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Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

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Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#161
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2017 for macOS 15 (2018 for mainstream Macs): https://support.apple.com/en-us/120282 A few years shorter than the Win 10 lifecycle. Much shorter than the XP lifecycle, though that was unusual.

I'd bet my money that if we took a Windows 10 and a macOS High Sierra laptop, the Windows one would run supported versions of apps much longer than the macOS one, even if one upgraded to the latest supported macOS on that machine while staying on Windows 10 as the time went on. MacOS apps target the latest few versions and given macOS' rapid release cycle (in comparison to Windows, at least), you can easily find your…

Without a doubt, Microsoft wins on backward compatibility. I was running a circa-2006 Firewire audio device on Windows 10 in 2021 using drivers that had not been updated since 2012.

I had a Dell Laptop that, when I bought it in 2006, had Windows XP on it. I was able to upgrade it all the way to Windows 10, at no charge. (The beta versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8 both just kind of rolled over into full fledged versions of the OS. Now, even by the time I had Win8 on that machine, it was just for fun. I mostly kept it around because the screen resolution was unusually high for 2006, and for a period afterward, laptop screen resolutions were almost all lower than WXGA+ even on higher end machines. But you could run Windows 10 and modern browsers on a machine built for the WinXP era. Also, I think I paid $700 for that machine, from the Dell Outlet. That's a lot of mileage for the price paid.

So when Windows 10 told me that my 12-year-old Ship of Theseus Dell XPS desktop was unable to take an upgrade to Windows 11, I took a long hard look, and sprung for an M1 Macbook w/ 64gb of RAM. They had a pretty killer deal on these at B&H, and it's the first time I've ever felt like I've had a true "desktop replacement" laptop. I still think Explorer is better than Finder (and I'm not going to argue with anyone about why so don't bother asking), there are things I will miss about having an ATX case, but Apple's abdication on proprietary ports is ultimately what pushed me over the edge. Everything is USB-C. Great! I had gotten a lot of mileage out of Firewire hardware, but I saw this as a pivotal moment to use some of that money I'd saved over the last decade and a half to completely modernize my setup.

If Windows 11 hadn't forced me to consider new core hardware (and if Apple silicon hadn't leapfrogged everything else on the market - using a laptop all day without charging? Phenomenal.) I'd still be using Windows.

I've been using MS operating systems since DOS 3.1, I just have to assume I'm no longer their target market.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#162
post #3

As a side note, Windows Server 2025 appears to share the OS base with Windows 11, but it doesn't seem to have the same requirements of CPU/TPM? Or am I wrong? (not that I'm suggesting to use Windows Server as a client OS, especially given its price tag)

I haven't installed Windows Server 2025 on bare metal, but in a virtual machine it's happy to install w/o a TPM.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#163
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a new "Adminless" account model with linux-like just-in-time escalation This was the promise of User Account Control, was it not? Or does that just prompt for confirmation for various actions, without actually enforcing a security boundary?

UAC provides just-in-time elevation. The user belongs to the 'admin' group (aka wheel) and only receives an admin token when performing a task that requires elevation. Once the task is complete, the token is destroyed.

Sorry, I'm confused. I can't figure out from your explanation how the new adminless just-in-time elevation is supposed to be different from UAC's just-in-time elevation?

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#164
post #154
post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s why Play Integrity is based on hardware attestation and it is no longer a swiss cheese? And Win11 requires specifically TPM 2.0 (usually fTPM) not just any TPM. You’re also entirely missing the point. Yes, you can bypass TPM based DRM to extract the unencrypted video (or just analog hole it) that’s why the game is to lock down the OS so you just can’t play it. If all DVD players came with watermark detecti…

>And Win11 requires specifically TPM 2.0 (usually fTPM) not just any TPM. There are TPM 2.0 dTPMs. If the conspiracy is that they want to push people towards "hardware attestation", then they're doing a pretty bad job. >You’re also entirely missing the point. Yes, you can bypass TPM based DRM to extract the unencrypted video (or just analog hole it) that’s why the game is to lock down the OS so you just can’t play it…

Intel SGX was never pushed on anyone and it's also Intel only Skylake to Ice lake and requires vendors to provide consistent firmware updates to stay secure. You can’t run the entire OS in SGX enclave because it can’t do I/O on its own.

> There are TPM 2.0 dTPMs. If the conspiracy is that they want to push people towards "hardware attestation", then they're doing a pretty bad job.

No "normies" are doing TPM bypasses. That’s the point. Majority will eventually be on unbypassable TPM.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#165
post #18

What is Microsoft hoping to accomplish here? Given the rate of adoption of Windows 11, it seems unlikely that a majority of Windows 10 users will replace their hardware between now and October. It also seems to me that the scenario where a majority of PC users are running an unsupported Windows release is likely to create MS more problems than is offset by potential revenue from a hardware refresh cycle. Is there an…

I would it is a combination of metric-stuffing, land grab, and genuine concern about security. Metric stuffing. Everyone at Microsoft is graded on "impact". All the EVP-types at Microsoft have their eye on boldface jobs, so they need a track record of massive impact. Beimg able to claim that they got W11 from X billion devices to Y is how theyll be judged. Another example is how in Azure, the only metric that matters…

> Security.

Ironically, TPM requirement comes from the same company that invented logging your screen every few seconds and storing it unencrypted and without your consent.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#166
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Windows 11 has provided a hardware security baseline for Microsoft, with features that require hardware support (HVCI, TPM etc) to be enabled by default going forward, stating that Windows 10 strategy of off-by-default was a failure. - Admin accounts are a continued security problem within the Windows ecosystem, so a future version of Windows will be adding a new "Adminless" account model with linux-like just-in-ti…

> Win32 Applications will be bundled under the new Win32 App Isolation model, which provides the security benefits of UWP sandboxing & clean uninstalls without the API limitations of UWP. Wow that thing they probably should've been doing in the first place. I'll be curious if it'll end up as a supervisor (AI) model or if each program will have its own scope of a file system. The latter of course will be very tricky w…

Yea, making sure legacy apps keep working is the hard part especially when they have million+ unit customers that have issues around it.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#167
post #42
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently found out that a friend of mine installed Linux on his own, completely removing his Windows install. And he has yet to "fiddle with the terminal", but still enjoys gaming on Steam and goes on with his daily routine.

One thing I've observed is that people who started using Linux a long time ago (which is my case) tend to slide into the command line, even when there's a perfectly good GUI alternative. Want to rename a file? Why use F2, just open a terminal, cd to the path, and mv the file. Newer users who started with the GUI are less likely to have these habits.

It's a hard learned lesson that the UI tools can fail you at some point with Linux. At which point you are going to have to resort to the command line to fix it or just reinstall everything from scratch. A lot of people do the latter. Learning to fix things will get you familiar with the command line in a hurry.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#169
My (unsupported) desktop PC is an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 eight-core CPU running at 3.2Ghz with 16GB of RAM and 2TB of SSD storage. It handles Windows 10 Professional but is apparently incapable of running Windows 11. I don't have a Webcam, but maybe face ID login is now mandated? It will be something stupid like that. I have no interest in replacing this machine though.

Re: Microsoft deletes official Windows 11 CPU/TPM bypass for unsupported PCs

#170
post #77

Windows 11 looks like the perfect reason to give UNIX-based systems another try. Literally the only thing that's kept me hooked to Windows are the Office apps. They're baked into so many of my workflows, from creating simple graphics to doing my personal finances, and of course plenty of legacy documents that I'd like to continue being able to use. They're really Windows-native I've found, even the official versions…

When I see people waking up now I wonder what's taken them so long. I could see this 15 years ago and jumped off Windows at that point. Been using Linux ever since. It's become so easy since then I've intentionally made my life more difficult by switching to Gentoo about 5 years ago. I'm so glad none of my work is locked into the products of rent seeking companies like Microsoft. It was easier for me because 15 years…

Indeed, the security shenanigans around XP are what convinced me to finally move over.

“Better formatting” is not nearly enough to stay in an abusive relationship.

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