Windows 11 24H2 to enforce HW requirement

[Elf_Boy]

It also collects your phone number, IP and email - it knows who you are.

Only, I think, because (when/if) a Microsoft Account is attached to the Windows login.

/Quote:

You
What ability to probe my system for hardware, software and file specifics do you have?

Copilot
As an AI, I don’t have direct access to your system’s hardware, software, or file specifics for privacy and security reasons. However, I can provide general advice and guidance based on the information you provide. For example, if you tell me your system’s specifications, I can give you a general assessment of its performance. Or if you describe a software issue you’re experiencing, I can suggest potential solutions. But I can’t probe your system directly. Your privacy and security are important, and I’m designed to respect them.

/end

Of course it could be misinformed or deliberately lying. If AI really is AI both are something to consider.

I recall reading, many years ago, when people I know who now have children in diapers, were themselves in diapers, that with young children at certain stages lying is a sign of intelligence.

 

[Lakados]

Only, I think, because (when/if) a Microsoft Account is attached to the Windows login.

/Quote:

You
What ability to probe my system for hardware, software and file specifics do you have?

Copilot
As an AI, I don’t have direct access to your system’s hardware, software, or file specifics for privacy and security reasons. However, I can provide general advice and guidance based on the information you provide. For example, if you tell me your system’s specifications, I can give you a general assessment of its performance. Or if you describe a software issue you’re experiencing, I can suggest potential solutions. But I can’t probe your system directly. Your privacy and security are important, and I’m designed to respect them.

/end

Of course it could be misinformed or deliberately lying. If AI really is AI both are something to consider.

I recall reading, many years ago, when people I know who now have children in diapers, were themselves in diapers, that with young children at certain stages lying is a sign of intelligence.

Microsoft says they designed copilot to not use local data because of security concerns and they don’t train CoPilot on customer data.

If you feed documents into copilot to have it work on them then it will help to the best of its ability but won’t send that back outside of the organization for training.

They say it was to respect our privacy but really it was so they could roll it out and not potentially be leaking sensitive data from Business, Enterprise, and Government. Which is why they further insist that O365 users implement a full security review and enable all the various file lockdowns.
Copilot runs with the logged in user permissions and can search up data in any and all documents they have access to directly shared or not, so if you have anything stored in a corporate SharePoint that is overly permissive they will see it.
But Microsoft has been very insistent that it does not transmit anything out for training unless that data is already publicly available and Internet accessible.
Took us a hot month or so to do the Microsoft Checklist before we could activate it, we are certainly better for it as it found a great deal of stuff we had missed.

 

[DukenukemX]

Yeah, of course you will be able to keep using it. Why would you think otherwise? Do you think that you will just start up your computer one day and there will be a big red screen saying that this version "has ended", and you won't be able to use your computer anymore?

Most likely you'll see another watermark on your screen and the update is probably denied.

To be clear, this is not the first version where support has ended. Support for Windows 11 version "21H2", for example, ended in October 2023. Any computer still running 21H2 still works fine, but all you get from Windows Update now is the latest Malicious Software Removal Tool and Windows Defender updates; no more security updates, etc. Also no different than running an old version of Windows 10, or Windows 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, etc. None of those stopped working after updates stopped.

Doesn't this mean that Windows security updates are now tied to these feature updates? Don't know about you but that seems like bullshit to me. Given you shouldn't have installed Windows 11 on hardware that old, but it seems instead of Microsoft recognizing a problem and addressing it correctly, they just emphasized on you needing much newer hardware.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Most likely you'll see another watermark on your screen and the update is probably denied.

Doesn't this mean that Windows security updates are now tied to these feature updates? Don't know about you but that seems like bullshit to me. Given you shouldn't have installed Windows 11 on hardware that old, but it seems instead of Microsoft recognizing a problem and addressing it correctly, they just emphasized on you needing much newer hardware.

View attachment 636000

By rights this should have already happened after Windows 7 went EOL. Windows 10 added more new bad stuff over Windows 7 than Windows 11 adds over Windows 10.

But it never does. People have no principles and just accept big tech companies railroading stuff they don't want on them over and over again.

 

[GotNoRice]

Most likely you'll see another watermark on your screen

There is zero evidence or precedence for this in any release build, so once more, you making up lies.

and the update is probably denied.

A new requirements check is done before a feature update is installed, so yeah, the 24H2 update would be denied. In the case of those not using a SSE4a/4.2 CPU that would be a good thing. For everyone else using unsupported hardware, you can still do a 15-minute in-place upgrade to the new feature update. If you were able to bypass the requirements once, it shouldn't be a big deal to do it again once every 1-2 years.

Doesn't this mean that Windows security updates are now tied to these feature updates? Don't know about you but that seems like bullshit to me.

Maybe you should explain your fake outrage a bit. Feature updates are released once per year, and each feature update gets two years of security updates. So yeah, security updates are tied to feature updates. You can't just cling onto an old version forever and continue to receive new security updates. Is that what you were expecting?

Just in case you were wondering, this isn't some new way of doing things on Microsoft's part. For example, the release version of Windows 7 hit End of Life in April 2013, almost 7 years before Windows 7 as a whole hit End of Life. Of course, you could have installed the latest Service Pack (aka feature update) and continued to receive updates. It was a similar story with XP, Vista, and Windows 8/8.1; with older versions of each OS hitting EoL before each OS itself hit EOL, and your only option was to install the latest service pack to continue receiving updates.

So where was your outrage back then that Microsoft was "tying security updates to Service Packs"? Because they've been doing it for over a quarter century.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Windows 11 does a requirements check every time there is a feature update. If your system doesn't meet the requirements, you won't be offered the feature update. You'll continue to receive security updates on the existing/old feature update until it hits EoL or you do an in-place upgrade to the latest feature update using a bypass again (hardware permitting). Even if it did attempt the update on a system without SSE4a/4.2, or you attempted a manual in-place upgrade using a bypass, the result would simply be that the upgrade would fail and it would roll back to your previous version.

But you've now made multiple posts pushing a lie that this is somehow going to prevent people's computers from booting.

When you use the words:

...System may not boot...

does not mean I am lying, I am stating it as a possible outcome, not claiming it as cold hard facts so dont call me a liar.

We know how far people will go to bypass checks, and there will be further attempts to bypass this, just as there were ways in years past to get around MS things like watermarks and other activation based tricks MS tried.

 

[DukenukemX]

There is zero evidence or precedence for this in any release build, so once more, you making up lies.

What part of "most likely" makes you think I'm saying it's definite? I'm making a prediction, not saying this is 100%.

A new requirements check is done before a feature update is installed, so yeah, the 24H2 update would be denied. In the case of those not using a SSE4a/4.2 CPU that would be a good thing. For everyone else using unsupported hardware, you can still do a 15-minute in-place upgrade to the new feature update. If you were able to bypass the requirements once, it shouldn't be a big deal to do it again once every 1-2 years.

If parts of Windows is compiled with SSE4a/4.2 in mind, can you even boot Windows 11 with the 24H2 update?

Maybe you should explain your fake outrage a bit.

What the hell are you on about?

Feature updates are released once per year, and each feature update gets two years of security updates. So yeah, security updates are tied to feature updates. You can't just cling onto an old version forever and continue to receive new security updates. Is that what you were expecting?

Would make the most sense to me. Not that I haven't had my issues with Windows 10 and feature updates. Avoiding them isn't such a bad idea.

Just in case you were wondering, this isn't some new way of doing things on Microsoft's part. For example, the release version of Windows 7 hit End of Life in April 2013, almost 7 years before Windows 7 as a whole hit End of Life. Of course, you could have installed the latest Service Pack (aka feature update) and continued to receive updates. It was a similar story with XP, Vista, and Windows 8/8.1; with older versions of each OS hitting EoL before each OS itself hit EOL, and your only option was to install the latest service pack to continue receiving updates.

So where was your outrage back then that Microsoft was "tying security updates to Service Packs"? Because they've been doing it for over a quarter century.

From my experience, these feature updates weren't a problem up until Windows 10. Microsoft is within their right to enforce SSE4a/4.2 since they did state the system requirements, but if this isn't an optimization by making builds with these features, then it just seems like Microsoft is enforcing people use newer hardware to get Windows 11 support.

 

[GotNoRice]

If parts of Windows is compiled with SSE4a/4.2 in mind, can you even boot Windows 11 with the 24H2 update?

No, any CPU without SSE4a/4.2 won't be able to boot up with Windows 11 24H2. But this scenario of a system that can't boot for that reason wouldn't occur in practice. Systems with unsupported CPUs won't be offered the 24H2 update. You have to do a manual in-place upgrade using a system-requirements bypass again. If you do this on a CPU without SSE4a/4.2, it will not result in a non-bootable system. Rather, the install will fail and roll-back to your existing version (23H2 or whatever you were running). You would have to do something very contrived, like install 24H2 on a computer with a newer CPU and then transplant that SSD/HDD into a computer with an older CPU that doesn't have SSE4a/4.2. In that case, of course, Windows 11 would not boot. But there is really no normal situation where a system without SSE4a/4.2 is going to somehow install 24H2 and then get stuck not able to boot. Rather, it's just going to end up stuck on 23H2 until EoL.

It's just important to keep in mind that the only CPUs that 24H2 will actually cut-off are CPUs from before the Core i3/i5/i7 era. So Core2Quad CPUs are out of luck, but even a first-generation Core i7 would still be able to run 24H2. An overclocked 2500k, a second generation i5, would run 24H2 great. That's still going back very far, and as much as I love even older hardware, it doesn't leave a ton of room to complain.

 

[socK]

If parts of Windows is compiled with SSE4a/4.2 in mind, can you even boot Windows 11 with the 24H2 update?

I'm assuming the installer checks so you don't footgun yourself, but if you somehow managed anyway, whatever program would just crash upon hitting such an instruction. The processor will throw an exception. Depending on how far along in booting, the kernel may have managed to install its own exception handlers. In this case, you might get a nice bluescreen.

Otherwise, the machine will probably either hang or reboot. I'm not sure if there's any guarantees on the behavior - worst case the CPU effectively halts, and the machine locks up until you manually reset it.

It's a total crapshoot how far you get, and you can't really predict where exactly it'll die. Maybe it explodes immediately, maybe you get into Windows and something else goes down in flames. The compiler itself isn't guaranteed to use the instructions.

 

[GotNoRice]

Otherwise, the machine will probably either hang or reboot. I'm not sure if there's any guarantees on the behavior - worst case the CPU effectively halts, and the machine locks up until you manually reset it.

It's a total crapshoot how far you get, and you can't really predict where exactly it'll die. Maybe it explodes immediately, maybe you get into Windows and something else goes down in flames. The compiler itself isn't guaranteed to use the instructions.

We're beyond pure theory at this point. 24H2 is already on the Dev and Canary insider channels. Anyone who wants to test it's behavior (or lack thereof) on old hardware already can.

 

[ManofGod]

I have hardware that will easily support so, whatever. How many folks are running ancient hardware and expecting top performance and support, after all?

 

[ManofGod]

We're beyond pure theory at this point. 24H2 is already on the Dev and Canary insider channels. Anyone who wants to test it's behavior (or lack thereof) on old hardware already can.

So, any idea when the actual 24H1 will release? I used 23H2 beta channel and that almost messed my install up but I was able to fix it.

 

[pendragon1]

So, any idea when the actual 24H1 will release? I used 23H2 beta channel and that almost messed my install up but I was able to fix it.

ms says april. only use beta/dev/canary on non-mission critical systems.

 

[GotNoRice]

So, any idea when the actual 24H1 will release?

There will be no "24H1". Microsoft switched to an annual release schedule (once per year), with releases in the fall (hence the "H2", aka 2nd half of the year). September/October would be my guess, maybe November if there are some extra kinks to work out.

It's also been said that Windows 11 LTSC will come out this fall. The first early insider build of Windows 11 LTSC showed that it will be based on 24H2 also. It seems a bit odd to me to base the LTSC version around 24H2 that is being released to mainstream at about the same time, instead of an older more proven version like 23H2. I was hoping that it would be based on 23H2 in order to potentially extend the life of older systems.

But one result of Windows 11 LTSC being based on 24H2 is that they might be a bit more cautious in general about releasing 24H2 when it's ready. I wouldn't count on an early release.

It's worth mentioning that there are other significant updates to Windows besides the yearly feature update. The "Moment 5" update for Windows 11 is being released soon. Some articles refer to the Moment 5 update as a "feature update" which obviously can make things confusing. But these are all just updates to 23H2.

 

[Ranulfo]

Most likely you'll see another watermark on your screen and the update is probably denied.

Doesn't this mean that Windows security updates are now tied to these feature updates? Don't know about you but that seems like bullshit to me. Given you shouldn't have installed Windows 11 on hardware that old, but it seems instead of Microsoft recognizing a problem and addressing it correctly, they just emphasized on you needing much newer hardware.

View attachment 636000

It will certainly be the year my older machines go linux only, including a ryzen 1700 if I still use it then.

 

[applegrcoug]

But the only reason people were able to install Win 11 on the same systems that will break with this update, are people who hacked in the bypass methods, so MS did not "change" the requirements, people found ways around them. MS is just adding more security due to required supported instruction sets for their AI move....

So anyone's windows 11 install that breaks, 100% chance they were already running it on unsupported hardware.

This 100%.

We can talk about the merits and pitfalls of co-pilot, but that isn't the heart of the issue. Whether or not you can continue to install Win 11 on unsupported hardware is the real issue. MS made a list when Win 11 came out of CPUs that would not be supported. Enthusiasts have found ways around the regular checking methodology.

So from a supply/demand view, who is this really going to impact?

1. Enthusiasts that like doing things because they can. Who here that has installed Win 11 on unsupported hardware circa 2005 uses it for their daily driver?
2. Grandma with her computer to email her grandkids. Again, the original spinner would be getting really stinking old. At the time of her death in 2018, my grandma had an fx-4300 with like 8gb of ram and a spinner drive running Win 7. I pulled the drive and imaged it just in case. For funsies I installed Win 10 on a spinner in that machine. Nothing like a 10min boot up.
3. That mechanic shop that is using an old circa 2005 machine for stuff in the shop? Probably not. Remember back to then, we are talking Win XP or whatever the turd was that came after XP, vista maybe? I can't remember, I skipped it. Then, if totally original it was installed on a spinning drive. The software used by the shop probably won't even run on XP. Even if for some reason it could, the spinning drive would have sooo many hours on it by now, the platters have worn down into spinning razor saw blades. Maybe they replaced the drive at a certain point, like at the eight year mark. At which point it would still be a spinner. Not only that, but how much RAM did mobos from back then support? Looking at some old retro stuff, maybe 8GB. The only way they are still being used is they are still running Win XP in which case them not supporting Win 11 is meaningless. We have a few machines at work where the software is so old it doesn't run on new stuff. It remained on XP.
4. The user of an old machine that has tried to keep it up to date...maybe even a borderline enthusiast. Or perhaps they have an enthusiast helper (kid, cousin, grandkid, buddy, sibling, etc) By now, they would have tossed it from mainline service anyway. The above mentioned FX-4300 would be good to go from a technical standpoint, but honestly, it isn't good from a practical standpoint. If Grandma were still alive, she'd have something SSD by now, more RAM and most likely at least tossed to the 4300 for an 8320.

So yeah, at the end of the day, this really meaningfully impact anyone from a hardware standpoint.

 

[M76]

This 100%.

We can talk about the merits and pitfalls of co-pilot, but that isn't the heart of the issue. Whether or not you can continue to install Win 11 on unsupported hardware is the real issue. MS made a list when Win 11 came out of CPUs that would not be supported. Enthusiasts have found ways around the regular checking methodology.

You conveniently ignore why they found a way around the checks.
1. Because they were arbitrary, seemingly existing for no real reason.
2. Because they didn't want to throw away perfectly good HW on a technicality.

Enthusiasts are the canaries in MS's coalmine. esp. since they cut back on QA spending. (I wish they cut back on UI design)
And enthusiasts are not stupid, they usually first want to try new OS-es on secondary, not mission critical hardware, and not on their main rigs. And what is likely to be in a secondary system? Ding ding ding ding: An older but still capable CPU that is not on MS's supported list. So yeah, we went around checks, because that was the only logical reaction to said checks.

So from a supply/demand view, who is this really going to impact?

IDK What do you mean by supply / demand?! There was certainly demand for W11 to run on older HW, and MS had ignored it, so we created our own supply.

1. Enthusiasts that like doing things because they can. Who here that has installed Win 11 on unsupported hardware circa 2005 uses it for their daily driver?

See above, we do it, to test the waters before we commit on making it a daily driver. But that doesn't mean our secondary PCs are completely expendable either. I still need those, only it is less of a catastrophe if something goes wrong there.

2. Grandma with her computer to email her grandkids. Again, the original spinner would be getting really stinking old. At the time of her death in 2018, my grandma had an fx-4300 with like 8gb of ram and a spinner drive running Win 7. I pulled the drive and imaged it just in case. For funsies I installed Win 10 on a spinner in that machine. Nothing like a 10min boot up.

Nice anecdote, but lacks any relevancy.

3. That mechanic shop that is using an old circa 2005 machine for stuff in the shop? Probably not. Remember back to then, we are talking Win XP or whatever the turd was that came after XP, vista maybe? I can't remember, I skipped it. Then, if totally original it was installed on a spinning drive. The software used by the shop probably won't even run on XP. Even if for some reason it could, the spinning drive would have sooo many hours on it by now, the platters have worn down into spinning razor saw blades. Maybe they replaced the drive at a certain point, like at the eight year mark. At which point it would still be a spinner. Not only that, but how much RAM did mobos from back then support? Looking at some old retro stuff, maybe 8GB. The only way they are still being used is they are still running Win XP in which case them not supporting Win 11 is meaningless. We have a few machines at work where the software is so old it doesn't run on new stuff. It remained on XP.

Same as the previous. I fail to see any relevance. You are listing specific scenarios where there is no impact. That's not proving that it can't have an impact on anyone.

4. The user of an old machine that has tried to keep it up to date...maybe even a borderline enthusiast. Or perhaps they have an enthusiast helper (kid, cousin, grandkid, buddy, sibling, etc) By now, they would have tossed it from mainline service anyway. The above mentioned FX-4300 would be good to go from a technical standpoint, but honestly, it isn't good from a practical standpoint. If Grandma were still alive, she'd have something SSD by now, more RAM and most likely at least tossed to the 4300 for an 8320.

Still only speculation. "would have tossed it"

So yeah, at the end of the day, this really meaningfully impact anyone from a hardware standpoint.

This current change might only impact a handful of people, but you don't see the writing on the wall: This sets a precedent, and in the coming updates they can start enforcing other things, rendering more PCs unusable. Of course it might or might not happen, but that's exactly he point, the seed of doubt is planted, and it gives incentive for ppl, to upgrade and replace systems that they have no other reason to. For example I have license servers running on Core2 PCs at the office, there was absolutely no need to upgrade those until now.

 

[DukenukemX]

So from a supply/demand view, who is this really going to impact?

Like most things today, it'll be those without money.

1. Enthusiasts that like doing things because they can. Who here that has installed Win 11 on unsupported hardware circa 2005 uses it for their daily driver?

Here? Nobody I'd imagine. Businesses and older folk who have limited funds will find value in getting Windows 11 installed.

2. Grandma with her computer to email her grandkids. Again, the original spinner would be getting really stinking old. At the time of her death in 2018, my grandma had an fx-4300 with like 8gb of ram and a spinner drive running Win 7. I pulled the drive and imaged it just in case. For funsies I installed Win 10 on a spinner in that machine. Nothing like a 10min boot up.

When my aunt was still alive I put Linux on her machine and disguised it as Windows 10. She had no idea. The reason I did it was because I was sick of all the viruses and malware she'd get from installing a weather application. If I were to install Windows 11 today, I'd have to go through the trouble of making it look like Windows 10, or even Windows XP. Older people are stuck in their ways and aren't big to having to learn where everything went.

3. That mechanic shop that is using an old circa 2005 machine for stuff in the shop? Probably not. Remember back to then, we are talking Win XP or whatever the turd was that came after XP, vista maybe? I can't remember, I skipped it. Then, if totally original it was installed on a spinning drive. The software used by the shop probably won't even run on XP. Even if for some reason it could, the spinning drive would have sooo many hours on it by now, the platters have worn down into spinning razor saw blades. Maybe they replaced the drive at a certain point, like at the eight year mark. At which point it would still be a spinner. Not only that, but how much RAM did mobos from back then support? Looking at some old retro stuff, maybe 8GB. The only way they are still being used is they are still running Win XP in which case them not supporting Win 11 is meaningless. We have a few machines at work where the software is so old it doesn't run on new stuff. It remained on XP.

If it works it works. It's not like I haven't cloned a drive onto an SSD for a number of businesses just to get a speed boost. Most of those machines were running Core2Duo.

4. The user of an old machine that has tried to keep it up to date...maybe even a borderline enthusiast. Or perhaps they have an enthusiast helper (kid, cousin, grandkid, buddy, sibling, etc) By now, they would have tossed it from mainline service anyway. The above mentioned FX-4300 would be good to go from a technical standpoint, but honestly, it isn't good from a practical standpoint. If Grandma were still alive, she'd have something SSD by now, more RAM and most likely at least tossed to the 4300 for an 8320.

I know a 97 year old woman who hates her new Ryzen laptop with Windows 11 because she doesn't recognize where everything is. She still boots her desktop computer with Windows 10, even though the thing is slow and certainly needs an SSD.

So yeah, at the end of the day, this really meaningfully impact anyone from a hardware standpoint.

Probably not many people. Businesses who tried to extend their hardware just a big longer though is a different story.

 

[SmokeRngs]

Older people are stuck in their ways and aren't big to having to learn where everything went.

Is it even about age? MS log ago forgot the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy. Or more likely decided to ignore it because shuffling around settings and UI elements makes it look like something is being done.

 

[ManofGod]

Is it even about age? MS log ago forgot the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy. Or more likely decided to ignore it because shuffling around settings and UI elements makes it look like something is being done.

I am "old" at 57 and can make my way around just about any client OS of the last 35 years and many server OSes. I used these that many here would botch and complain about but I loved using new things.

Onan different note, phone OSes are not intuitive in the slightest, other than Windows 10 Mobile, which is dead. iOS and Android are so.ply what they are and if you do not like it, to bad.

 

[DukenukemX]

Is it even about age? MS log ago forgot the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy. Or more likely decided to ignore it because shuffling around settings and UI elements makes it look like something is being done.

As Uncle Tony said, why do car manufacturer's keep changing something common like a power steering cap when the one made years ago was perfected? Same reason why Microsoft designers keep changing things around, because that's how they keep their job. If I constantly have to find the original old control settings from Windows 95 era to get something done then they're doing something wrong. As much crap as I give Apple, at least the MacOS UI looks mostly unchanged. Apple has certainly added some things, but it's not often that Apple decided to move or remove something altogether. This is because MacOS itself doesn't make Apple any direct money, but Windows does for Microsoft. The obvious question that nobody asks is that did Windows 11 really need to get made? Couldn't Microsoft just update Windows 10 and then detect if certainly hardware was present to make use of things like TPM2.0 and SSE4.2?

 

[GoodBoy]

Why are you guys still arguing over a big pile of nothing?

The people running windows 11 on Thunderbird CPU's can't be that many.

No, we are not going to switch to linux over this.

 

[Mazzspeed]

I was running a dual Xeon Westmere EP system with 48GB of ram until very recently. Under Linux it ran awesome, it ran everything I wanted it to run very, very well - It even gamed well. And yet I believe it doesn't support Windows 11 due to TPM 2.0, although it does support SSE4.2.

Would such a system still support Windows 11 as it stands today provided your install media was modified to ignore the TPM 2.0 requirement?

 

[Nuxius]

Would such a system still support Windows 11 as it stands today provided your install media was modified to ignore the TPM 2.0 requirement?

No, you would have to bypass the CPU and Secure Boot requirements as well.

My X5675 system runs Windows 11 as well as any of my "supported" systems do.

 

[DukenukemX]

It's a good thing Microsoft doesn't force people to upgrade to 23H2. Not like Microsoft hasn't forced people to upgrade in the past.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/21/windows_11_23h2_upgrade/

Microsoft has added a notification to its Release Health dashboard warning Windows 11 users that it is time for the beatings automatic upgrades to begin. "We are starting to update eligible Windows 11 devices automatically to version 23H2."

 

[Mazzspeed]

No, you would have to bypass the CPU and Secure Boot requirements as well.

My X5675 system runs Windows 11 as well as any of my "supported" systems do.

That's ridiculous, X5675's are still surprisingly capable processors. Add a hardware raid card flashed to IT mode for SATA3, a USB 3.0 card, and an m.2 SSD via a pcie adapter that's capable of booting into legacy mode as to be a bootable device - and Westmere-EP's will still do everything you need them to do to this day.

 

[DukenukemX]

That's ridiculous, X5675's are still surprisingly capable processors. Add a hardware raid card flashed to IT mode for SATA3, a USB 3.0 card, and an m.2 SSD via a pcie adapter that's capable of booting into legacy mode as to be a bootable device - and Westmere-EP's will still do everything you need them to do to this day.

I bought one at the beginning of the pandemic to see if old Xeons were worth buying, and the answer is kinda. It's not the CPU that's the problem but Chinese motherboards that you buy from Aliexpress. Chinese motherboards can't sleep, which isn't a problem if you intend to use it as a server. As a cheap mans 8 core 16 thread CPU, there are better options today. I was able to play games without trouble, but yea it's not worth it.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

That's ridiculous, X5675's are still surprisingly capable processors. Add a hardware raid card flashed to IT mode for SATA3, a USB 3.0 card, and an m.2 SSD via a pcie adapter that's capable of booting into legacy mode as to be a bootable device - and Westmere-EP's will still do everything you need them to do to this day.

As long as you don't need VM isolation from the host

All of that said, I have an almost maxed out retired Ivy Bridge dual socket server board in a workstation case as my test bench/ backup machine. It's a dual Xeon E5-2697 V2 (2x 12C24T) and 256GB of DDR3-1600 RAM.

The CPU's are pretty much the top SKU of the generation. Only improvement would be to step up to DDR3-1866.

In multithreaded apps it does OK. It will actually keep up with a first gen Threadripper.

Can't seem to find the screenshot of the single threaded result right now, but since it takes 24 cores to only almost keep up with 16 zen1 cores, you can see how they are pretty weak by modern standards....

And since most of what we do is low threaded stuff, you can see how it feels noticably sluggish on the desktop in many applications.

That said, the single threaded performance ia pretty bad.

I can't imagine that the older x5675 is any better...

 

[blandead]

I use copilot.

It has been very helpful for generating images I use for D&D and for Work Projects.

It also has the ability to look things up and find relevant information that I find useful.

AI knows how to search google better than you

 

[Mazzspeed]

I bought one at the beginning of the pandemic to see if old Xeons were worth buying, and the answer is kinda. It's not the CPU that's the problem but Chinese motherboards that you buy from Aliexpress. Chinese motherboards can't sleep, which isn't a problem if you intend to use it as a server. As a cheap mans 8 core 16 thread CPU, there are better options today. I was able to play games without trouble, but yea it's not worth it.

I was running a Dell mobo, the system was a tank of a unit.

Can't seem to find the screenshot of the single threaded result right now, but since it takes 24 cores to only almost keep up with 16 zen1 cores, you can see how they are pretty weak by modern standards....

Cinebench is a nice synthetic benchmark, but it really isn't terribly representative of real world scenarios. My two X5675's outlasted any CPU's I owned before or after, I honestly never found myself wanting for more.

 

[ManofGod]

AI knows how to search google better than you

And clearly, it already knows how to make insults better than you.

I was running a Dell mobo, the system was a tank of a unit.


Cinebench is a nice synthetic benchmark, but it really isn't terribly representative of real world scenarios. My two X5675's outlasted any CPU's I owned before or after, I honestly never found myself wanting for more.

Good for you but, Cinebench is actually quite representative of overall performance and although I am sure the X5675's are good, outlasting cpu's you claim to have owned before and after does not really say all that much. Heck, my R9 5900X blows those cpu's out of the water, as well they should, since it is much newer.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I was running a Dell mobo, the system was a tank of a unit.


Cinebench is a nice synthetic benchmark, but it really isn't terribly representative of real world scenarios. My two X5675's outlasted any CPU's I owned before or after, I honestly never found myself wanting for more.

I find using the 2x E5-2697 v2's is fine for most things. Where it hangs up are every day tasks that are poorly threaded and CPU intensive. Decompressing bzip2 files (and many other archives, but bzip2 is the worst, though lbzip2 is a huge improvement here over regular bzip2. Seriously, if you ever have to deal with bzip2 files, try installing lbzip2, you'll thank me)

Also - for instance - when installing Nvidias binaruy blob drivers, and the installer compiles the driver module with the headers for your installed kernel, this takes frustratingly long on this system.

Even some file operations (reading files and sending them over network interfaces to the NAS) can be CPU limited if you use NVMe drives and 10gig+ NIC's (which yes, these systems were not designed for, but still)

Not to mention games, though I don't play games on mine. I have my main desktop for that.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Good for you but, Cinebench is actually quite representative of overall performance and although I am sure the X5675's are good, outlasting cpu's you claim to have owned before and after does not really say all that much. Heck, my R9 5900X blows those cpu's out of the water, as well they should, since it is much newer.

The number of applications that are as perfectly multithreaded as Cinebench are so few they're almost non existent.

I find using the 2x E5-2697 v2's is fine for most things. Where it hangs up are every day tasks that are poorly threaded and CPU intensive. Decompressing bzip2 files (and many other archives, but bzip2 is the worst, though lbzip2 is a huge improvement here over regular bzip2. Seriously, if you ever have to deal with bzip2 files, try installing lbzip2, you'll thank me)

Also - for instance - when installing Nvidias binaruy blob drivers, and the installer compiles the driver module with the headers for your installed kernel, this takes frustratingly long on this system.

Even some file operations (reading files and sending them over network interfaces to the NAS) can be CPU limited if you use NVMe drives and 10gig+ NIC's (which yes, these systems were not designed for, but still)

Not to mention games, though I don't play games on mine. I have my main desktop for that.

All of which was never honestly a problem for me, including gaming. Although reading files and sending them to a NAS over a network isn't something I do often, however I was using a LSI hardware RAID card flashed to IT mode for SATA3 and I was running Linux, so no NTFS - Processing Vulkan shaders was blazing fast due to the number of cores. X5675's do run higher base clocks compared to 2x E5-2697 v2's, as stated I never found myself wanting for more and would still be using the system today had I been able to squeeze a larger GPU into the chassis without blocking needed pcie slots.

The system would most certainly run Windows 11 just fine.

 

[ManofGod]

The number of applications that are as perfectly multithreaded as Cinebench are so few they're almost non existent.


All of which was never honestly a problem for me, including gaming. Although reading files and sending them to a NAS over a network isn't something I do often, however I was using a LSI hardware RAID card flashed to IT mode for SATA3 - Processing Vulkan shaders was blazing fast due to the number of cores. X5675's do run higher base clocks compared to 2x E5-2697 v2's, as stated I never found myself wanting for more and would still be using the system today had I been able to squeeze a larger GPU into the chassis without blocking needed pcie slots.

Cinebench, as you know, also tests single core speeds.

 

[Mazzspeed]

Cinebench, as you know, also tests single core speeds.

I'm well aware of this, and the single core speeds obtained running an X5675 are more than adequate to run Windows 11.

 

[vanarebane]

In other words, it's a non-issue. A kick in the ass to upgrade people's 18+ year old processor is needed at this point if they're still running them.

18+ years? Try 5 years! A expensive Xeon E5 v4 Broadwell CPU launched on 2016 was never supported by Windows 11, that launched on 2021 and still to this date is not supported.
I mean, the CPU has all required instructions, but Windows 11 still does not support it because it's junk from 18+ years ago?
What AI will the Windows 11 24H2 bring? Will the search finally work and progress bar time estimates be accurate?

 

[blandead]

It's crazy how many users don't even know you can search there or what you can search

 

[Comixbooks]

Windows 95 wasn't a Joke

 

[GotNoRice]

18+ years? Try 5 years! A expensive Xeon E5 v4 Broadwell CPU launched on 2016 was never supported by Windows 11, that launched on 2021 and still to this date is not supported.
I mean, the CPU has all required instructions, but Windows 11 still does not support it because it's junk from 18+ years ago?

Sorry, but your "woe is me" post falls flat given how easy it is to bypass those requirements, after which not only will Windows 11 work just fine, it will even help you install drivers and BIOS updates for your "unsupported" hardware". The reality is that Microsoft really doesn't care what hardware people run Windows 11 on. If anything, the requirements bypass could be thought of as a sort of litmus test at this point. If you can't figure out something as trivial as the requirements bypass, then you should probably just ride-out whatever OS is already on your computer, or consult with whatever family member built your computer for you.

The only hardware truly being cut-off by 24H2 is pre-i3/i5/i7-era hardware such as Core2Duo, Core2Quad, Pentium D, Pentium 4, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 x2, etc. Of those, only the faster Core2Quad chips were still mostly viable as basic systems. The reasons that they provided were perfectly reasonable, as I don't think there is anything wrong with wanting to take advantage of SSE4A/SSE4.2 instructions that have been available on CPUs for over 15 years at this point if it benefits the OS.

Even the oldest systems that an actual enthusiast might still be using at this point, such as a i5-2500k, or even something like a i7-920, would run 24H2 just fine using the requirements bypass...

For anyone who is absolutely determined to milk every penny out of those older CPUs that can't run 24H2 until those CPUs are a full 20+ years old, you do still have some options, each one further down the list potentially requiring a bit more effort.

Windows 10 (22H2), supported until October 14th 2025.
Windows 11 (23H2), supported until November 11th, 2025.
Windows 11 Enterprise/Education (23H2), Supported until November 10th, 2026.
Windows 10 LTSC (21H2), supported until January 12th, 2027.
Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise IoT (21H2), supported until January 13th, 2032.

Windows 11 Enterprise/Education (23H2) is what I'll be using on these older CPUs going forward, so that they get an extra year, and only 2 months less support compared to the much older Windows 10 LTSC (21H2). Windows 10 LTSC Enterprise IoT (21H2) is an interesting option given how far out support goes (2032), but the IoT version was never meant to be used on regular computers. That version is meant for stripped-down Windows installs that are used in kiosks and other random single-purpose devices. That could be really hit or miss and I'm not really sure what "support" will actually look like during those later years if you were actually using that version on a desktop computer.

 

[pendragon1]

i finally has my win11edu refuse to install on something, a 2012 11" macbook air. there is something missing that setup doesnt like, as ive installed it equivalent HP hardware.... w10 worked fine though.