Hey mikiem2,
You've been great at keeping us up to date on all things Windows 10. On another site, I found a reference to Windows 11 and it's new user interface, start menu and supposedly new taskbar (I didn't see that much about that).
What's the scoop on it?
mikiem2
Moderator
I’ve been looking for any *new* news today and failed to find any. The couple few new articles I did find were basically the more cynical journalists, like Ed Bott saying it was just Microsoft going for another quick cash grab, hoping to boost holiday PC sales. Maybe sadly, I’m more cynical yet, and I’m kind of hoping he’s correct – I can’t help feeling like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don’t remember Microsoft ever doing anything that was all good – there’s always been downsides that were clearly only designed to benefit Microsoft. That said…
Windows 11 became **Somewhat Official** only yesterday, when a leaked ISO of a beta version leaked to the web. Before that everything about it was speculation, based on things like the time-of-day Microsoft was holding their PR event on June 24th, and a shadow on a released image that might look like an 11. The 2 Big unknowns are if there will continue to be a Windows 10 – Microsoft docs hint that there will be two versions – and if Windows 11 will be a free upgrade like Windows 10 was. Some articles make a Lot out of a *rediscovered* commitment from Microsoft to support Windows 10 until 2025. Speculation so far leans toward it being free, but the Microsoft execs get bonuses based on stock prices, which would likely rise on news of Windows 11 being a big new source of revenue. Microsoft has learned from giving Windows 10 away that that still won’t prompt everyone to upgrade, but on the other hand, the beta ISO will activate with a Windows 8 key. Another unknown, which I haven’t seen much of anything written about, is compatibility… new devices have mostly been compatible with Windows 7, but since Windows 10 came out Microsoft has done their best to prevent people from installing it on new hardware. Another unknown is based on Microsoft having another, newer branch of the base code that Windows is built on top of. Some thought Microsoft would use it with Windows 11, and the leaked beta is definitely unfinished, so since all the apparent changes so far have to do with the user interface, I’d guess that still could happen. Microsoft has said that they want to make changes to Windows so it would work better for them in their cloud services.
*To me*, the biggest impact of all that uncertainty is on anyone thinking about buying new hardware on the 21st, when Amazon and Newegg etc. are having their huge summer sales. People have been exploring the leaked beta for a day now, and there just doesn’t seem to be anything new to report, so someone say thinking about a new laptop won’t have much to go on until the 24th, later in the week.
The changes they’ve spotted in the leaked beta include a new Inking experience / workspace, a changed, busier appearing Windows Explorer, the return of Widgets, rounded edges to windows & icons, and a new Start Menu. The Start Menu along with the familiar icons sitting on the left of the Taskbar are now centered by default, though they can be moved back to the left. Live tiles are gone. There’s supposed to be a tablet friendlier version, and Settings is supposed to be reworked, but those changes are not in the beta. Everything else is reported to be a somewhat buggy Windows 10, with many saying it should be Windows 10.1 rather than Windows 11. To justify a new version they want to see some of the things Microsoft’s been working on, like the new RFS file system and/or running apps in containers that work like a sandbox, preventing problems from badly written apps & malware.
mikiem2
Moderator
Now we know a LOT more -- Microsoft held it's PR reveal this morning. And *to me* it looks like the cash grab scenario is indeed accurate, though it could turn out that I'm wrong. There's one big change to the hardware requirements -- TPM 2 -- which if enforced IMHO would mean that some 90% of consumers can forget about it. Microsoft could be more relaxed about enforcement, or change their mind, or there could be an easy hack, but it's too soon to know. You can safely bet that there will be a slew of new PCs & laptops that come with TPM 2 this holiday season, which is why the cash grab aspect makes sense to me. That said, Microsoft could actually make use of TPM 2 in a way that really does matter, e.g. sandboxing each app running, but AFAIK nothing like that was announced.
Some PC motherboards do have an onboard socket for a TPM [Trusted Platform Module] card, but those cards are generally hard to find with the exception of an Asus card on Amazon, and it appears that there is an initial rush to grab what's available. That could change if Win11 seems like it's going to be popular, but right now if you're interested you should probably be looking for a TPM card before the few available sell out. FWIW I did read one post where someone got the Asus TPM card to work on a non-Asus board by using a USB header extension cable and modding the sockets/pins.
Other than TPM, the requirements include UEFI BIOs, which most even somewhat current systems are capable of, 64GB storage, which only effects cheaper tablets & such, and Win11 is 64-bit only, which effects almost no one. And a Microsoft account and internet connection will be required to install Win11 Home. Win11 will be a free upgrade for at least the 1st year -- it's anyone's guess if they'll charge after that -- and you can only upgrade from the latest version of Win10, so if you're on 7 you'd have to upgrade to 10 beforehand. There will be a version or feature upgrade to Win10 this fall, but beyond that all we know for sure is that Microsoft has committed to supporting Win10 until 2025.
Personally I think it's 50/50 at best whether Win11 is a hit or goes the way of Windows ME, which most people have never heard of. It's conceivable that Win11 will provide more performance, e.g. for gaming, but stuff like the new DX 12 Ultimate won't matter if few gamers move to the platform, since game devs will then ignore it. Win11 will support Android apps, but only via the Amazon app store, which will be included in the store for Win11. That means fewer apps, and whether Microsoft does anything to scale them to typical Windows screens remains to be seen. One thing that I suspect will turn off quite a few people is the new Start Menu -- it gets rid of the tiles, but it also gets rid of folders (!).
If you want to check Win11 out early, a copy should be released to the Insider Dev channel next week, but the way they word it sounds like you might need to set that up today. Initially Insiders will not need TPM 2, but Win11 will quit working once it's officially released if TPM 2 is absent -- that's what they say today anyway. They actually take what seems a bit of a hard line, saying that if you have problems and wind up resetting your PC, if you don't have TPM 2 you won't be able to reinstall Win11.
AT any rate... I think it's insane to disqualify the Vast Majority of Windows devices out there from ever running Win11, unless Win11 is more of an experiment to see if people will actually buy it, like the Windows phone, or any of the many other products Microsoft's come out with & soon after discontinued.
mikiem2
Moderator
Unsure if there was any sort of deadline to switch Insider channels to the Dev branch, I booted to my Insider copy of Win10 to make the switch. At 1st it told me I could not, because I didn't meet hardware requirements with no TPM, but trying again after a few minutes it let me switch after all. There's a help page available, which might have been helpful detailing who could get the Win11 builds, but it crashed Edge. SO after a couple of hours spent updating that Insider copy to what's current in the Dev channel, we'll see what happens next week.
zdnet[.]com/article/microsoft-here-comes-the-windows-subsystem-for-android/
M.J. Foley over at ZDNet has some info on the Android bits from this afternoon's dev targeted PR event. The Amazon App store doesn't host anywhere near the number of apps you'll find in Google's Play Store, and not everything Amazon hosts in their store will work. Android support will depend on a subsystem for Android, similar to what Microsoft does with/for Linux now, so my guess is that it'll require Hyper-V, same as WSL.
docs.microsoft[.]com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/minimum/windows-processor-requirements
neowin[.]net/news/microsoft-details-the-processor-requirements-for-windows-11/
Microsoft lists the hardware requirements, qualifying CPUs etc. at the 1st link. Neowin speculates the hard rules may not be, and that TPM 1.2 *might* work. Another article at Neowin quotes a tweet that enabling TPM in the BIOS when/if available *might* work without having an actual TPM chip or module.
mikiem2
Moderator
zdnet[.]com/article/will-your-pc-run-windows-11-even-microsoft-cant-say-for-sure/
Ed Bott at ZDNet reveals how everything regarding Win11 is a mess right now at Microsoft, with official docs changing, and things like the compatibility checker changing without documentation.
Microsoft can't quite get its upgrade story straight. And the clash between the company's engineering decisions and its marketing plan is about to cause screams of outrage from customers who will discover that their new or nearly new hardware just isn't good enough, in Microsoft's eyes.
windowscentral[.]com/psa-scalpers-are-hoarding-tpm20-modules
Right now it's unclear whether activating the firmware [BIOS] version of TPM when/if available will satisfy the requirements for Win11. So far plenty of people say yes, and no -- as Bott writes, even Microsoft seems unsure at this point. And since Win11 obviously hasn't had much [Any?] real world testing so far, if say AMD's fTPM does qualify, will it cause all sorts of problems with Win11? TO make sure I had at least one device capable of running Win11 I went looking immediately for a TPM 2 module for my Gigabyte motherboard. Turns out Gigabyte makes them, but they're near impossible to find, and that was Before the Win11 announcements. I did order one, for twice the price I thought it was worth, because I thought the odds were it would soon sell out. From what I've seen, all TPM 2 modules are selling out, and as this Neowin article says, scalpers are taking a cue from the graphics card market.
windowscentral[.]com/yes-sideload-android-apk-windows-11
Daniel Rubino at Windows Central writes that yes, you will be able to sideload Android apps in Win11. IMHO the best way to get an APK [Android app setup file] is to have the app installed on your phone or tablet, then use an Android app to export the APK. Since you can't directly download APKs from the Play store, the other options available all open up opportunities that cyber criminals can take advantage of.
Otherwise there seem to be a couple of trends I've seen in articles/posts about Win11... Some people seem to feel that there will definitely be ways for most anyone to run Win11, and the opposite, that Microsoft is really locking it down. Some [I don't really want to use the word: Apologists] talk about the advantages of TPM 2 for biz with Work-From-Home, which are real, but realistically have Zero impact on the majority of Windows users. I do think it's going to be a nightmare of epic proportions if millions of users start fooling with the BIOS trying to turn on TPM and Secure Boot.
mikiem2
Moderator
It's a Mess...
There are by now of course more confusing statements & such from Microsoft, not to mention rumors... Win11 may be released in October, but upgrading from Win10 to Win11 may not happen until 2022. The CPU requirements may be relaxed -- they're allegedly testing older CPUs -- but officially they think those CPUs will not work. Initially hardware didn't matter if you wanted to try an Insiders build -- today it does very much matter. Today I don't think anyone really KNOWS, including at Microsoft.
That said, the 1st Insider build is here, and I upgraded my Insider copy of Windows to Win11. When I switched Insider channels from Beta to Dev, it originally told me I couldn't, and had actually switched the account to the Preview channel, which doesn't seem like it'll see Win11 at all. Then after a short while it told me I could switch, but I'd have to reinstall Win10 fresh if Win11 broke, or at the latest, when Win11 hit general release. Today it downloaded the Win11 setup files fine, then ran a compatibility check as part of the setup routine. That failed (!). So I went into the BIOS setup and enabled AMD's fTPM 2.0 for my Ryzen 2700, and the PC now passed the compatibility check [liars -- last week I didn't have to]. [I've got a real TPM chip/card ordered, so figured why bother until I had it installed.]
So, what do I think of Win11? Haven't really played with it much so far, but my general impression is that it's Much less responsive than Win10 on the same PC. Getting around Win11 is doable -- there's lots of little changes, but overall I think anyone who can manage Win10 won't have any problems. The new store is harder to find your way around, e.g. you now have to navigate through a couple of menus just to check for updates. And while I'd read that the new Start Menu would be folderless, all my preexisting folders are right there. The big question I imagine, which we should start hearing about by next week, is if Win11 is faster for stuff like gaming. I *think* that Win10 being faster than 7 for gaming had a Lot to do with Win10 popularity & adoption. Early tests on the leaked ISO from last spring showed a decent improvement, but those tests were widely panned as unreliable.
neowin[.]net/news/how-to-download-and-install-windows-11-insider-builds-on-unsupported-hardware/
To get Win11 in the Insider Dev channel you had to be signed up with the Dev channel on the 24th. If you were not, this article gives you the registry changes you can make to qualify.
neowin[.]net/news/here-is-the-known-issues-with-windows-11-build-2200051-that-include-no-android-app-support/
And this article lists the problems in this 1st Insider build of Win11 that Microsoft is acknowledging.
mikiem2
Moderator
Couple of articles...
"Windows 11 Build 22000.51: Everything you need to know"
windowscentral[.]com/windows-11-build-2200051-everything-you-need-know
A fairly complete rundown showing everything they've found in the 1st Insider release.
"Windows 11: How to Enable the Classic Start Menu"
petri[.]com/windows-11-how-to-enable-the-classic-start-menu
Just in case you try it out but can't stand the new Start Menu arrangement.
mikiem2
Moderator
"Windows 11 FAQ: Everything you need to know"
zdnet[.]com/article/windows-11-faq-everything-you-need-to-know/
I guess in case the last Everything You Need to Know article didn't tell you everything you needed to know. Ed Bott writes: "I've been collecting your questions and have assembled the answers here."
In the last post I linked to an article on bringing back the Win10 Start Menu -- that is no longer possible.
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