Despite threats that Microsoft would be jealously hoarding updates for only the chips on its lists, the first Windows 11 post-launch update has been happily installing on systems with processors well off the minimum requirements grid. Reportedly even single-core Pentium 4 chips. There seemed to be a host of unsupported hardware that should have been perfectly fine running an updated Windows 10 that were now being locked out of Windows 11.Įxcept they actually aren't locked out. Confusion reigned supreme as differing messages seemed to be coming out of Microsoft on an almost daily basis regarding its sudden love for TPM 2.0. The initial announcement set the stage with new security demands as a minimum requirement for upgrading to the new OS. Just look at the mess it's made of Windows 11 so far. Okay, so there were probably more factors to it than that, like being able to cull promised support for a whole bunch of old PCs, but you get the general idea I'm going for.īut if Microsoft had been brave enough to not give in to the lure of a big launch event, sales of new products, and tons of press about a purported new OS, it could have saved it-and by extension us-a whole lot of trouble. 'Why don't we sell this as a whole new Windows…'Īnd lo, the idea of Windows 11 is born. 'Here's the new HP Envy with Windows 10 Update 21H2' just doesn't have the same ring as 'New HP Envy with Windows 11,' after all.Īt some point Microsoft execs will have taken a look at what the project leads were doing with the original Sun Valley Windows 10 update redesign and thought, 'hey, that doesn't even look like Windows 10 anymore.' Cue lightbulb moment, dollar signs appearing in their eyes, the whole cartoon fat-cat schtick.

I mean, it's not like you can shift a new laptop as easily when marketing it around a feature update to a five-year old OS. I'm not saying the only reason we ended up with the Sun Valley update morphing into a whole 'new' OS was that laptop makers wanted a way to market new machines this year, but I bet there was a conversation or two about it.

That's great for Microsoft, it's great for users, but you know who it's not so great for? People who want to sell new systems to punters based on the shiny new thing. That would have proven the promise of Windows-as-a-service as, thanks to the increasingly modular design of Windows 10, it would deliver all the best bits of a whole new operating system without all the headaches launching and/or installing a new OS involves.

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