While Windows 11 has been out for just over a year now, it’s only being used by about 16% of all Windows desktop devices. One of the reasons cited for this, of course, are the fairly stringent hardware requirements that devices need to meet to run it. We’ve touched on that here.
Extending software support is a core pillar of Right to Repair, so it’s great to see US PIRG calling on Microsoft to extend security support for devices running Windows beyond 2025
Indeed. Something like Ubuntu is easy to install. Major browsers support it. Zoom has a Linux client (which lags behind Windows/MacOS but has all the features you really need). Use LibreOffice instead of MS Office. Even professional video editing package DaVinci Resolve has a (free) Linux build.
Wouldnt say 400 million devices will be obsolete. Users can adapt to other Operating systems, I have educated users in our community to the ease of using platforms such as Chrome OS Flex, Linux Mint, Zorin to name a few. I have even created my own little distro using MX Linux. Quite a lot of our older users prefer alternatives to Windows, due to their quicker loading times and ease of use. The development of tools such as Wine enable users to run Windows based apps on Linux platforms.
We recently donated 10 latops to a care home to allow their residents who were stuck there at christmas to communicate online with family and friends, these machines were core2duo laptops, and had Linux installed on them.
Fully agreed that Linux and other alternative operating systems are a solution. And this is something we’re hoping to promote with an upcoming skillshare on using Linux on older hardware
That said, I think what US PIRG are getting at here is that there’s a real risk most people and businesses won’t consider switching away from Windows and many may feel forced to ditch their old devices.
So while encouraging as many people as possible to use a different OS instead is important (and it’s great to hear about your work there Simon!), I think we also need extended security updates for Windows 10.
To be fair Microsoft are playing a blinder here if your a big hardware manufacturer such as HP, Lenovo… More and more manufacturers are following Apple’s lead by making components un-repairable or upgradable, by soldering parts to motherboards etc… We need to put pressure on Microsoft, and manufacturers to stop this from getting out of hand. Its fair to say that the IT industry is one of the most wasteful industries and this will maker matters worse. Its about educating people and making the world sit up and take notice…
You may be interested in the launch webinar of AutNav, an app to enable long-term residential care Autistic folks to communicate with friends and family and access their favourite media. I don’t know if the app runs on laptop. When Dinah started this project she envisioned it working on tablets, but I have not followed what has happened with this since her death and just found out recently about this webinar scheduled on Apr 5. Details and registration at https://eu01web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WOJILk0cQaSBJzgI5euDlQ
Unfortunately majority of the people in the African content use windows, some currently using windows 7, 8 and 10 and could not upgrade to latest Windows OS due to the fact that their device hardware doesn’t support.
Only a few uses Linux OS, Therefore the sift to use Linux OS requires huge investment to carry out massive awareness raising including training them how to use.
It’s possible to run a de-bloated version of Windows 11 on some surprisingly old hardware. Here at Turing Trust we’ve done this in our labs environment on several test machines that are 15 years old. They still get updates, licensing works fine; we’re still testing but it appears to be pretty usable for our use cases (e.g. computer labs in Milawian schools). We refurbish a lot of older hardware so there’s a realistic prospect we’ll have them running on a Win11 variant for several years to come.
Of course, this just demonstrates Microsoft could make this available by default, and are choosing not to, which i guess is the original point of this thread.
Thanks for the Tiny11 info. Just proves solutions are possible and yes Microsoft should make this available but dont because they are baying to the manufacturers who encourage throw away culture which is crippling world’s resources.
Can certainly vouch for running Tiny11 had some quite amazing results. Seeing a variant of Windows 11 22H2 running on a Pentium Dual Core T4500 with just 2gb ram… Is just amazing and using the Tiny11 construction tool to create iso’s is pretty straight forward. This has huge potential.
Tiny 11 is a compressed, stripped down version of Windows 11, there iso a Windows 10 version. The elements that stop Windows from being installed on older machines, such as TPM requirements have been removed from the iso using a script, which enables the operating system to be run on older machines, such as the core 2 duo I tested earlier with 2gb ram. Windows updates still work on the Tiny11 and most of the functionality of Windows 11.
While there has been a lot of positive press about Tiny11 and I for one have downloaded iso’s and tried it and thought wow this might work, but having now read a number of articles on Tiny11 and followed up with my own research I think its time we looked at Tiny11 with some caution:- Please see article below:-
Tiny11 Has Problems
Using any custom Windows ISO is problematic for many reasons outlined in this article.
The Main Problems
Botnets
Viruses
Keyloggers
Crypto Miners
But what about Virus scan? Tiny11 is CLEAN!
Antivirus is just a security layer and should NEVER be relied on. More often than not, it will allow viruses through or classify legit programs as viruses.
How do they bypass Antivirus?
When you are distributing an entire operating system, like Tiny11, anything can be modified. Keyloggers can be loaded before an antivirus or have them part of edge. You could steal session tokens from your logged in accounts, or modify Windows defender to exclude the viruses at a system level.
Not only is the Tiny11 developer risking prison time if caught, but what motivates any custom iso maker given the risks? These are real questions that anyone with ANY common sense would come to the conclusion there has to be a payout somewhere. A small harmless program using your system to mine resources? keylogging passwords or credit cards? Spread chaos? or use you to attack others in a Botnet?
All these are strong motivators, but it’s possible they are breaking the law just so you can have a clean version of Windows out of the goodness in their heart. You decide, but don’t be shocked when you are compromised when using any custom ISO.
I’ve been playing with Tiny11 & as a project it’s fantastic. I installed it on an old Vista laptop and although the performance wasn’t thrilling, it was functional, useable and no worse than some of the old Windows 7 machines that are really, really sweating under Windows 10.
However, I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) advocate using it as a ‘solution’ for customers or even as the OS on a machine we’ve donated.
Aside from the points mentioned above, software solutions which can easily brick a machine (does this include Windows?), are not a sustainable solution.
As often as someone ditches a mobile because of a duff battery, there’s equally someone who scraps a computer because the software has trashed machine performance. Batteries can be changed, but installing a more lightweight, supported, safe, reliable, usable and familiar OS, is trickier.
Not that this is news or a surprise to anyone on this forum. Apologies for stating the obvious.
I suppose Tiny11 hints at what MS could produce, if they were minded to do so. My hope is that Microsoft’s PR machine will realise that October 2025 is going to be rough for them - and they may surprise us with a solution.
The optimistic bunch of us might just have had our prayers answered and 400 million obsolete devices might have finally been given a lifeline, in my eyes and quite a few other techies, tiny11 may not be all it seems to be and is certainly not safe to rollout on customers PCs. I have been looking again at a Linux flavour that would support older laptops, desktops and macs in both 64 bit and 32 bit systems. If we can utilise a 32 bit Linux system we can hopefully save more machines. I have been playing with Linux Mint Debian Edition which unlike other Linux Mint version is not based using Ubuntu and its capabilities of running on 32 bit machines, thus saving more machines. I am currently testing a system for a client using a core2duo laptop with 32 bit architecture and running office, email and internet applications. If we can educate the masses that there is another way than using Windows then our job will be done, I will keep the group informed of progress.
Let us know how you get on Simon. I’m currently using Mint, but the Ubuntu edition. I’d like to move to Debian as I like their governance model (e.g. their constitution). Sadly pure Debian had too many minor niggles that I don’t have the time to fiddle around resolving these days. But I imagine Mint will have ironed some of these out, so interested to give LMDE a spin.
I’ve always had a spare old laptop with Linux and flirted with a few distros but somehow end up back on Mint.
Can’t recommend the MATE version though, have found it quite glitchy (taskbar not registering clicks, pop-up menu not appearing correctly or having inconsistent options, file manager default settings nothing like Windows). Don’t have any experience of Cinnamon but always found XFCE reliable if basic.
Zorin OS has a much more polished front-end with the same back-end (Ubuntu LTS).
