The problem with "Windows Mary Rose" is not so much the hardware requirements as the obeissance requirements. The future of commercial IT seems to be a new feudal system where only the overlords are permitted to own property and everyone else is in perpetual servitude.

> The problem with "Windows Mary Rose" is not so much the hardware requirements as the obeissance requirements.

TIL two new words!

"obeisance" ("s"): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/obeisance

"obéissance" ("ss"): the French equivalent

Thanks!

I work at a mid-sized company of about 3000 employees that designs and manufactures lasers and such. It's important that all PCs, whether in an office or on the factory floor, run the same OS. We run Windows 10 and use Dells. The models we use, if I go to Dell's website, don't have a Windows 10 option, only Windows 11 or Ubuntu. Since all PC's given to my new employees (or mine replaced last August) all have the "Standard Company Image" of Windows 10 Enterprise, Office, Solidworks & Matlab, I presume they came from Dell with whatever OS option was cheapest as the SSD gets the "Standard Image" slapped on it anyway. If many companies behave similarly, I can see Windows 11 losing ground to Windows 10.

We buy Dells, and never use the stadard image - too much shite, even on the business machines. Best policy is a wipe and reinstall / reimage with generic MS install media (or an image built from generic MS Install media).

The Pro OEM licenses of Windows allow downgrade so buying them with W11 Pro then wiping them and putting W10 Pro on is perfectly within the rules.

We are nearly entirely W11 now (last few W10 machines expected to be withdrawn within the next few weeks). Does it offer any major advantages? No, not really, but it's not horrendous, and as much of our hardware supported it we decided to go for it - managed in place upgrades with a lot of the machines (which worked with no issues in most cases), and replaced the remaining W10 machines which didn't meet the hardware requirements as they reached end of life. This did give a much longer overlap than I would have liked (in the past we've done OS switchovers within three months or so - this was over a year), but it's not given any major problems.

Basic reason for the lack of interest seems to be that W11 doesn't offer any major feature advances. I doubt if the hardware requirements are much of an issue in businesses now as most will be on a maximum of five years in the renewal cycle, and anything which doesn't meet the requirements is likely to be a fair bit beyond that now. It is going to be more of an issue with home users, though, who tend to keep computers much longer and use them less.

Have a laptop which started life on Win 8 back in 2012. Over the years have upgraded SSD and from 8 to 16 gig of Ram, new battery and thermal paste etc. Upgrade from Win 8.1 to Win 10 went well. Classic Shell is great.

Obviously the ancient i7 cpu in my lappy and no TPU chip, meant on the surface, I could not upgrade to Win 11. Saying that, there is a way and MS doesn't block it, I found out how through a small YT channel, Chris Waite. All the MS updates come through and can choose what to install, currently on Win 11 Home, 23H2

Then came the issue of telemetry and ads etc in Win 11, used OFGB (Oh Frick Go Back), find it on GitHub, it cuts the cruft. Was also able to install gpedit.msc, meaning my Win 11 Home, functions somewhat more like the Pro version.

I don't work in IT but El Reg helps me take an interest and want to learn more.

Check out Microsoft Activation Scripts. You can turn your "home" version into the "enterprise" version and reduce its phone home behavior.

Thanks. I honestly don't need the enterprise version, I'm not even on a network. I did just manage to remove Edge, my goal is to strip out, where possible, everything which can report back to MS as well as keep attack vectors to a minimum. Inter-wibbles is scary these days.

Meh, it's XP -> 7, 7 -> 10 all over again. People wow to never upgrade or switch to Linux or Apple, but in the end they just bite the bullet and fall in line. That's the beauty of what is effectively a monopoly position.

>Meh, it's XP -> 7, 7 -> 10 all over again.

So 11 is the Vista between XP and 7, the 8 between 7 and 10, and to be avoided while we wait for 12?

> So 11 is the Vista between XP and 7, the 8 between 7 and 10, and to be avoided while we wait for 12?

That would be nice, but something would need to force Microsoft to extend support for Windows 10. Like another Eee PC, as captain veg mentions below.

I would be happy to pay for a new release of Windows 7 Professional that restores the original working environment on the new W11 laptop I bought in December. No Adverts, No personal data export and running all my original applications on the current Windows 11 PC would make working so much better.

I think that a new release with the original environment on the new hardware would be very popular.

For years Microsoft was been making money by forcing everyone to buy new computers with a new version of Windows, but originally everyone was only buying new software updates on their original computer. That resulted in all the machine manufacturers complaining and the new Windows version only running on the new computers. Every manufacturer was only working to make more money by forcing users to update, not just offering new improvements that would make everyone want to update and be so happy with the new environment (that's never happened for years now).

even granma throw shade onna 'leven

Suspect some statically anomaly somewhere? Eg could just be a lot of pcs having been dormant for a while and are now being pressed back into service - e.g. kids revising over Easter for summer exams??

What if (and only if) a significant lot of Win-11 PC's became invisible for the statistics, and the rest remained?

You would see a similar outcome of the statistics.

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. (source disputed)

Win-11 is no longer identifiable by the User Agent string on http(s) GETs, it always returns "Windows 10.0" (maybe M$ were afraid that takeup might be a bit slow and didn't want to provide ammunition for their detractors). There is an alternative "Client Hints" API available but Firefox refuse to have anything to do with that. I assume that StatCounter have found another way to collect the OS version information.

"maybe M$ were afraid that takeup might be a bit slow and didn't want to provide ammunition for their detractors"

It seems MS want to deny us our ammunition by emptying the magazine in its foot.

Statcounter's sitebase is far from representative and increasingly likely to fall foul of third-party blocking techniques. Take all the numbers derived from it with a pinch of salt.

"With Microsoft showing no signs of backing down over the Windows 11 hardware requirements or of keeping Windows 10 supported for a little longer, the question is, what happens next?"

Time for something like the eee PC to shake thing up again?

-A.

eee pc with a new [1]BoB ?

[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2007/06/06/asus_eeepc_2.jpg

Perhaps we need some organisation, like the EU, to require MS to produce and support a version of Windows that runs on existing hardware, with AI disabled so as to avoid unnecessary e-waste and electricity consumption…

I recently purchased a small form factor computer which I intended to load with linux. For some incomprehensible reason it came with Win11 preloaded so for the sake of curiousity I allowed it to complete the installation. At this point I should mention my monitor is 5120x1440, a legacy of my gaming days. With the start button in the middle of the screen and other controls in all 4 corners this is effectively unusable without third party software akin to Classic Start Menu (which I use even under Win 10).

The system is now chortling away happily with Linux Mint. I am hoping other manufacturers of low end kit will not preinstall Win 11 because it is a pointless exercise.

It takes mere moments to move the start button back to the left: https://www.wikihow.com/Move-the-Start-Menu-Back-to-the-Left-on-Windows-11

Unfortunately that's the least of the issues. Windows 11 is touted as "faster, more reliable and more intuitive". I'd say it's the opposite, and after spending a while making it usable, now I "only" waste about half an hour every day fighting with it on my company laptop.

Actualy I want the start button in the top left corner and the task bar to the left, which is the setup I have used for years. I understand this is not possible on Win11 without third party software and TBH I am sufficiently satisfied with my customized Win 10 to stay with it until I make the inevitable final jump to a full linux household.

"5120x1440"

Maybe Elon will design a Full Self Driving mouse so you can enjoy tooling around your vast estate with W11.

" Users with the requisite hardware have probably already upgraded. "

Well, maybe not quite all of them.

What happens next is textbook, up to a point. Borkzilla finds that its weight in the market is once again thwarted by the fact that hardware that is five years years old still does the job fine, thank you very much.

Redmond has still not understood that the days where everyone happily upgraded every year, or 18 months, are over. You can try to cram a new OS version (that is only new via the number scheme and silly GUI changes), we know that our hardware is fine and will be for the next ten years.

So Redmond desperately tries to convince everyone, via Windows Update blockages and dire messages on the IntarWebs, that the new version is absolutely indispensable, and Intel concurs (duh). Meanwhile, users still find that their Windows last-version-that-was-ever-supposed-to-be works fine, Windows Update blockages be damned.

The only thing Borkzilla is going to gain here is that, at one point, users are going to knock on the door at Redmond HQ and bring out the pitchforks and torches and say "Stop fucking around with out work tool. Just support it and make it secure".

At least I hope that will happen.

Who would fancy the job of going to the beancounters to tell them they have to budget for replacing a fleet of PCs in good shape and working well before the H/W hits physical EoL just because Microsoft says so? Or alternatively explaining that paying Microsoft a subscription for extended support isn't really blackmail?

"Who would fancy the job of going to the beancounters to tell them they have to budget for replacing a fleet of PCs in good shape and working well before the H/W hits physical EoL just because Microsoft says so?"

That ain't going to happen assuming the computers are mostly going to be on 3 to 5 year replacement cycles (as will be the case in most medium and large organisations) - computers which are five years old now will nearly all be capable of running W11, and there is still 18 months to go yet until W10 hits end of support.

I had Win11 briefly on a gifted laptop and found it horrible with the advert-like "suggestions" and other crap that I struggled to turn off without too much wasting of my short life.

As I had need of a Windows machine for some hardware specific crap, it was nuked and Win10 put on with the help of Rufus to more easily get rid of the forced MS account creation, etc. While I prefer Win 7 and generally use Linux, Win10 was nicer than 11 which is pretty damning.

Most people have their faces burred in their phones. Which are Apple or Android. Even billg purchasing Nokia couldn't stem the tide.

"However, businesses not caught up in the hype are also all too aware that buying an AI PC is a risky prospect right now."

Sorry, I don't agree. An 'AI PC' is just a reasonably-specced PC using modern components. It's going to be perfectly capable of all the things you might want to use a computer for, even if (as is likely) the AI hype isn't on your radar.

>>It's going to be perfectly capable of all the things you might want to use a computer for<<

and the AI PC is also going to be perfectly capable of slurping everything you do in the cause of "suggesting" unimportant "needs". Do us a favour Microsoft. Just get the OS (preferably 10, not 11) consistent and stable, and not prone to borking all its updates. That's all I would ask - but for me it is too late. I moved to "another L-word" OS on a machine that would run 11 if I was daft enough.