microsoft Windows 11 Desktop Watermarks Start Appearing on Unsupported Systems or Computers Without Compatibility

[Mihle]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

What does a laptop have to do with this? She has a Lenovo pre built. Don’t really get your point? 

I did a brainfart, ment to say PC but ended up writing laptop for some reason.

I just wanted to know it's specs as you say it isn't that old.

 

[Donut417]

3 minutes ago, Mihle said:

I did a brainfart, ment to say PC but ended up writing laptop for some reason.

I just wanted to know it's specs as you say it isn't that old.

 

Maybe first gen Ryzen. I know it's a APU. While some might think it's old. It still does what she needs it to do.

 

I know my 2600X just made the cut. But I'll probably just stay on Windows 10 because I dont feel doing a full reinstall. 

[starsmine]

27 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Maybe first gen Ryzen. I know it's a APU. While some might think it's old. It still does what she needs it to do.

 

I know my 2600X just made the cut. But I'll probably just stay on Windows 10 because I dont feel doing a full reinstall. 

yea zen 1 being excluded still is odd to me when zen+ IS supported I have to wonder what security issue in zen 1 exists that was fixed in zen+ and I imagine its just something painfully small, my 2500U laptop was not compatible. But really, all the dozens of us who bought zen 1 are a very small amount of people. 

But honestly, as for this story, I dont really see a reason to care. Its just explicitly communicating that bugs or security flaws with the hardware/OS are not necessarily MS problem or will get necessarily get fixed. Many people do have computers or laptops with unsupported hardware and dont necessarily know.

 

  

1 hour ago, Blademaster91 said:

I would expect them to not shove a watermark on those that know enough how to install Windows 11 on an unsupported system, but its just Microsoft doing stupid anti-consumer things.

And the interesting thing is MS even describes how to do the workarounds to install on unsupported hardware, so this watermark is really unnecessary.

I completely fail to understand how this is anti-consumer. 

 

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, Donut417 said:

You're right, it is not enough to incentivize people to upgrade. What will happen is people will just stick on Windows 10 regardless if it's supported or not (as 2025 is only around the corner). Some might give Linux a try. 

Nobody will "try linux". I can gaurantee that, because that's been the thought experiment since 1995. The only people who use Linux as their daily driver desktop, actually build their own desktops and nitpick every part to ensure that it works. People would sooner switch to an iMac or MacMini once any useful life in their Windows Desktop is gone. The lack of native games on ARM Mac's is why no gamers will switch.

 

PC Gamer's are just SOL. But if you are doing artwork or video editing, the Mac's are presently superior to any Windows PC, due to lack of any ProRes or H264/h265 support on Windows.

 

12 hours ago, Donut417 said:

In my case Windows lost its favorite status with me. I ended up buying a MacBook Pro with some of my stimulus money. The only reason I even use Windows is for gaming. Considering the number of titles that work on the Steam Deck, Im going to say that a good portion of what I play will probably work on Linux. 

Nah, as long as popular games have anti-cheat, Linux will never be a gaming platform.

 

The most likely scenario is that the SteamDeck will be able to play 10 year old games with only minor issues, but will never be playing anything less than 5 years old.

[wanderingfool2]

7 hours ago, Spotty said:

For all the people who went to the trouble of bypassing all the requirements and checks Microsoft put in to stop people from installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware, what exactly were they expecting to happen? Were they expecting Microsoft to turn around and go "Oh, alright then you win we will provide support for your system"? Those people knew they weren't going to get proper support from Microsoft and that they might be cut off from updates but they chose to install it anyway.

I agree, actually I'm surprised they didn't add in nagware earlier. (If not to alert the users who purchased from some sketchy sellers online from selling Windows 11 PC's that aren't compatible).  I think it is an important step to alert those who don't have the supported hardware.

 

With that said, I don't like the concept of blocking out/difficulty of install onto "incompatible" hardware, especially after all the TPM business and on home editions not having anything that utilizes it (or stability issues on older hardware).  I'm fine if they wanted to say you need hardware xyz and above...but I do feel they should just have allowed installs onto older hardware but just put up a message like they have (about it being unsupported hardware).  It just seems like their goal was to push new hardware (although I get the sentiment that they were wanting to or thinking of pushing features later that would require it, so there might be a justifiable reason)

 

In general though, the bit I find concerning is how they are still going head first into pushing Windows 11 for the 2025 cutoff of Windows 10 when Windows 11 is still missing some key features in workflow that Windows 10 had (like not auto-collapsing windows, drag and drop still isn't the same, start menu you can't open recently opened files from a specific program...which sucks for me as I have 2 VS's that I need but the sln's never decide to open with the correct version, and the list goes on)

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Maybe first gen Ryzen. I know it's a APU. While some might think it's old. It still does what she needs it to do.

 

I know my 2600X just made the cut. But I'll probably just stay on Windows 10 because I dont feel doing a full reinstall. 

 

2 hours ago, starsmine said:

yea zen 1 being excluded still is odd to me when zen+ IS supported I have to wonder what security issue in zen 1 exists that was fixed in zen+ and I imagine its just something painfully small, my 2500U laptop was not compatible. But really, all the dozens of us who bought zen 1 are a very small amount of people.
But honestly, as for this story, I dont really see a reason to care. Its just explicitly communicating that bugs or security flaws with the hardware/OS are not necessarily MS problem or will get necessarily get fixed. Many people do have computers or laptops with unsupported hardware and dont necessarily know.

I completely fail to understand how this is anti-consumer. 

 

What's worse, the Zen+ 'AF' processors aren't 11 compatible even though they're Zen+. I'm not sure if it's a CPUID string issue or they're actually lacking something that 'real' Zen+ CPU's have. I'd sure like to know! There's really mixed signals online, some saying yes and some saying no. The 1600 isn't on the compatibility list.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Nah, as long as popular games have anti-cheat, Linux will never be a gaming platform.

 

The most likely scenario is that the SteamDeck will be able to play 10 year old games with only minor issues, but will never be playing anything less than 5 years old.

Well those "Popular games" I dont play so could give a shit less about them. Most of the time the issues you encounter dont cause issues with the gaming experience. I have a steam deck so I should know. Current games me and the bros play are World War Z, Borderlands 3 and maybe some Golf with your friends. 

 

When Wall Street made all the major gaming studios Shit. I stopped playing AAA titles. I mostly go with the indie and small dev scene. I find many of those games do support Linux either with Proton or natively. 
 

Also I didnt imply everyone will go to Linux. I said  "some" might go to Linux. You also cant imply Linux will never be a gaming platform because a lot of work is being done to make it at least good enough. 

[steelo]

I'm still on Win 10 but received the 'upgrade to Win 11?' message the other night. I was kind of excited for about 30 seconds, thinking maybe they eliminated the TPM 2.0 requirement. No luck.

 

Now every time Windows 10 pushes a standard update, I receive an annoying prompt wanting me to 'upgrade' to Win 11. You would think the folks at MS would have created a check where if a system is not compatible the first time, stop sending this message.

[jagdtigger]

9 hours ago, Spotty said:

I don't really see that as a problem.

You wont until you are on the short end of this stick. Not everyone is so wealthy to replace a machine on a whim(especially now), nor is it ok for a company to force ppl to replace machines that perfectly serve their needs.

 

8 hours ago, Mihle said:

It's nothing to do with how powerful the CPU is, or its age directly, it's about security features it doesn't have.

Like windows is known for its security (/s), besides it boots just fine on an old PC so that theory can go into the trash bin.....

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by jagdtigger

[starsmine]

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Like windows is known for its security (/s), besides it boots just fine on an old PC so that theory can go into the trash bin.....

its literally not a theory

[NumLock21]

Dumb Win11 CPU requirements doesn't see the performance side of the CPU. It just see's the name and which class it belongs to. So an el cheapo 13th dual core Celeron will get a pass for Win11 but it'll run like a dog that's dragging its ass on the pavement, where as a quad core with hyper thread Core i7 like the 5775C gets a fail, because that CPU is from 8 years ago.

[NumLock21]

5 hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

I did not get my watermark yet. I feel left out.

Create your own watermark by writing the message with the pencil tool in MS Paint.

[starsmine]

37 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Dumb Win11 CPU requirements doesn't see the performance side of the CPU. It just see's the name and which class it belongs to. So an el cheapo 13th dual core Celeron will get a pass for Win11 but it'll run like a dog that's dragging its ass on the pavement, where as a quad core with hyper thread Core i7 like the 5775C gets a fail, because that CPU is from 8 years ago.

Because its a feature set that matters, not mips.

[StDragon]

7 hours ago, Blademaster91 said:

This makes no sense for MS to even do, if someone installs windows 11 on an unsupported system then theres no reason for an annoying watermark to appear.

They're trying really hard to get people to buy new hardware, while W11 runs fine on older Intel and AMD hardware.

As others have said, the decision was security ( HVCI / VBS) and hardware attestation as the primary goal for minimum requirements.

 

Microsoft's focus is Azure and M365. Windows 11 requirements provide that baseline security for proper security and management to integrate with those aforementioned cloud services.

Or to put it another way; Windows 11 isn't just about gaming.

[StDragon]

1 hour ago, NumLock21 said:

Dumb Win11 CPU requirements doesn't see the performance side of the CPU. It just see's the name and which class it belongs to. So an el cheapo 13th dual core Celeron will get a pass for Win11 but it'll run like a dog that's dragging its ass on the pavement, where as a quad core with hyper thread Core i7 like the 5775C gets a fail, because that CPU is from 8 years ago.

See my prior post about HVCI / VBS. Only 8th gen Intel and newer support MBEC (AMD calls it GMET) to enhance both performance and security of the aforementioned security features.

 

Again, it's not always about raw CPU performance as to the deciding factor for Windows 11.

[StDragon]

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

PC Gamer's are just SOL. 

 

Nah, as long as popular games have anti-cheat, Linux will never be a gaming platform.

 

The most likely scenario is that the SteamDeck....

There's always SteamOS .

Not sure they haven't been developing this further.

[BiG StroOnZ]

21 hours ago, Donut417 said:

You're right, it is not enough to incentivize people to upgrade. What will happen is people will just stick on Windows 10 regardless if it's supported or not (as 2025 is only around the corner). Some might give Linux a try. 

 

In my case Windows lost its favorite status with me. I ended up buying a MacBook Pro with some of my stimulus money. The only reason I even use Windows is for gaming. Considering the number of titles that work on the Steam Deck, Im going to say that a good portion of what I play will probably work on Linux. 

 

I agree that most people will probably stick with Windows 10. As even those who are capable of upgrading seem to have made it quite clear that they have no interest in upgrading to Windows 11. There will also be some Linux converts, but probably not many.

 

I know many people use Windows primarily for gaming, however it does seem because of Steam Deck that many titles should also work on Linux. I know there are people that love their Macs, I personally don't like the UI/GUI but that's me. I'm really enjoying Windows 11, I think it's a superb OS. It didn't take me long to acclimate from Windows 10, and after using it for almost 10 months, I prefer it over Windows 10. I think most people, if they gave it a chance, would agree.

[Blademaster91]

40 minutes ago, StDragon said:

As others have said, the decision was security ( HVCI / VBS) and hardware attestation as the primary goal for minimum requirements.

 

Microsoft's focus is Azure and M365. Windows 11 requirements provide that baseline security for proper security and management to integrate with those aforementioned cloud services.

Or to put it another way; Windows 11 isn't just about gaming.

Microsoft pushing for cloud services makes sense, given they've gone away from office as software you can buy once, although I would expect MS to push windows as a service which might get a lot of people to switch away from windows, maybe not though.

I wasn't saying Windows 11 was about gaming at all, I've tried Windows 11 on systems not meant for gaming at all, it works just fine so the limitation is weird, and going even further with a watermark seems unnecessary, all MS would have to do is make users read through a security disclaimer during Windows 11 installation with a checkbox they accept their system doesn't have the extra security features.

4 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

 

Like windows is known for its security (/s), besides it boots just fine on an old PC so that theory can go into the trash bin.....

 

I think some useful security measures for most users would be bitlocker, but MS puts that behind the Windows pro version paywall.

[StDragon]

19 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

...I've tried Windows 11 on systems not meant for gaming at all, it works just fine so the limitation is weird, and going even further with a watermark seems unnecessary, all MS would have to do is make users read through a security disclaimer during Windows 11 installation with a checkbox they accept their system doesn't have the extra security features.

 

Seems reasonable, until you factor in the BYOD approach in integrating personal devices with gaining access to corporate assets (intellectual property). The watermark is no doubt the let the end-user and IT helpdesk be aware that it would fail attestation and thereby deemed an untrusted platform.

 

19 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

I think some useful security measures for most users would be bitlocker, but MS puts that behind the Windows pro version paywall.

 

I agree. That segmentation has run its course. There's no reason to not include BitLocker in every version of Windows. Disk encryption is default with phones and OSX. If MS really wants to milk that feature, they should instead offer a form of "BitLocker Enterprise"; same level of protection, FIPS certified, and keys can be centrally managed. Everyone else gets BitLocker by default, but the key is managed by the end user along with it already synched to the cloud as a backup. Seems like a reasonable and rational compromise.

[GoodBytes]

39 minutes ago, Blademaster91 said:

 

I think some useful security measures for most users would be bitlocker, but MS puts that behind the Windows pro version paywall.

It's called Drive Encryption under Home. It is a locked down BitLocker where it has been pre-configured to offer the main feature of BitLocker without the IT stuff

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

if they gave it a chance, would agree.

I'll give it a chance when they live up to their promise and fix fucking bluetooth support. It was semi working in Windows 7. Its was broke as a joke in Windows 10 and they promised to fix it in Windows 11. So far Ive seen many people complaining that bluetooth still sucks. Works fine in the latest version of MacOS btw, also works fine in iOS and when I used Android it worked fine with that as well. Ive even had a bit of luck with the Steam Deck. 

[Mihle]

9 hours ago, Donut417 said:

Maybe first gen Ryzen. I know it's a APU. While some might think it's old. It still does what she needs it to do.

 

I know my 2600X just made the cut. But I'll probably just stay on Windows 10 because I dont feel doing a full reinstall. 

Ah, I upgraded my PC without re installing and haven't had any problems.

[BiG StroOnZ]

16 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I'll give it a chance when they live up to their promise and fix fucking bluetooth support. It was semi working in Windows 7. Its was broke as a joke in Windows 10 and they promised to fix it in Windows 11. So far Ive seen many people complaining that bluetooth still sucks. Works fine in the latest version of MacOS btw, also works fine in iOS and when I used Android it worked fine with that as well. Ive even had a bit of luck with the Steam Deck. 

 

Can't really comment as I don't really use BT for anything, even on my cell. However, supposedly in 22H2 support for BT was improved upon. I'm not sure if your research that showed many people still complaining BT was problematic was before 22H2. 

 

It doesn't surprise me that compatibility is better on MacOS or iOS as I see them as more streamlined for the average user. Windows should obviously be the same way, considering the amount of people that use it. I know on Android it works mostly fine, although, in my experience, when trying to get a few BT devices working; I had issues on my Galaxy. Haven't heard too much negativity regarding its usage with Steam Deck, so it makes sense that you've had luck using BT devices with it. 

 

I guess if it's a priority, it makes sense that it might be considered a make-or-break feature. However, if it was broken in Windows 10, it's possible you might have better luck with it in Windows 11 22H2. 

[Mihle]

I can't say what will happen, but I personally think it might be a small chance that Windows 10 support will be extended little bit more than 2025 because of the requirements. But who knows, in 2025, the unsupported hardware might be quite old in Microsofts eyes.

[Donut417]

17 minutes ago, Mihle said:

Ah, I upgraded my PC without re installing and haven't had any problems.

TPM is not enabled on my machine, also the SSD is still MBR not GPT. Secure boot is also disabled. From my understanding I have to set all that right and reinstall. Also the last time I upgrade from one version to another it did not end well. So I always do a full reinstall.