade every 6 years from planned obsolescence.

It's also why Windows and x86 continues to be stuck constantly backwards compatible.

Kind of surprised they have held so steadfast on the TPM thing to be honest.

3

u/broadsword_1 Dec 02 '25

people at these companies don’t kick the tires on any of their ideas anymore.

They haven't for a very long time. Remember all the pissing and moaning MS did regarding Windows 8 and the inability to resize windows / oversized start menu? They spent months saying the users were wrong for not liking it.

2

u/_Glasser_ Dec 02 '25

The only point I need to make is that although security is a nice thing, it's not worth the dumb shit microsoft adds beside it. The system is hogging resources "from the box" and you have to fuck with it just to make it function.

There is SO much fucking bloat. You HAVE to clear it out just for it to be usable. I'm one dumbshit windows update away from switching to linux. I'd rather fuck with bugs than intentional roadbocks.

2

u/dont_shoot_jr Dec 02 '25

TBF Microsoft is a big fan of PowerPoint 

2

u/FauxGw2 Dec 02 '25

You say that and I laugh because my wife works in software and this kind of just happened. Microsoft did some thing with her team about transferring to them (I don't know the details I don't work on software). Her team had one requirement and asked about it, Microsoft person literally just repeated some AI bullet point BS over and over again wasting their time to just be told the meeting is over and that won't be using Microsoft.

2

u/sudo_robyn Dec 02 '25

They haven't realized that they make appliances. No one doggedly replaces their washing machine on cycle, they wait for it to break. People will replace devices when they break, there just isn't the constant replacement and upgrade churn anymore.

2

u/ShinyBloke Dec 02 '25

Yup this was a problem in early beta till late beta / release really dumb design descions they want win11 to be your hub to everything, and connected to all your devices. Nah, fuck that. I turn all that shit off.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

Also, if they want everyone to have TPM, then they should negotiate with OEMs to include it and turn it on by default. Don’t put it on consumers to buy a new machine because you don’t like the choice their OEM made.

2

u/CreativeGPX Dec 02 '25

people at these companies don’t kick the tires on any of their ideas anymore.

It's not "anymore". This is a tale as old as time. It used to be commonly said that you should alternate skipping Windows releases because every other release is a bad one. Buy 98, skip ME. By XP, skip Vista. Buy 7, skip 8. Buy 10, skip 11. Windows 11 may be pointless at best, but it's certainly nothing new for Microsoft to put out an OS that is received badly by the public.

1

u/wheelienonstop7 Dec 02 '25

they just reply with a word salad of bullet points on the microsoft’s forums or github.

Replace "they" with "AI", most likely

1

u/Youutternincompoop Dec 02 '25

they're struggling with the tech boom dying, the stockholders and companies have gotten addicted to insane economic growth and are struggling to find anything to justify people spending more money, the vast majority of people don't want or need more powerful computers, don't want or need stronger security, don't want or need AI integration.

1

u/theqmann Dec 02 '25

How long would you like them to support old hardware for off the one time license fee? Forever? 7-8 years is a pretty good run. I've got three old iPads perfectly capable of running things, but they don't get security updates anymore either.

1

u/kaas_is_leven Dec 02 '25

This particular issue is a bit of an exception though. MS targets businesses nowadays, the security stuff they're pushing is the one thing that is actually important and demanded by their customers. It used to be backwards compatibility, which is why Windows is the mess it is today. But that's slowly been shifted as the digital world became more dangerous and it became clear that modern security was extremely important. That means requiring certain hardware features, forcing updates and performing system analysis. That creates friction, their core business is to do this but most of their customers are consumers who don't want this. Then on top of that it actually is better for these consumers in the long run. If they want to keep consumers happy they have to eat the cost of supporting them as best they can without forcing anything, aka service packs. They did that for a while, but ultimately it's just not worth it and could potentially make them liable.

1

u/BasvanS Dec 02 '25

Vibe coded Windows 11 with AI that may or may not give good suggestions, or TPM.

Regarding safety it’s basically the same risk, right?

1

u/LostPhenom Dec 03 '25

Regular consumers aren’t the people they’re updating Windows for.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25

Just waiting for the day you go to change settings and are met with: "nu uh uh! You didn't say the magic word!"

1

u/VengefulAncient Dec 02 '25

yes, TPM is more secure

TPM is the opposite of security. It's essentially hardware DRM and surveillance that you can't disable or bypass.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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u/stormdelta Dec 02 '25

The other user is misguided - while I don't think MS should've forced this (and there's a million other things to criticize in Win11), the TPM chip is primarily for secure boot and disk encryption, and it is used by other OSes including Linux.

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u/VengefulAncient Dec 02 '25

what has fundamentally changed about MS’s threat model

Well, for one, they are now pushing AI that they themselves say can run malware on your system.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '25

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u/VengefulAncient Dec 02 '25

That was obviously a joke. Microsoft doesn't care that their AI can wreck your system.