Wow, this almost makes W11 worth a look.

Almost...

So, after removing everything that makes Win11 different from Win10, you can begin to use Win11

Progress!

...how false these "requirements" from MS actually are.

(Which I know everyone here at El Reg already knew, but you would expect it of this audience).

Honestly, this is EXACTLY the sort of snidey, malinformed comment that infests the Reg's comments sections and makes me hate reading them

You say that like you've never been on Twitter.

"...Honestly, this is EXACTLY the sort of snidey, malinformed comment that infests the Reg's comments sections and makes me hate reading them.."

Well first off I've spent most of my career in and out, and around, what we'd now call EUC - so long in fact, from way before it was called such a thing.

I've been involved in some massive rollouts and upgrades over the years and Microsoft have a habit of making things more difficult than they should be.

Worked with MECM lately? The interface is a mess and has been for a long time. Deployment tools are increasingly cluttered and difficult to untangle. Co-management *should* help but tends to add a large overhead on with diminishing returns that mean group policies are still required. A support mix that can be hell to unravel.

Why not just provide a mechanism to import group policies, convert them and apply them*?

During lockdown I was involved in a refresh for a council that had begun some time before C19 so we had to move it to a remote deployment.

It was painful for a number of reasons. But, as part of the programme, said council had bought around 4,000 new laptops (purchased mid-late 2019) to support Windows 10. The vast majority of them won't be supported by Windows 11 despite being core i5 and i7 devices with plenty of RAM, SSD's etc.

Now, if Microsoft are truly stating that the TPM version is that important, a) there would be no mechanism to bypass it and b) they would put the requirement into Windows 10.

Since they don't do either of these things, it makes it arbitrary and clear to any idiot that it is a strategy designed to keep the uptick of laptop sales we saw during lockdown going for their partners and actually, the end result is the exact opposite - places will milk out their investments into Windows 10 and the devices it runs on for as long as they possibly can, even if that's beyond their usual refresh windows. But then lets also not forget that Windows 10 was the last version you'd ever buy and it would be rolling updates.

Likewise - what is the justification for not allowing me to have a local user account? Let's look at Intune for a second - I can create a deployment profile that creates a local user. I can even make that user non-administrative (yay!). If Microsoft believed that any kind of online account was a necessity then they would insist on an offline domain join and a domain user being used, but they do neither.

Still think my comments are snidey and malinformed?

*Something they've been promising for a long time though I will confess I haven't checked their progress on this recently, the last time I did it was still unavailable. You could do a kind of group policy import that would tell you if the settings could be done in Intune or not but not actually import them to use).

"Why not just provide a mechanism to import group policies, convert them and apply them*?"

This, a million times over. Then my users who don't/don't know how/cba connect to the VPN will have their policies updated, and settings set.

Check out a machine based VPN rather than user based. Alwayson VPN offerings. They do help with scenarios like this.

The tone and the username are eerily familiar, but I thought the person in question was dead. Did you sue three ISPs, back in the day?

"...The tone and the username are eerily familiar, but I thought the person in question was dead. Did you sue three ISPs, back in the day?..."

If that's being asked of me - no, not me.

As in, drop a file on a preinstalled copy of Win10/11 & it does all the things mentioned, without having to nuke & pave the drive to install a fresh copy.

I could buy a new computer with Win11 on it, run the program to scrub it of all the bits I refuse to accept, and then go about configuring it the rest of the way. Otherwise I have to do a full nuke & pave, which will almost always require various drivers downloaded from manufacturer sites, and make me have to jump through multiple hoops that aren't exactly screen reader friendly.

I might, *might* be tempted to buy a new Windows computer at that point, but failing that I think my next computer will be coming from someone like System76.

Dear Microsoft, you've pissed off a long time MS supporter that took pride in being able to assist family, friends, coworkers, & complete strangers to debug, maintain, secure, & speed up their Windows machines, into someone whom replies "Avoid Windows like the plague!" to anyone & everyone that asks me for computer advice. Why? Because you've gone from a company I could almost accept from an ethical standpoint to one I wouldn't touch with an extinguisher if you were on fire. And you have nobody to blame but yourselves. You've shot yourself *And Your Customers* in the feet so many times that we need wheelchairs. Shame on you & go stick your head in a pig. =-/

> pissed off a long time MS supporter [...] into someone whom replies "Avoid Windows like the plague!"

Same here!...

Unfortunately they don't care: It's not like this affects their bottom line any, and their various managers' ego trips are way more important to them than wasting time trying to please a captive audience.

I did it using this way by doing the two regedit's that Rufus does for you....

This link gives you both methods, I have tried both and can conform that they both work, Rufus obviously with a fresh install and also the Upgrade from W10..

[1]https://www.alphr.com/bypass-windows-11-requirements/

There are quite a few sites listing the same method..

However even after 6 months I am still trying to find the advantages of W11.. It's ok but dfinately nothing world changing.. It's not bad though and I find it very stable..

[1] https://www.alphr.com/bypass-windows-11-requirements/

I have not even bothered to try Win 11 in a VM machine yet, as I know its basically Windows 10 with a new shiny interface, and even 10s start menu is littered with ads for games on the 'professional' version of Windows.

The fact 3rd party tools exist to put Windows 11 back to looking like the previous versions, shows MS don't care about their end users, as how hard would it be to give you the option of which start menu layout you prefer as part of the OS?

[Author here]

> As in, drop a file on a preinstalled copy of Win10/11 & it does all the things mentioned, without having to nuke & pave the drive to install a fresh copy.

I don't understand what you're getting at here.

An app that bypasses installation requirements for an OS is totally pointless once you have installed the OS, isn't it?

Of the 4 different tools I mention in the story, the other 3 of them *can* be run on an installed copy and do what they say. You can reconfigure the Explorer, turn off telemetry, remove all the "metro" apps etc.

The only thing I can see that you might want is to create a new local account after installation, unlinked to an MS online account.

You can do that and MS tells you how:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/how-to-create-a-local-account-in-windows-11/24c2e160-ac65-4748-a733-529e6507dfdf

Then you could remove your 1st, online account.

In other words, all the meaningful things you ask *are already possible.*

Is it conceivable that a future Windows Update could reintroduce the nasties like TPM detection thus rendering your system unusable?

Agreed just because it's not checking, doesn't stop W11 running code that needs TPM/CPU instructions present.

The forced Windows Account install, I agree, is annoying, I prefer to install with a local admin account and add the MS login later, then I crank up UAC to require an admin login

If Windows 11 is gaining market share that's probably only because it's now the only option for new Windows machines in the consumer market. I'm not aware of any businesses going to it. Was recently talking to someone from an IT consultancy we use, and he confirmed that they are seeing the same - businesses are mostly avoiding it.

Obviously they are avoiding it: AFAIK it's just Win10 with more lipstick, so upgrading to it means spending a lot of money (in hardware, retraining) for absolutely no benefit whatsoever.

Nobody in his right mind would upgrade any bigger company to Win11, only for the fun of having the latest and shiniest.

But, I'll pass on W11 forever and ever. I suffered through the ME cycle, and as Danny Glover said in Lethal Weapon... I'm too old for this shit!

[Author here]

Windows 10 end of life is late 2025:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-10-home-and-pro

You have 3 more years.

This is going to be an uphill battle for Rufus. Microsoft will make it harder and harder to patch fixes into their OS.

It isn't just DRM that is needing to be patched any more either. I feel so very sorry for non-technical computer users who are stuck with this malware as their day to day OS. Microsoft is doing such a disservice to literally the entire world. An OS this prevalent should not be in a single companies hands. It is a mess.

Upgraded from Windows 10/64/Home on my Gaming Notebook to Windows 11/64/Home to become familiar with it. Desktop runs Windows 10, is not compatible with 11 and I'm not buying a new desktop just to get 11 on it. Windows 10 Will Live on my Desktop.

Microsoft is only interested in getting people to buy new Computers with Windows 11, to make money. Microsoft has a long history of not caring about user experience.The hardware requirements are high and in this economy, how many people who are not rich, are buying new Computers? How many Companies are rolling out new Computers with Windows 11? Ya. Libre Office works fine, as an Office Suite, for me...Filling Microsoft's bank account is not MY goal. Is it yours??