Ask Paul: August 5 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend a bit early. Not surprised that many are wondering about Windows 12.

Windows 12

Ianceicys asks:

Paul, with Windows 12, what if for consumers Windows 12 wasn’t a free upgrade from Windows 11? What if to upgrade existing PCs Microsoft went back to the model of say $100 a license upgrade from the Microsoft Store for Microsoft 365 consumer. How would such a model make you change your view of future Windows 12 consumer upgrades on existing PCs?

I think this is one of the unbottle the genie moments, meaning that once you make such a change, you can’t go back, and I don’t see Microsoft ever charging consumers for a Windows upgrade again. Nor would be this met by anything other than derision and disinterest.

But you may be onto something: what Microsoft has probably learned from Windows 11 is that it’s possible to artificially “obsolete” hardware, as Apple does when it puts products on its so-called “vintage” list, and stop supporting them. And that doing so could force consumers to upgrade to a new PC. Maybe it will be more aggressive going forward. Certainly, its “you’re supported for the lifecycle of the device” policy was vague and made no sense.

But whether the new policy is successful is debatable. I’ve heard from multiple sources that businesses are not upgrading to Windows 11 at all, despite Microsoft’s claims. And it’s pretty clear that the consumer upgrade cycle has concluded, meaning that those who can upgrade already have. This may explain the need for a Windows 12: perhaps Microsoft will orient that release more for businesses.

Speaking of which…

justme also asks:

What is driving the development of Windows 12 (assuming all the rumors are true)? Windows 11 doesnt yet seem fully baked – why would Microsoft divert resources to the next version (unless this was the plan all along…?) I can understand TPM requirements tempering enthusiasm for 11, but without them, perhaps PC sales dont quite have the jump they did?

There’s so much going on here.

First, and as noted above, businesses have shown no interest at all in Windows 11. We can speculate about the whys of that, but I bet the biggest reasons are the more aggressive hardware requirements (i.e that businesses have a lot of unsupported hardware out there and their own ideas about upgrade timeframes) and support costs because the simplified new user interface will trigger lots of help desk calls. Whatever the reason, if Microsoft does move to a Windows 12, it will be because of businesses because this customer base is so lucrative to them.

The end of the pandemic isn’t helping, either. But I always questioned the timing of Windows 11 anyway: why would Microsoft kneejerk release this thing right as the pandemic was winding down (I know, not really) and PC sales were strong? It seems to me that you give this thing a year of public testing, get feedback to impact the feature set, and then release it when PC sales are cooling, and you do so to help out the PC industry in a time of need. Imagine if they had just waited. PC sales are tanking now and we could have this new system that actually meets customers’ needs and might help stave off a shortfall. What it did instead is insane: No testing, the worst possible timing, and arbitrary hardware requirements that just upset its most important customers.

And this isn’t just stupid, it squanders what Microsoft got right in Windows 11 because so many customers are either ignoring it or simply cannot upgrade to it. This reminds me of Windows 8—though, again, it’s not quite as serious—where that system came with all these tremendous desktop advances that everyone forgets about or never experienced because that Metro thing they Frankensteined on top of it was so terrible.

Naval history

DrewTX asks:

Do you have any interest in naval history? I’m currently re-reading Patrick O’Brian’s excellent Aubrey-Maturin 20.5 volume series nautical history novels (set in the early 1800’s) and I was wondering if you have tried them? They have been described as “the best historical novels ever written”

Two things up front.

One, I’m convinced you are in fact my best friend, Jeff, who has been practically begging me to read these books for years. The two of us traveled to Paris 10 years ago and his only request (OK, demand) was that we visit the Musée National de la Marine (National Naval Museum), which is hidden in the Trocadero across from the Eiffel Tower. (The painting depicted above is in this museum.)

Two, Jeff and his wife visited us here last weekend and we literally discussed this book series once again.

Anyway, to answer your question, no, I have not. But now I will. I’ve always been a fan of history in general, and have read many, many books about various wars. But never anything specifically about naval history.

Jeff will be delighted.

Also, Drew mentions the Master and Commander movie and a Netflix series, Sea Power, in his original question as well. Please be sure to read it all if you are interested in this topic.

Thanks for this.

Windows 11 upgrade on unsupported hardware

andrew b. asks:

Paul, would you consider it “safe” to upgrade a computer that doesn’t meet Windows 11’s standards to Windows 11? Is it likely Microsoft will break the experience for unsupported processors in the next couple of years? Are they likely to reduce those standards if it becomes clear that Win 11 isn’t seeing the adoption rate they want? I really like some of the look and feel changes that Win 11 brought (I always thought Win 10 was a mess in that regard), but it would be silly of me to replace my first-gen Ryzen 7 1700 processor which likely outperforms most of the computers running Windows 11 today.

Yes, I think it’s safe. But let me caveat that by adding “… for you. Or for anyone else who reads Thurrott.com or similar tech-oriented sites.” Meaning that I would not expect a mainstream user (my wife, my brother, whatever) to consider such an upgrade. But you know enough about Windows to know that you can easily get back to Windows 10 without losing any data and so the risks here are low.

But what this amounts to, of course, is whether we believe that Microsoft will ever follow through on its threat to not release updates, including security updates, to unsupported PCs running Windows 11. That is inconceivable and would leave the entire user base at risk. Instead, I see that as posturing, perhaps for legal reasons. And that Microsoft will quietly continue providing updates, especially security updates, to all Windows 11 users, just as it quietly still allows Windows 7 and 8 keys to activate on Windows 10 (and now 11) despite originally claiming this was a one-year promotion. That was 7 years ago.

Regarding the loosening of Windows 11 hardware requirements, I semi-obsess about this. Last year, Microsoft made a big show of supposedly examining what it would mean to allow more generations of PC hardware into the fold and then regretfully informed us that its original requirements would have to stand. That was nonsense, and it is still nonsense, and there is absolutely no reason why Windows 11 can’t work just as well, and just as safely, and many more machines than it does. And so I do wonder about this.

Yes, this idea also seems to fly in the face of the conversation above about Microsoft maybe changing the hardware requirements again as part of a shift to Windows 12. But I think they’re related, and that Microsoft is constantly undergoing an internal debate about what it wants to do with regards to hardware requirements and what its (business) customers expect and demand.

For example, if Microsoft lowered the Windows 11 hardware requirements to include TPM 1.2 and a few older generations of Intel- and AMD-based PCs, would that improve the upgrade situation with businesses? Or is it best to simply wait for the natural upgrade cycles to happen and offer them a Windows 12? We don’t have the data to know the answers, so we can only speculate and wonder. But one has to assume these conversations occur. And that, as things change, it feels like Microsoft is making it up as they go. Which they are.

I mean, think about it. We had several years of Windows as a Service (WaaS) with Windows 10, and then a sharp and obvious shift with Windows 11. And then less than one year later, yet another major shift. Is there any leadership over there at all? It’s crazy when you think about it.