Question Why forcefeed Win 11 on unsupported hardware?

[USAFRet]

As we all know, Windows 11 has some pretty strict official hardware requirements. TPM, CPU generation, etc.

Of course, there are many ways around this.

But why bother?

I have Win 11 on a known supported system, Win 10 on all the others.
Except for clicks being in different places, I don't see a lot of real difference.

What are your reasons for going through all the trials and tribulations of forcing Win 11 on unsupported hardware?
What benefits do you see, over what Win 10 gave you?

 

[Lafong]

My imagined reason would be a compulsive yearning to be on the leading edge...rather than an unspeakably square Luddite. I can't help myself.

As could have been said in the early phases of most operating systems.

A first cousin of hardware upgrade-itis, when existing hardware is more than adequate.

Like, you know, "future proof" and all that implies.

Most likely unspoken.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Yeah I remember being like that once. Not much anymore

 

[jacob249358]

I didn't push it onto unsupported stuff but anyway I didn't like it at first cause muscle memory has me misclicking stuff but I like the modern look to it. It also feels a bit crisper.

 

[hotaru.hino]

I'm going to boil it down to a few reasons:

• FOMO: people who want to be on the bleeding edge, but they're upset that they can't.
• They don't understand how software development really works. While it doesn't help if the developer isn't clear enough on why things are the way they are, they think that developers can just turn features on and off to support them.
• They don't like that their "perfectly functioning" hardware is now "obsolete" by someone else's arbitrary assessment.

Another problem is despite the computer industry saying "we should reaaaaaally have this by this date", nobody ever actually does anything about it until the date arrives and everyone is caught with their pants down. Like when the GPS date rolled over in 2019, our customer was warned in 2018 that there was going to be a rollover and it needs to be addressed. They sat on it and suddenly their equipment is in trouble of breaking. This is despite how relatively easy it is to account for GPS date rollovers.

 

[USAFRet]

FOMO: people who want to be on the bleeding edge, but they're upset that they can't.

I think the FOMO is a large part of this.
Wanting to be on the bleeding edge, but don't really know why.

 

[Alabalcho]

I don't have "supported hardware" around me. But being in-house IT support for my family and many friends, I got it just to know when I'm asked "Where is this-and-this feature of this effing Windows version I got with my new computer"...

 

[USAFRet]

I don't have "supported hardware" around me. But being in-house IT support for my family and many friends, I got it just to know when I'm asked "Where is this-and-this feature of this effing Windows version I got with my new computer"...

In the last 6 months, how many questions from your friends and family have you gotten on this?

 

[Alabalcho]

In the last 6 months, how many questions from your friends and family have you gotten on this?

Just one, from the SO, and answering it ensured I had a dinner that evening 😉

 

[TerryLaze]

What are your reasons for going through all the trials and tribulations of forcing Win 11 on unsupported hardware?

There is zero trials and or tribulations since the process is super easy you just copy one file replacing another one, and there is no forcing either since windows 11 itself makes no check against the CPU so it runs just as well on any CPU.

As to why people do it, it's really simple, the answer is why not?! There are zero downsides and you get a fresh OS.

Personally I created a .vhd file on my ssd drive, used dsim to apply win 11 to it and easybcd to add it to the boot menu and it was no different from doing that for windows 10 or 7 or any other OS. And if I want to get rid of the installation all I have to do is to boot into windows 10 and delete a single file.

 

[Colif]

Having the new "shiny" even if old shiny was just as good and all they did was change the wrapper.

They don't like that their "perfectly functioning" hardware is now "obsolete" by someone else's arbitrary assessment.

this was a big reason for the push back. To be fair to some, I saw one person with a PC from last year that can't update so its a valid stance for some to take. Blame there is on the hardware maker really. But there were a lot who had PC made in the last few years who have reasons to not be amused

I haven't tried to install it on something its not compatible with. Three PC in house but only one really new enough. Mum wouldn't appreciate me messing with her PC and the third hasn't been plugged in for 2 years.
I see plenty of videos about doing it though.

Its possible MIcrosoft's position is that if they tell people it doesn't work, that will stop a large enough percentage from trying, that Microsoft can probably ignore with the ones with do it anyway... its such a small percentage. Just like they mostly ignored all the people who ran 10 unactivated now for about 5 years. As long as enough people believe they can't do it.

 

[USAFRet]

Personally I created a .vhd file on my ssd drive, used dsim to apply win 11 to it and easybcd to add it to the boot menu and it was no different from doing that for windows 10 or 7 or any other OS. And if I want to get rid of the installation all I have to do is to boot into windows 10 and delete a single file.

And for the VAST majority of people (not us here), you're speaking Klingon with a Greek dialect.

 

[TerryLaze]

And for the VAST majority of people (not us here), you're speaking Klingon with a Greek dialect.

Sure, but creating a windows 10 installation media and then just replacing the install.wim with the one from windows 11 is something that anybody can do.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Sure, but creating a windows 10 installation media and then just replacing the install.wim with the one from windows 11 is something that anybody can do.

Judging by some of the questions we get asked, I doubt that "anybody" could do it.

 

[Colif]

You don't know who is asking the question, do they think their PC is the monitor? Or did they just make their own CPU.
The range on "anyone" who shows up here is pretty vast

 

[TerryLaze]

Judging by some of the questions we get asked, I doubt that "anybody" could do it.

You don't know who is asking the question, do they think their PC is the monitor? Or did they just make their own CPU.
The range on "anyone" who shows up here is pretty vast

At that point it doesn't matter though if it's win11 or win10, they can mess up everything.

 

[Colif]

Someone has to try to show the right way... though the CPU example would be probably out of my league. Sometimes you open a post and think. this person knows more about it than I do... and walk away again. Often its somewhere inbetween not knowing anything and knowing too much

 

[USAFRet]

Sure, but creating a windows 10 installation media and then just replacing the install.wim with the one from windows 11 is something that anybody can do.

Basically, though...I'm not asking "how hard" or "if"...but rather...."Why bother?"
Why jump through even the (mostly minimal) hoops for 11 on a system that is totally unsupported?

Currently using both, I see NO major difference between 10 and 11.

 

[Colif]

but you can have it. I know not on all PC but the people who don't have it, "want" it... they may not be able to tell you why. I remember how mad it was just in June. Just after the announcement. The video made people want the "features" that we still wonder about

none of these features (scroll down) are overly exciting really
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/business/compare-windows-11

Its a sign how similar they are that I have to find a website to see what it offers. I stopped looking for differences.

 

[TerryLaze]

Basically, though...I'm not asking "how hard" or "if"...but rather...."Why bother?"
Why jump through even the (mostly minimal) hoops for 11 on a system that is totally unsupported?

Currently using both, I see NO major difference between 10 and 11.

What's the difference from asking this in general?!
Why bother updating to windows 11 even on supported systems?

You are running both, why did you do it? You had to download it, go through the whole installation process and you already knew beforehand that there are no big differences.

For me it was curiosity, I just wanted to check it out on my hardware using it myself and not passively just watching a youtube video.

 

[USAFRet]

What's the difference from asking this in general?!
Why bother updating to windows 11 even on supported systems?

You are running both, why did you do it? You had to download it, go through the whole installation process and you already knew beforehand that there are no big differences.

For me it was curiosity, I just wanted to check it out on my hardware using it myself and not passively just watching a youtube video.

On supported hardware, going to Win11 is mostly a no brainer.

For older unsupported hardware, Win 10 is still viable, until late 2025. By which time most of those systems will be near a decade old.

I was just asking what peoples motivations might be.
Thanks for your input.

 

[TerryLaze]

On supported hardware, going to Win11 is mostly a no brainer.

But copying one file in addition to that, now that's just too much of a hassle?!
I just can't get it.

If you had to hack windows 11, modify a .dll to stop it from denying your CPU or whatever, then I could understand your reasoning but again there is nothing in windows 11 that checks against hardware, it's only the installer that is rigged to not run on the unsupported list.

 

[USAFRet]

But copying one file in addition to that, now that's just too much of a hassle?!
I just can't get it.

If you had to hack windows 11, modify a .dll to stop it from denying your CPU or whatever, then I could understand your reasoning but again there is nothing in windows 11 that checks against hardware, it's only the installer that is rigged to not run on the unsupported list.

Again...you can do this. I can do this.
Pretty trivial.

Many other people, incl a lot of the people we see here, will screw that process up completely. Even as easy as it is.


My base question is still....Why bother? Even at that minimal level of effort.

 

[Colif]

Because they won't know until they have used it, how similar it is to windows 10. We can tell them all we like that you can't tell difference between 10 and 11.

Its something people have to learn themselves. Its not something that can be taught. Its like working out who to trust, it takes learning from first hand experience.

So we can wonder why but there is a desire to see what all the fuss was all about, they don't know a lot of it was just promises they still haven't kept. the "demo" video that was probably fake made everyone want android apps on a PC even if they can't tell you why. Showing the desktop animations at 720p sure made them look better... i can't really see them at 1440p. It was all fluff and built up hype for what is just win 10 2nd edition.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Because they won't know until they have used it, how similar it is to windows 10. We can tell them all we like that you can't tell difference between 10 and 11.

Its something people have to learn themselves. Its not something that can be taught. Its like working out who to trust, it takes learning from first hand experience.

So we can wonder why but there is a desire to see what all the fuss was all about, they don't know a lot of it was just promises they still haven't kept. the "demo" video that was probably fake made everyone want android apps on a PC even if they can't tell you why. Showing the desktop animations at 720p sure made them look better... i can't really see them at 1440p. It was all fluff and built up hype for what is just win 10 2nd edition.

Honestly, if people are smart enough to install an OS on their own computer, they should be smart enough to do it on a VM. And while we could all go on about how a VM doesn't really show you how the OS works on your actual hardware, well, I'd argue that's not really the most important thing when trying out an OS. The UI/UX is way more important than the underlying features, especially if you're hopping from one version of Windows to the next as chances are, any of the new features aren't in widespread use to matter or they're not going to impact your day-to-day usage.

For instance, when I'm in the mood to shop for a Linux distro, I'm not going to spend more time than I'd like trying to make bootable USB drives and finding a spare storage drive to install it on. I'm going to plop it on a VM and play around with it from there. This alone covers most of the points I'm looking for.