Giving away older system. Put Win10 or Win11 on it?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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Hey everyone,

I recently looked around my spare parts bin and realized, "hey, I totally have enough parts in here to build like 3-4 older systems that are still usable".

All I need to do is pick up some cheap CPU coolers and windows licenses, and I should be good to go.

Well, the first system I am putting together is a Core i7-7700K with a GTX 1070 I am in the process of repairing (dead AIO model, putting a air cooler from a dead air cooler model on it).

So, I am going to be giving this to the son of a friend of my better half who likes PC gaming, but is currently using a crappy all in one (iMac-like) PC.

The issue?

The i7-7700k does not officially support Windows 11. The motherboard (Asrock H270M-ITX/ac) has a TPM header, but there is no TPM in it, and I'm not even sure if one is available on the market that is compatible with Windows 11.

So, the choice is. Install Windows 10 on it now. Have it work as intended under Windows 10 until Windows 10 goes EOL in 2025.

OR, I modify the installer so Windows 11 installs without TPM and on the unsupported CPU, and deal with potential things breaking in the future because of hardware unsupported in Windows 11.

While I like these people, I only see them once a year or so, so if something goes awry, I don't know when I'll be there to look at and fix it.

So, which would you do. Put Windows 10 on it in an officially supported configuration, and need to do something else in 2025 - OR - hack Windows 11 on to it today, have it run unsupported, and deal with whatever issues might come of that at some point in the future?

I appreciate anyone's thoughts on this subject.
 
Put windows 10 on it and worry about it down the road. 2025 will not be the end of the world for that system. Unless they release a win 11 only game, he'll be fine for awhile.

To elaborate, if you jump the hoops to get 11 going and MS does something to foul it up in a month who do you think they will blame? Will they be able to fix it or are they stuck with constant nagging, or worse, broken updates, etc? 10 will work and when it goes EOL then they are in the same boat everyone else with unsupported hardware.

My MIL has a 3770 and FIL a 7700. I'm not worried about it.
 
wareyore said:
Put windows 10 on it and worry about it down the road. 2025 will not be the end of the world for that system. Unless they release a win 11 only game, he'll be fine for awhile.

To elaborate, if you jump the hoops to get 11 going and MS does something to foul it up in a month who do you think they will blame? Will they be able to fix it or are they stuck with constant nagging, or worse, broken updates, etc? 10 will work and when it goes EOL then they are in the same boat everyone else with unsupported hardware.

My MIL has a 3770 and FIL a 7700. I'm not worried about it.
Click to expand...

Appreciate your thoughts.

I'm a pretty die-hard "don't run an EOL OS" proponent, but this kid is likely going to just run esports titles, not check his bank statements, so it is likely not the end of the world.

From the perspective of "Win11 only games" these already exist. At least partially.

In order for Anti-Cheat to work in Valorant, you need Windows 11 and TPM 2.0, and without anti-cheat you can't get into most games.

So, this is definitely coming. I just hope the kid does not play Valorant.

Still, free is free. Take it, enjoy it and don't complain :p
 
I vote for 10. Putting an unsupported OS on it may just create problems down the road for someone who doesn't know anything about that. Just look at the issue with the new version of 11 and the new cpu instructions is requires. I wouldn't be surprised if 11 continues this trend into the future.

I also have a suspicion Microsoft will add another 1-3 years to security updates for 10.
 
I thought it says if you are ON 11 it requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. That's different than requiring 11.

It says Windows 10 1909 and newer is still supported.
 
bigdogchris said:
I thought it says if you are ON 11 it requires TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot. That's different than requiring 11.

It says Windows 10 1909 and newer is still supported.
Click to expand...

You are right. I misread it.

That said, allowing people to not use your fancy new cryptographic abti-chrat system just because they have Windows 10, seems like an awfully large loop-hole, I wouldn't be surprised if they plug at some point.
 
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