What's even the point of enforcing these requirements when the OS seems to be running quite fine otherwise? Users who are running without SB or a compliant TPM will simply stay on Windows 10, and maybe stay on it past the official EOL date.
They're doing this to force people to buy new hardware and a new Windows licence. If they let you upgrade from Windows 10 for free, they don't make any money. They've already gotten people used to free updates, so they can't charge money for Windows 11 upgrades directly. Most people buy pre-built computers, so a Windows 11 licence will be included by default for most, so they will make more money.
This is silly. Microsoft doesn't even consider Windows to be their major priority in terms of money - they're investing much more heavily in Azure. They also have given free updates repeatedly, so this is an especially weird argument...
The reason they're doing this is because Microsoft doesn't control OEMs directly. They can't make Dell or whoever put in good hardware unless it's a hard-requirement to run their OS. They obviously want to start leveraging TPM 2.0, probably in order to properly compete with Chromebooks, which all require that tech already.
Chromebooks and GSuite are a meaningful threat to Microsoft - Google has a huge head start in that they've enforced much stricter restrictions from day 1 on Chromebook hardware. Microsoft is just getting aggressive about doing the same. And it's going to take at least 4 years for them to catch up, given that Windows 10 EOLs in 2015 at the earliest.
This fits far more into their business model of 0365, Sentinel, and Azure than it does with their Windows business model.
edit: Expanding on this, TPM technology is critical to Zero Trust Networking, which I'm quite sure Microsoft is going to want to push - especially since Active Directory is getting ripped out of networks practically by government order at this point. If they follow through on this, in 4 years Windows networks could be radically more secure than they are today. This fits in well with where Microsoft is taking its business (cloud, security, organization support).
> They can't make Dell or whoever put in good hardware unless it's a hard-requirement to run their OS.
They actually can. They have Windows Logo program, which specifies conditions that your product has to comply with, if you want to qualify. OEMs like Dell want to qualify, that allows them to put the Windows sticker on the box.
How do you think Microsoft made the OEMs ship UEFI and Secure Boot in the first place?
Functionally, how would that change the situation? Sounds like it's just a different method of enforcement, with this perhaps being a stricter one that prevents maybe some sort of off-label selling of the OS?
They're also going to create a large number of new Linux users. This might also allow great hardware to be obtainable for pennies on the dollar. I don't like the direction this is going, but there can be good things to come from this.
Unless Linux PC's are 90% of shelf space at Best Buy/Amazon it won't. HN forgets that 95% of people are computer illiterate and would not be able to install Linux themselves.
First-gen Threadrippers are not supported by Windows 11. Freaking Treadrippers. If they think their owners are going to get new ones for Windows 11, they must be deluded.
Best guess is that win 11 will require full disk encryption at some point. With both secure boot and tpm Microsoft will be able to lock down windows in ways they simply couldn't before.
Like it's happening on the Mac, it's getting harder for the average user to screw up since software from "unidentified developers" can't run by default.
I can still run anything I want as a power user and that will not change on macOS and won't change on Windows.
That's an early build, maybe Windows 11 RTM will actually always use a TPM (1.2 is advertised as minimally supported though).
As for secure boot, I don't see how that could be anything else than policy (that can have an impact on a security model and so on associated security measures, granted, but not having secure boot should technically not prevent booting / installation unless it is enforced by an explicit artificial limitation). But they could at least remove legacy boot support, in which case it just won't work without UEFI.
Because they want to set a minimum configuration they have to test and support for the next ten years. It might work fine today, but will it work after five feature updates?
Yeah, you can run Windows 10 on some pretty ancient unsupported hardware too, but when they break support for a driver a couple years in, you end up with a nonworking machine.
