Re: Microsoft admits that Windows is short-term support in realistic terms

On Mon, 2/17/2025 7:15 AM, CrudeSausage wrote:

On 2025-02-17 3:23 a.m., Chris wrote:

CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:

On 2025-02-16 2:18 p.m., Johnny LaRue wrote:

On Feb 16, 2025 at 8:53:44 AM EST, "CrudeSausage" <crude@sausa.ge> wrote:
>

On 2025-02-16 6:04 a.m., Joel wrote:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-removes-windows-11-24h2-official-support-on-8th-9th-10th-gen-intel-cpus/
>
>
So, I can still boot Win11 on my box, because it's grandfathered in,
from 2021.  OK.  Great.  Nah, I'll stick with Linux, thanks.

>
That is honestly very interesting. It's looking like Microsoft is
borrowing Apple's approach to support.

>
Good. It's about damn time.  Very hard to move forward when you are still
supporting ancient hardware (and software).
>
And let's face it.  To have any future at all, Windows desperately needs to
move forward.

>
Have you ever considered that an operating system could offer layers of
functionality? For example, a 286 could run Windows 3.0, but if you
wanted the enhanced features, you needed a 386. Why can't it be that way
with Windows again?

>
Because judging the tech market by 30 year old standards is daft. Windows
11 has nothing in common with Windows 3.0.

 
Yes, but it can easily make itself available to lower-end machines by turning off some graphical features which are enabled by default and some security features which aren't supported on older machines. The core of Windows 11 should run on machines from the 2006-2007 era, it just won't.
 

The truth of the matter is, 400,000,000 computers are going to the
landfill, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

Even throwing them out is going to be a problem. The recycling plants
don't have the capacity for something like that. There will be a very
large pile out back of the shredding plant. Anything which requires manual
labor (remove mobo from desktop case) times 400,000,000 is "a lot of hours".

*******

Here are some breadcrumbs.

   CMPXCHG16b requirement only applies to the 64-bit installation of Windows 8.1;
   the 32-bit version should work just fine on your machine.

   CMPXCHG16b, PrefetchW, and LAHF/SAHF

   SSE2, PAE, NX

   SSE4.2 POPCNT, plus the vanilla (single operand) POPCNT

   Some applications also have at least an SSE2 requirement
   (could be used as an equivalent to the MOVEM on a 68K processor).
   That might have been a browser (all platforms) needing SSE2.

The labeling of the features varies a bit in utilities.

https://superuser.com/questions/931742/windows-10-64-bit-requirements-does-my-cpu-support-cmpxchg16b-prefetchw-and-la

LAHF-SAHF       -       Supports LAHF/SAHF instructions in 64-bit mode
NX              -       Supports no-execute page protection
CX16            *       Supports CMPXCHG16B instruction
X64             *       Supports 64-bit mode
PREFETCHW       -       Supports PREFETCHW instruction

Graphics are DX9, DX11, DX12, DX12 Ultimate, sorted into driver
versions XDDM and WDDM 1.1 thru 3.4 . Win10 22H2 requires min WDDM 1.1.
A HD6450 is WDDM 1.1 (it got only one WDDM driver). The 7900GT crashes
on Linux, runs on Windows 10. As example of "adventures for the unwary".
It's because of this and various secure boot messes (shim signing),
the industry has set this up such that "it takes too many hours
of maintenance to wrestle this stuff from the landfill". The industry
has won, with their stupid little tricks. Even Wayland plays a part
(follow the money). Wayland is the superfluous third tit.

   Paul