New Windows OS is confirmed ...
 

Reported variously on the WWW, and also today in sections of the Australian press. This should be fun :(

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/3/22...-teaser-rumors

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...-b1869946.html

Outlook now crashes on me twice a day since my workplace patched Windows 10 to the latest revision, and it even loses the saved e-mail that I was typing. So many annoying gremlins.

Windows 11, well it's just an increment to generate fresh revenue, the quality will probably be just as mediocre as what it replaces. My 2014 Macbook Pro costs me nothing to keep it upgraded to the very latest OS offering, and it's been through a few.

Its out.................
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57598554Microsoft has unveiled Windows 11, its "next generation" operating system, at a virtual event.

The new software will let Android apps run on the Windows desktop. Product manager Panos Panay promised smaller, faster security updates - a common complaint for Windows users - and said they would happen in the background. Windows 11 will also let users configure multiple desktops for work, home, and gaming, like on a Mac.

Microsoft says there are currently about 1.3 billion devices running Windows 10.

An early preview version of the next version will be released for app developers next week. Windows 11 will be available as a free update to existing Windows 10 users - although some devices will not have the right specifications. These include a minimum of 64 gigabytes of storage and 4 gigabytes of RAM. One cosmetic change is putting the "Start" button at the bottom-centre of the screen rather than left-hand side.

In addition, Windows 11 will feature tighter integration with Microsoft's communications platform Teams. Xbox Games Pass, a subscription service offering access to hundreds of games, will also be pre-installed. The tech giant said it would share more profits from its app store with creators and developers - as rival Apple continues to face challenges over its business model. When Windows 10 launched in 2015, Microsoft said it would be the final version of the operating system. It has since announced Windows 10 will be retired in 2025.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella described the launch as "a major milestone in the history of Windows", but analyst Geoff Blaber from CCS Insight said he did not consider it to be "a revolutionary step". "Windows 11 is an iterative release that pinpoints where Windows needs greater ambition rather than introducing the sweeping changes seen with its predecessor," he said. "The end game for Microsoft is ensuring that the step up from Windows 10 to Windows 11 provides significant enough improvements to offset any complaints."Forrester's principal analyst JP Gownder noted that the new operating system was based on the code of Windows 10, which should prevent upgrade glitches such as those seen in the past with Windows Vista.

"These user-friendly nods to the past are a double-edged sword, though," he added.

"They're great for continuity of experience, but they make you wonder what the 11 really stands for. Is this really more of an admittedly feature-rich Windows 10 update than a full-version release?"

Well I, for one, refused to install it. Audio port management never worked properly and was a source of much annoyance to people attempting to use it to run amateur radio stations using digital modes. I'm still using 8.1.

It appears Windows 11 will require a TPM 2.0 chip or firmware to install. Not sure why. My mobo has the connector but the part is out of stock. Guess I stick with Windows 10 until October 14, 2025. :)

I've just run the "Health Check" and it says that my 4 year old Laptop with an Core i7 processor and 16Gb RAM is not suitable. Then it offers me places where I can buy a new machine. Sounds like a big con to me.

PC Health check says that I can't use 11 as my pc will not support Secure Boot.
Whatever that is.
MY pc meets the other spec requirements..................

Our one-year-old ASUS with a fairly fast dual processor CPU, good stand-alone graphics card, 8 Gig RAM, and 1TB storage will NOT run Windows 11 according to the Microsoft Health Report! Talk about planned obsolescence. We'll stick with 10 for the time being, but must admit that Linux is looking like a viable alternative.

- Ed

It seems as though you won't be the only one (me included!) who will be walking the penguin way - if I live until 2025! :uhoh:

You may just need to enable the relevant settings in UEFI, https://www.howtogeek.com/737171/how...run-windows-11.

Thank you for that suggestion, Prop swinger! I'll give it a go and report back, though I continue to wonder if Windows 11 offers "must have" features which make it sufficiently superior to its predecessor to warrant download and install. I must admit to being old and set in my ways....

- Ed

Chinese chairman demand new version be called "Windows XI"...

Just checked my year old laptop, seems to meet the requirements, TPM 2 was hidden and disabled for some reason but think I have now enabled. BUT, probably will stick with 10 and see how it pans out. Remember 8.0...

Oh I do wish people wouldn't swear!

have you got a tpm installed that might be why it’s triggering the alert, I have one on mine, I bought it years ago for added security. It cost a pittance, but the price has gone through the roof, supply and demand plus plain greed.

I do most abjectly apologise - I think that is probably considered platphemy!

I had to enable TPM2 in UEFI or BIOS as I call it... it was hidden and had to be unhidden to enable...

A NEW EXPLORER?! :mad:

In my dotage, I normally sit here in the UK just not caring what MS do to bring me distress. But this is unconscionable. I wrote this to a tech blog.


I have four Explorer symbols on my Task bar. - e.g. C:\Windows\explorer.exe F:\X,/e - They are all tuned to different targets, including which drive the target is on. I suppose that nifty trick will now not work.


While I'm at it, has anyone ever concluded why there are a load of targets above the C: ? I want reality to begin there, at the beginning of a drive, not in a void that used to be the domain of A: and B:

MS, just leave us with a File Management System, and then buzz off.

For the youngsters

https://www.howtogeek.com/122891/wha...ives-used-for/

The early CP/M and IBM PC style computers had no hard drive. You had one floppy drive, and that was it. Unless you spent another $1k or so on a second floppy drive, then your system was smokin’! If you only had one drive it was common to boot from one disk, put in the other disk with your programs and data, then run the program. Once the program finished, the computer would request that you reinsert the boot disk so you could use the command line again. Copying data from one disk to the other was a series of “Please insert source disk into drive A:… Please insert destination disk into drive A:… Please insert source disk into drive A:…”

By the time hard drives became cheap, the “expensive” computers typically had two floppy drives (one to boot and run common programs, one to save data and run specific programs). And so it was common for the motherboard hardware to support two floppy drives at fixed system addresses. Since it was built into the hardware, it was thought that building the same requirement into the OS was acceptable, and any hard drives added to the machine would start with disk C: and so forth.

During the transition from 5.25″ disks (which were actually, physically floppy) to 3.5″ disks (which were encased in a harder plastic shell) it was common to have both drives in one system, and again it was supported on the motherboard with hardware, and in the OS at fixed addresses. As very few systems ran out of drive letters, it was not thought to be important to consider making those drives reassignable in the OS until much later when drives were abstracted along with addresses due to the plug’n’play standard.

A lot of software was developed since that time, and unfortunately much of it expected to see long-term storage on the C: drive. This includes the BIOS software that boots the computer. You can still attach two floppy drives, boot into DOS 6.1, and use it as you would have in the early 90’s, with floppy drives A and B.

So largely the reason for starting the hard drive at C is for backwards compatibility. While the OS has abstracted data storage to some degree, it still treats A and B differently, in such a way that allows them to be removed from the system without altering the OS, caching them differently, and due to early viruses treating their boot sector with more caution than the hard drive’s boot sector.

I've been reading the background to Windows 11 and it seems to be different for two reasons:

1. To make it more secure
2. To stop people with Macs running Windows
Now you know.
They want to sell more hardware.

Apparently there is a way to make Windows Xi run on a legacy BIOS PC. It involves creating a special registry key called LabConfig and fudging the ISO image.

https://allthings.how/how-to-install...ot-or-tpm-2-0/

I've not tried it and wonder if MicroS~1 will patch that capability out.

UEFI is here to stay. A big debate in Fedora about maintaining backwards compatibility for old hardware with the infamous Lennart (creator of systemd) pushing his own not-backwards compatible boot loader into Fedora. Even though UEFI supports UEFI-MBR to boot your old disks you still require hardware that can actually load EUFI firmware. The lively debate continues in Fedora.

Why throw a perfectly good old computer in the bin? Perhaps I should write a stern letter to Greta.